SDL Plugin Management

Dear All,

basically my problem is that SDL Plugin Management/Installer very simply does not work.

When I click on SDL Plugin Management from SDL Studio 2015's Welcome side bar, from the start menu, even on the actual .exe file in C:\Program Files (x86)\SDL\SDL plugin installer, nothing happens. I also tried running it as administrator, to no avail.

 

Similarly, when I click on a SDL Plugin I would like to install (extension *.sdlplugin), SDL Plugin Installer does not open and no plugin is installed...

Any help much appreciated.

Thanks!

Fulvio

  • Hello Fulvio,

    Make sure you are running Studio 2015 SR2, and if you are already then try doing a Studio repair through the windows control panel.

    Regards

    Paul

    Paul Filkin | RWS Group

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  • Hi Paul.
    I am indeed running the latest SR2 and I just tried a Studio repair but no changes whatsoever... the plugin installer still does not launch, even if launched as Administrator.

    Thanks for your help, I hope you have other solutions to offer! :-)
    Kind regards
    F
  • Hi Fulvio,

    I have never come across this one before and don't have a sensible suggestion I'm afraid. I think if it was me I'd try the following:

    1. Uninstall Studio 2015
    2. Manually delete this folder in case anything is left over:
    c:\Program Files (x86)\SDL\SDL Trados Studio\Studio4\
    3. Rename this folder and the reinstall Studio making sure you do it as admin (so right-click and select run as admin when you install)
    c:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\SDL\SDL Trados Studio\12.0.0.0

    See if this helps.

    Regards

    Paul

    Paul Filkin | RWS Group

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    Design your own training!

    You've done the courses and still need to go a little further, or still not clear? 
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  • Sorry for my late reply, Paul, and thanks.
    I'm currently busy with a big review job, I'll try it as soon as I finish!

    Kind regards
    Fulvio
  • The manager works fine here... I think. But I have to say that both the manager and the plugins list on the Add-ins ribbon in the Studio interface are very confusing:

    - The manager lists only some of the installed plugins and only about half the number of AppStore items in the plugins list.

    - The "non-system" plugins list includes quite a few Custom plugins and also some System plugins. This is confusing. Also the Custom plugins list includes quite a few "non-system" plugins, and the System plugins list includes some of them. I would have thought the "non-system" list would contain the AppStore plugins installed by me, but the current state is a mixture in all three categories.

    - The names are often different between the two lists and often also different from the names given in the AppStore. This means that not only are several items on the plugins list not (easily) found in the manager, but some items in the manager are not (easily) found on the plugins list.

    Some sort of shape-up is necessary. My primary wish would be for the manager to be (1) complete, and (2) use the "correct" names. (I imagine the name confusions to some extent are caused by the developers using different names in different parts of their coding/documentation, but some sort of instructions to them might help.) If it could also be used to deactivate plugins, the confusing plugins list would hardly be needed at all.

    Mats
  • Hi Mats,

    Maybe these points should be borne in mind:

    - plugin manager is only for sdlplugins installed from the appstore
    - many apps on the appstore are not sdlplugins

    The naming convention... I completely agree. We could change these when we sign them, but if we did it would be different to the source code maintained by the developer so we have to be careful here. I think, as we do something with the appstore management generally, which we will work on early next year things will become easier to manage. The appstore backend has been through a major change in the last 3/4 months making things simpler for developers (you think it's confusing for you!!) and we now have APIs available to us that will support the ability to improve plugin management and management of apps generally in a much better way than we do today.

    But in general you should be able to figure things out when you look at the list you have installed. If you can't then share the ones that are really tough and we can help, and also notify the developers.

    Regards

    Paul

    Paul Filkin | RWS Group

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    Design your own training!

    You've done the courses and still need to go a little further, or still not clear? 
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  • Dear Paul,
    I'd like to give you an update of the issue.
    Well, it's not much of an update, really... What I did update was the software: I just installed SDL Trados Studio 2017 Freelance Plus, and the "SDL Plugin Management" link in the Welcome pane STILL doesn't work! Do I really have to go through the whole uninstall/reinstall routine to check whether it might work?

    Thanks for your help
    Fulvio
  • Hi Paul,

    I agree it's not too hard to figure things out... except the concepts behind the System plugins and the Custom plugins -- since they seem to be overlapping between themselves and between the AppStore plugins. It's probably not really necessary to know these things, but I don't like being confused :-)

    So some kind of explanation would be much appreciated. (And why not add such an explanation to the Help files... unless it's already there and I have missed it)?

    Regards,
    Mats
  • Unknown said:
    I agree it's not too hard to figure things out... except the concepts behind the System plugins and the Custom plugins -- since they seem to be overlapping between themselves and between the AppStore plugins. It's probably not really necessary to know these things, but I don't like being confused :-)

    So some kind of explanation would be much appreciated. (And why not add such an explanation to the Help files... unless it's already there and I have missed it)?

    Hi Mats,

    Maybe think of them like this:

    System plugins = plugins that don't use the public API (they do sometimes but as we create them with the core product they are maintained somewhere else)

    AppStore plugins = plugins that use the public API

    By public API I mean the documentation that we publicly provide to developers so that they are able to hook into Studio and create wonderful solutions for all kinds of things that help them and others with their work.

    The plugin menu in Studio shows all the plugins, but you can only install and uninstall the ones put there by installing an sdlplugin via the public plugin manager.

    Does that help?

    Regards

    Paul

    Paul Filkin | RWS Group

    ________________________
    Design your own training!

    You've done the courses and still need to go a little further, or still not clear? 
    Tell us what you need in our Community Solutions Hub

  • Hi Paul,

    I'm almost there now... but what about the Custom plugins?

    Regards,
    Mats