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How do I cope with changing key values in Passolo?

Jörn Kretschmer

I am quite new to Passolo 2018 and I stumbled upon a problem, where I can't say, if it's a problem of the software or a problem of how I try to do things. I hope you can tell me, what I am doing wrong and how to do it properly, or if it is an error of the software.

I have a source file in xml format, that contains several german strings and their corresponding key values. Let's call this file "Source.xml". I connected my Passolo project with this file and imported it's strings and key values to the Passolo project.

Now I get an updated source file, where 4 of the key values changed (at the moment I don't care about changes in the german strings). I tell Passolo to update this string list and Passolo is telling me in the message window, that there are 4 new strings and that 4 strings have been removed.

Is there any way to tell Passolo to keep the old strings until we had the opportunity to somehow copy the translations from the old strings to the new key values? Or how should I use Passolo in this scenario (changing key values)?
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    Adding some generic thoughts on this problem. In software development engineers are doing something that is called Refactoring.

    Sources code modules will be reorganized or renamed and the corresponding resource files must follow. One of the simplest outcomes is the problem that you described:

    • Existing IDs in a resource file are changed while the text remains unchanged

    As a software developer, I doubt that such an approach within a single resource file is really technically necessary. In order to achieve the simplest possible localization process, it is certainly not best practice. There are far more complex and extensive issues that can arise from refactoring.

    • Entire sections of a resource file are moved to other or entirely new resource files.
    • Entire resource files are renamed or moved in the project directory
    • Within these processes also all IDs can be changed more or less (e.g. with module specific pre- or suffix)

    SDL Passolo is using a combination of path, file name, resource name and entry ID as the unique identifier for a key/value pair. If one of these items changes the entry will be deleted and newly added as a new and untranslated string. To find an adequate solution, you must assess the severity of the business problem within your project. 

    If your resource file contains hundreds or thousands of entries and just 4 entries have renamed IDs I would definitely suggest to use one of the already described solution approaches and e.g. pre-translate from the recycle bin. But I also know existing clients where the resource file contains approx. thousand entries and each new drop from development shows 20% changed IDs. In such use cases the COM object model that can be used to automate tasks within Passolo offers a solution. If your developers are able to provide you with a file with the ID changes , e.g.

    Old-ID1=New-ID1
    Old-ID2=New-ID2

    you can develop a macro based solution that changes exactly these IDs within the existing project before you update the project with the new resource file with changed IDs. This reduces your effort for finding and re-translating entries with changed IDs to zero.
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  • 0

    Adding some generic thoughts on this problem. In software development engineers are doing something that is called Refactoring.

    Sources code modules will be reorganized or renamed and the corresponding resource files must follow. One of the simplest outcomes is the problem that you described:

    • Existing IDs in a resource file are changed while the text remains unchanged

    As a software developer, I doubt that such an approach within a single resource file is really technically necessary. In order to achieve the simplest possible localization process, it is certainly not best practice. There are far more complex and extensive issues that can arise from refactoring.

    • Entire sections of a resource file are moved to other or entirely new resource files.
    • Entire resource files are renamed or moved in the project directory
    • Within these processes also all IDs can be changed more or less (e.g. with module specific pre- or suffix)

    SDL Passolo is using a combination of path, file name, resource name and entry ID as the unique identifier for a key/value pair. If one of these items changes the entry will be deleted and newly added as a new and untranslated string. To find an adequate solution, you must assess the severity of the business problem within your project. 

    If your resource file contains hundreds or thousands of entries and just 4 entries have renamed IDs I would definitely suggest to use one of the already described solution approaches and e.g. pre-translate from the recycle bin. But I also know existing clients where the resource file contains approx. thousand entries and each new drop from development shows 20% changed IDs. In such use cases the COM object model that can be used to automate tasks within Passolo offers a solution. If your developers are able to provide you with a file with the ID changes , e.g.

    Old-ID1=New-ID1
    Old-ID2=New-ID2

    you can develop a macro based solution that changes exactly these IDs within the existing project before you update the project with the new resource file with changed IDs. This reduces your effort for finding and re-translating entries with changed IDs to zero.
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