YaLafi compatibility with the premium API of LanguageTool

[jordanwagnr]

I paid for a premium version of LT thinking it would be just as easy to connect to that server as it was to connect to their public one or to my local one. However, it has turned into a nightmare despite the only difference being an API key I have to pass to the server.

I can easily access the server outside of YaLafi with a call like:
curl -X POST --header 'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded' --header 'Accept: application/json' -d 'text=This is an test&language=en-US&username=&apiKey=&enabledOnly=false' 'https://api.languagetoolplus.com/v2/check'

I have tried all kinds of different things in YaLafi, but it just keeps bypassing the LT server and starts my local one. It seems like it should be an easy fix, but I am pretty lost on how YaLafi is handling --lt-options.

[torik42]

I added the options --username and --apikey to the --lt-options. Unfortunately, I have no premium subscription, I could test with. If you know how to install from GitHub, you could test my branch https://github.com/torik42/YaLafi/tree/issue-225 and check whether it works as expected. The command after installation would be
python -m yalafi.shell --server lt --lt-options '~--username <username> --apikey <apikey>' document.tex
If it works out, I would add documentation and open a PR. Unfortunately, @matze-dd wasn’t active lately.

[jordanwagnr]

Wow, thank you so much. It worked almost perfectly. I forgot to mention that in addition to an API key, the URL for the premium server is different. Once I changed the hardcoded URL for the LT server in shell.py to ltserver='https://api.languagetoolplus.com/v2/', it worked flawlessly.

It might be nice to have the URL for a remote LT server as an actual option rather than having to hardcode it. Anyone wanting to connect to a remote LT server that is not the public one hosted by LT will have to change this; however, it is trivially easy to do, so it is not that big of a deal.

Again, thank you so much. I am very happy to have this working. I thought I had wasted money, but now that it is working correctly, I am very happy with it.

[torik42]

That’s great to hear. There already is a PR to allow custom server URLs #222. It would also need some more documentation and for the premium server, one might add --server ltplus to ease the process.

Do you know any documentation or discussion about the difference between api.languagetool.org and api.languagetoolplus.com?

[jordanwagnr]

The only documentation I know of is the Swagger documentation, which I really haven't found to be very helpful. In general, I have found LT's documentation to be very confusing all around. In fact, I am not even sure that access to this API is even supposed to be available with their premium service. They only gave me an API key after I complained to them that their documentation was misleading. I still haven't gotten a clear answer, so just a heads up to anyone who is considering buying a premium membership.

From what I have gathered, the free public API at api.languagetool.org runs a copy of the basic LT server that is open source, and the one at api.languagetoolplus.com runs the premium version that is closed source and requires an API key to access. The premium features (which are actually very good) must be accessed through this server as they do not allow you to host your own premium server locally. I may be stating the obvious, but that is about the extent of my knowledge on this. I am not experienced at all with web APIs.