Philippe Riondel

Philippe Riondel said:

The licensing management is excessively complex and counter-intuitive

Unfortunately we did have a problem that was caused by the provider of our licensing solution and they are still manually cleaning up the problem at the moment.  All new orders don't have the issue.

This is really unfortunate and we are as frustrated as you are because the experience of installing and licensing the software has never been easier.  Many apologies to all of our early adopters because you have been the unwilling victims of this problem, when we would really have liked you to be the first to experience the improvements.

Philippe Riondel said:

Why, unlike any other software, a new version of Studio is not able to retrieve custom settings from a previous (and still) installed version? Due to the colossal number of options in SDL Studio, fine tuning those options and preferences represents hours. And in this case, a huge waste of time, when it should be so easy to have an option proposing to import the previous version settings? It's a big miss.

I agree with you that we really should have a built in migration wizard to be able to take over as many of the options and settings as possible.  It's not always possible due to changes in the software but in general we should do this better.

I do think that comparing us with "any other software" is a bit unfair because if you simply upgrade as you do every time you receive a cumulative update then this is exactly what does happen because we are upgrading the software from one version to another.  But with a major release we are not doing this.  We are installing what is effectively a completely new piece of software that runs alongside the older one allowing you to run them both.  I don't think "any other software" does this, and if they do I doubt they always migrate the settings from one to the other.

But as I said... I wish we did!  We have looked at creating tools to do this in the past but it's really not as straight forward as you might think, mainly because of the changes that are made to the way the software works and we have always tried to avoid bringing in of problems to new software.  But I would like to see this being handed better.

Philippe Riondel said:

Namely, does 2021 implement all the bug fixes and suggestions that were previously discussed in this forum?

I truly doubt it.  Not every problem or suggestion in this forum is a problem we can actually fix, nor can we also reproduce the problem at all.  So this is really quite an unrealistic expectation.  Many of the changes are things that encompass many small things that have been discussed in here, but to expect every single thing...

Probably a good idea to read the release notes.  This link may be useful for you:

https://community.sdl.com/product-groups/translationproductivity/b/product-updates/posts/sdl-trados-studio-2021-sdl-multiterm-2021-and-our-new-cloud-offering-sdl-trados-live-essential-are-now-available

Philippe Riondel

Philippe Riondel said:

The licensing management is excessively complex and counter-intuitive

Unfortunately we did have a problem that was caused by the provider of our licensing solution and they are still manually cleaning up the problem at the moment.  All new orders don't have the issue.

This is really unfortunate and we are as frustrated as you are because the experience of installing and licensing the software has never been easier.  Many apologies to all of our early adopters because you have been the unwilling victims of this problem, when we would really have liked you to be the first to experience the improvements.

Philippe Riondel said:

Why, unlike any other software, a new version of Studio is not able to retrieve custom settings from a previous (and still) installed version? Due to the colossal number of options in SDL Studio, fine tuning those options and preferences represents hours. And in this case, a huge waste of time, when it should be so easy to have an option proposing to import the previous version settings? It's a big miss.

I agree with you that we really should have a built in migration wizard to be able to take over as many of the options and settings as possible.  It's not always possible due to changes in the software but in general we should do this better.

I do think that comparing us with "any other software" is a bit unfair because if you simply upgrade as you do every time you receive a cumulative update then this is exactly what does happen because we are upgrading the software from one version to another.  But with a major release we are not doing this.  We are installing what is effectively a completely new piece of software that runs alongside the older one allowing you to run them both.  I don't think "any other software" does this, and if they do I doubt they always migrate the settings from one to the other.

But as I said... I wish we did!  We have looked at creating tools to do this in the past but it's really not as straight forward as you might think, mainly because of the changes that are made to the way the software works and we have always tried to avoid bringing in of problems to new software.  But I would like to see this being handed better.

Philippe Riondel said:

Namely, does 2021 implement all the bug fixes and suggestions that were previously discussed in this forum?

I truly doubt it.  Not every problem or suggestion in this forum is a problem we can actually fix, nor can we also reproduce the problem at all.  So this is really quite an unrealistic expectation.  Many of the changes are things that encompass many small things that have been discussed in here, but to expect every single thing...

Probably a good idea to read the release notes.  This link may be useful for you:

https://community.sdl.com/product-groups/translationproductivity/b/product-updates/posts/sdl-trados-studio-2021-sdl-multiterm-2021-and-our-new-cloud-offering-sdl-trados-live-essential-are-now-available

Hi Paul,
Thank you for your long answer.

I understand the issue I experimented is due to the fact 2021 is in its early stages.

Anyway, for licensing, everything would be a lot easier if there was not a heavy procedure of activating/deactivating each time one uninstalls ore reinstalls their copy of Studio. Many translators have a desktop and a notebook, and will not install the software on 36 computers. It would be enough to link the number version to the email and let the users activate their product with those two informations or maybe one or two more. Something like trusting translators some more.

Yes, a migration wizard should actually be welcome. I understand many improvements were done, but most of the options are unchanged. 

As to the suggestions made in the forum, many were very interesting, and usually requested because felt as a miss in daily work, essentially in terms of ergonomics. Bug fixes are a must, but I should not even mention it, since updates are supposed to fix them. But leads of improvement would deserve to be explored and implemented.

2021 brings a lot of changes, indeed, mainly with cloud. I can only speak for me, but what motivates me to upgrade is improving or making easier my daily tasks, not changing my work method. I may use cloud in the future, but it's not what made me buy the upgrade. It is, first of all, the hope to find those small suggested improvements implemented and some more options (such as the improvement of auto-substitution settings, prima facie to my satisfaction). And, obviously, to get a more stable version, although I do not have too much to complain about that. (And, even if I complain about those issues, I am generally satisfied with Studio, of which I got all and every versions since June 2009.)

Philippe

Philippe Riondel

Philippe Riondel said:

Anyway, for licensing, everything would be a lot easier if there was not a heavy procedure of activating/deactivating each time one uninstalls ore reinstalls their copy of Studio.

You don't need to do this unless you're moving to another computer.  It's also a simple click... hardly what I'd call heavy.

Philippe Riondel said:

Many translators have a desktop and a notebook, and will not install the software on 36 computers. It would be enough to link the number version to the email and let the users activate their product with those two informations or maybe one or two more. Something like trusting translators some more.

On what evidence do you base this assertion?  I know how many times some users reset their licence and use it again and again... whether it's them or it's being shared.  It doesn't help engender confidence to do what you are suggesting.

Philippe Riondel said:

I am generally satisfied with Studio, of which I got all and every versions since June 2009.

I hope you enjoy the experience working with the 2021 version.  Especially the improvements around auto-substitution!

Paul said:

You don't need to do this unless you're moving to another computer.  It's also a simple click... hardly what I'd call heavy.

It's not my experience. :-( Mainly after a crash with Windows, as I had a couple of years ago. And when I mounted this new computer, I took the time to plan it properly, I tried to deactivate my 2019 version on the former one, and, once again, it did not go seamlessly...

Paul said:

On what evidence do you base this assertion?  I know how many times some users reset their licence and use it again and again... whether it's them or it's being shared.  It doesn't help engender confidence to do what you are suggesting.

For many other software, I just reinstall them, re-enter my license number and voilà! You can hardly do simpler. 

Paul said:

I hope you enjoy the experience working with the 2021 version.  Especially the improvements around auto-substitution!

I am sure I will anyway! :-)