Under Community Review

Better handling of large, on-going projects

I work in-house, so we have a lot of ongoing projects for our products, to which I add files regularly. The projects can have several hundred files spread over up to 17 languages.

Trados Studio has a lot of restrictions, that make working with projects like this very difficult and inefficient. I would like to suggest the following improvements/ideas:

  1. "Finalized" Warning: in a large project, individual files will get finalized. Unfortunately, just one finalized file will prevent me from creating ANY project package with other files or new files.
    Warning dialog with text: One or more of the translatable files in this project have been finalized and cannot be added to the package. Please revert these files to a bilingual format before creating the package.
    While I understand that a finalized file cannot be added to a project package, Studio should only give this warning when I am actually trying to add such file. I just added a set of new string files from Passolo and cannot create a package because of a user manual that was finalized 6 months ago. Yes, I can revert it to SDLXLIFF, but somehow that doesn't always fix it and Studio insists that I have finalized files even though all files are translatable SDLXLIFF. It should also include the name of the file in question, so I can revert it to bilingual without having to go through 17 languages and hundreds of files trying to find the one finalized file.
    Please allow creation of packages and only prevent me from adding ineligible files if I try. 

  2. "Missing files" Warning: this is a similar issue. Apparently a file is missing but I don't know which.
    Warning dialog with text: One or more translatable source files in this project do not have corresponding target files and cannot be added to the package. Please copy source translatable files to target if you wish to include them in the package.
    This message also prevents me from creating ANY package, even though the file in question was not even to be included. Just like above, let me create a package and should I try to add a file that is ineligible, only then give me a warning about this file. And again here, please give me the file name(s) of the files in question.
  3. Allow File Archiving (or hiding): I would love to be able to archive older files. This would also be a way to avoid the issues above. I do not want to delete older files. Being able to go back to older files often helps troubleshooting translation issues, and I like to keep them around and accessible. At the same time, I don't need to have them in my active workspace making everything "unübersichtlich" :-) 
  4. Allow Language Archiving (or hiding): This scenario is probably not a common one, but I would like to be able to "archive" a language so it doesn't show in my workspace but without deleting it in my setup. We have projects where we just do not support a certain language right now due to the political situation or because the market there is not currently having demand for our product but we may go back in the future. It would be nice to be able to hide a certain language.
  5. Add "Modified Date" to Project Layout: this has been a head scratcher. Why can't I sort my Projects by "Last Modified"? Pretty much everything on a computer can be sorted by Last Edited or Last Modified, but not Trados Studio.
  6. Add "Added Date" to Files Layout: this is another weird omission, this time in the Files layout. It would be very helpful to be able to sort my Files panel by the date a file was added. Sometimes I add files from Passolo only to get an update an hour later with a new string file. At this point I want to delete the previously added files, but since Passolo creates files in the format of "Project name+language tag+ export counter" I cannot just sort them by file name and have them together. I have to find every file by language and delete the files individually - or pick through the languages, select the export number manually and then delete them, which is tedious for up to 17 languages and hundreds of files.

I am looking forward to some feedback. Maybe there is just something I am missing or doing wrong, but these seem to be fairly easy things to implement and make the life of users of large projects much easier.

Thanks
Susanne Aldridge

Susanne Aldridge
  • in reply to Susanne Aldridge

     

    I also use Trados Studio to add new files to existing projects, organizing them into sequentially numbered subfolders such as 01 XXX … 21 YYY (or if the project spans multiple years, 2024 01 XXX … 2024 21 YYY, 2025 01 ZZZ and so on). Since it’s possible to sort the files by path in the Files view, I can quickly select the necessary files to be included in a project package.

    Just another idea for your first issue. Also it’d be a workaround for the Added date isue…

  • in reply to Susanne Aldridge

    Thank you for the explanation and giving me a new perspective on working with Studio in a completely different scenario. As I work as a freelance translator, my tasks are different. But the world is much more colourful, so thanks for bringing this to my attention.

  • in reply to Jerzy Czopik

    Since Studio has the option to add files to a project, actually multiple ways of adding files, this seems to be something that they expect users to do. Adding files to a project doesn't make it less of a project. One product, one project makes a lot of sense and is handled like this in most development environments. Just like in your PC file folders, you add files to an existing folder as you go along and Studio is set up similarly.

    Considering that I am getting new/changes files frequently, it makes no sense to create individual projects. A lot of our products are using continuous development, so I am getting new string files at least once a week, some weeks I get multiple files. Add to this ongoing development on help files, documents, instruction sheets, brochures, compliance documents, this just makes sense. Obviously, this is more of an issue for some workflows (especially in-house) than for others. This is not about saving time but about not having hundreds of SDL project files around. As an example, I received 21 translation requests for a single product in 2024. In 2025, I already have 11. This is the most active product, but I usually have about 1 request a month on our products.

  • Even if I understand your way of thinking, I assume the requested change would revolutionise the complete way of working with Studio. From my point of view, Studio is project based tools, but it was not designed to adding files to existing projects. Instead of this the idea behind in my opinion is creating new projects for new tasks. And in my opinion this is faster than adding files to any projects. Using project templates I create dozens of projects every month. And because the projects belong to different customers, I have to switch folders for each and every project. This is no deal at all, as the path can be copied and pasted in the wizard. So creating a project requires only few clicks more than adding files to an existing project, but does not require any changes in the current behaviour of Studio. Maybe you could rethink your way of working to adapt this more to what Studio already offers. Just a thought.