Package {qualitranslate}

Type: Package
Title: Translation Workflow for Qualitative Interview Transcripts
Version: 1.5.1
Description: A local browser workspace for translating qualitative interview transcripts in research. Transcript sections are translated in batches by forward translation, then by a blind back-translation whose request holds only the forward translation (never the original, the study context, the glossary or translator notes), and then by a reconciliation step that compares all three texts, flags discrepancies by category and severity and proposes a draft. Every draft needs a named human review decision before it counts as reviewed. Each stage can be run by copying prompt packets into any chat tool, including institutional chat services, or through the 'Mistral' or 'Anthropic' ('Claude') application programming interfaces. Exports include reviewed translations, a parallel review table, the exact prompts and replies, a hash-chained audit record and a draft methods paragraph. Projects are interchangeable with the 'Python' version of the tool.
License: MIT + file LICENSE
URL: https://github.com/AliYalcinkayaMD/qualitranslate
BugReports: https://github.com/AliYalcinkayaMD/qualitranslate/issues
Encoding: UTF-8
Depends: R (≥ 4.0.0)
Imports: curl, httpuv, jsonlite, later, openssl, promises, utils, xml2, zip
Suggests: testthat (≥ 3.0.0)
Config/testthat/edition: 3
RoxygenNote: 7.3.1
Collate: 'api_client.R' 'utils.R' 'documents.R' 'export.R' 'json.R' 'loop.R' 'privacy.R' 'prompts.R' 'qualitranslate-package.R' 'quality.R' 'run_app.R' 'server.R' 'workflow.R' 'workspace.R'
NeedsCompilation: no
Packaged: 2026-10-29 23:26:37 UTC; root
Author: Ali Yalcinkaya [aut, cre, cph]
Maintainer: Ali Yalcinkaya <aliyalcink@gmail.com>
Repository: CRAN
Date/Publication: 2026-11-14 09:20:08 UTC

qualitranslate: Translation Workflow for Qualitative Interview Transcripts

Description

A local browser workspace for translating qualitative interview transcripts: forward translation, blind back-translation (the request holds only the forward translation), reconciliation that flags discrepancies by category and severity, and a mandatory named human review, followed by a six-file export with a truthful methods record. Start it with run_app(); show_prompts() prints the translation instructions.

Author(s)

Maintainer: Ali Yalcinkaya aliyalcink@gmail.com [copyright holder]

See Also

Useful links:

Start the QualiTranslate workspace

Description

Starts the local QualiTranslate server on ⁠127.0.0.1⁠ and, by default, opens its interface in the web browser. The workspace guides forward translation, blind back-translation, reconciliation and named human review of an interview transcript, and exports the results with a methods record.

Usage

run_app(port = 8765, launch_browser = interactive())

Arguments

port

Port to listen on. If it is busy, the next ten ports are tried. Use 0 for a random free port.

launch_browser

Open the interface in the default web browser.

Details

The function blocks while the app runs, like shiny::runApp(). Stop it with Escape (RStudio) or Control+C. On exit it stops the server, cancels a running translation job and forgets any API keys entered during the session. The project itself stays only in memory: export it from the interface before stopping.

Text is sent only to the provider chosen for each stage: none in the manual copy-and-paste mode (the user pastes prompt packets into a chat tool of their choice, such as an institutional chat service), or the Mistral or Anthropic API in API mode.

Value

Invisibly, the address the app was served at (after the app has stopped), or NULL if no port was free.

Examples

if (interactive()) {
  run_app()
}

Show the translation instructions

Description

Prints the versioned system prompts that QualiTranslate sends for forward translation, blind back-translation and reconciliation. The same text is used by the copy-and-paste workflow and the API providers.

Usage

show_prompts(stage = c("all", "forward", "back", "reconcile"))

Arguments

stage

Which prompt to show: "all" (the default), "forward", "back" or "reconcile".

Value

Invisibly, a named character vector with the selected prompts.

Examples

show_prompts("back")