Lexi

A minimal macOS “selection translator” popover for language learners.

Features

• Floating, glass-like popup near the mouse cursor
• Global hotkey to translate the current selection (Accessibility / AXUIElement)
• OpenAI-compatible streaming (works with OpenAI / DeepSeek and many gateways)
• Free Google translate fallback (non-streaming)
• English word learning mode: single-word selections render a dictionary-style card (US IPA + POS senses) with Text-to-Speech
• Settings: source/target language, hotkey, launch at login, engine selection, custom OpenAI-compatible engines
• Click outside the popup to dismiss and clear content

Requirements

• macOS 14+
• Xcode 15+ (for building from source)

Quick Start

1. Select text in any app.
2. Press the global hotkey (default: ⌘⇧L).
3. Lexi shows a floating popup near your mouse with the translation result.
4. Click anywhere outside the popup to close it.

Permissions

Lexi needs Accessibility permission to read the selected text from other apps.

• System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility → enable Lexi
• If you just enabled it, restart Lexi once.

Engines & Configuration

Open Settings… from the menu bar icon or the popup’s gear button.

Built-in engines

• Google (free, non-streaming; may be rate-limited)
• gpt-4o (OpenAI-compatible, streaming)
• deepseek-chat (OpenAI-compatible, streaming; set Base URL to DeepSeek)

OpenAI-compatible Base URL examples

• OpenAI: https://api.openai.com/v1
• DeepSeek: https://api.deepseek.com (Lexi auto-completes /v1/chat/completions)

API Keys are stored in macOS Keychain (not in UserDefaults).

Custom engines

In Settings, you can add custom OpenAI-compatible engines by providing:

• Engine name (optional)
• Base URL
• Model
• API Key (optional; falls back to the global key if empty)

Development

• Open Lexi.xcodeproj, select the Lexi scheme, and run.
• CLI build:

xcodebuild -scheme Lexi -configuration Debug -destination 'platform=macOS' build

Troubleshooting

• Hotkey does nothing: confirm Accessibility is enabled for Lexi; check if the hotkey conflicts with another app.
• No popup appears: Lexi won’t show the popup if the selection is empty.
• HTTP 401/429 or network errors: check the API Key, Base URL, and your quota/network.

Architecture

See Architecture.md.

Privacy & Security

• Selected text may be sent to the chosen translation provider (OpenAI/DeepSeek/Google). Avoid translating sensitive content if you don’t trust the provider.
• API Keys are stored in macOS Keychain.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.