CircleToSearch

CircleToSearch is a macOS menu bar app that:

• captures the visible screen
• runs OCR locally with Vision
• translates visible text
• renders translated text back over a frozen screen overlay

This repo is currently optimized for developers working on the app locally.

Prerequisites

• macOS 15+
• a recent Xcode with the macOS 15 SDK
• a Google Cloud project with the Cloud Translation API enabled
• a Google Translate API key
• Node.js 20+

Quick Start

1. Install backend dependencies:

cd backend
npm install
cp .env.example .env

2. Edit backend/.env and set only:

GOOGLE_TRANSLATE_API_KEY=your_key_here

For normal local development, leave the shared secret and access token settings blank.

3. Start the backend from the repo root:

./script/run_backend.sh

4. Open CircleToSearch.xcodeproj
5. Select the CircleToSearch Open Source scheme
6. Build and run the app
7. Open Settings and click Check Status
8. Use the app

Managed backend build

The default CircleToSearch scheme is the managed-backend/App Store path.

• backend URL comes from the Xcode config
• release builds use receipt-based auth
• self-host settings are hidden in release mode

Use this path only if you are working on the managed backend flow.

Backend

The backend lives in backend/.

Useful commands:

cd backend
npm install
npm run check

Docs

• docs/SELF_HOSTING.md: open-source developer setup

Repo Layout

• Sources/: macOS app source
• Resources/: plist, entitlements, assets, and bundle resources
• Config/: Xcode build configuration files
• backend/: translation backend
• script/: local backend and packaging scripts