Universal Idiom Translator Popup

WHAT IT DOES This userscript helps you understand common idioms and figurative expressions by displaying a popup with detailed information whenever you hover over or click on a highlighted idiom on any webpage. For each idiom—like "break the ice", "hit the nail on the head", "bite the bullet", "let the cat out of the bag", "piece of cake", "cost an arm and a leg", or "raining cats and dogs"—the popup shows its literal meaning (what the words actually describe), its figurative meaning (what it really means), the origin of the expression, example usage, and equivalent idioms in other languages such as Spanish, French, and German. It also indicates whether the idiom is still in common use. WHERE IT RUNS The script works on every website you visit—news articles, blogs, forums, social media, educational sites, or any page with figurative language. It runs entirely within your browser, reading only the visible text content of the current page. It does not track your browsing history, access other tabs, or send any data externally. All idiom data is stored locally within the script. HOW TO USE After installation, open the panel by clicking the tool's icon in the BotGentz sidebar. Choose whether you want idioms to trigger on hover or click. Select your preferred highlight style—underline, border, or background—to make idioms stand out on the page. Toggle whether to show origin information and cross-language equivalents. The script automatically scans pages on load (you can toggle this off). Hover or click on any highlighted idiom to see its popup. Click anywhere else or press Escape to dismiss the popup. Use "Scan page for idioms" to manually re-scan after dynamic content loads, or "Clear idiom wrappers" to remove all highlights and return the page to its original state. THE TECHNICAL MECHANISM This script uses a comprehensive idiom detection and lookup system. It maintains a curated database of over 12 common idioms with complete metadata including literal meaning, figurative meaning, origin, usage examples, cross-language equivalents, and status indicators. The script builds a regular expression from all idiom phrases, sorted by length descending to ensure multi-word phrases are matched before shorter substrings within them. The regex uses word boundaries to avoid false positives (e.g., matching "piece of cake" as a whole phrase). A TreeWalker traverses the DOM to find text nodes containing matching phrases, then replaces each occurrence with a styled element that preserves the original text while adding interactive event listeners. When triggered, the popup is constructed dynamically from the idiom's database entry and positioned using getBoundingClientRect with automatic viewport adjustment—if the popup would appear off-screen, it flips above or below the trigger and shifts horizontally to remain fully visible. All styling and event handling are applied without using innerHTML, complying with security best practices. THE PANEL The panel is draggable anywhere on the screen and remembers its position between sessions. It can be collapsed to a small floating bubble to minimize distraction, and expanded again with a single click. The panel's width can be adjusted, and pressing the Escape key closes it instantly. All settings—trigger method, highlight style, show origin, show equivalents, and auto-scan—are persisted locally using GM_setValue, so your preferences remain intact across page reloads and browser restarts. PLEASE NOTE This userscript requires the free BotGentz extension to function. The idiom database covers many common English idioms but is not exhaustive—some regional or less common expressions may not be included. The cross-language equivalents are based on common translations and may vary by region. The script's matching relies on whole-phrase boundaries; it will not catch idioms that are part of larger words or presented in unconventional formats. No data from your browsing is stored or transmitted anywhere—all processing occurs entirely in your browser.