This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

Top-Down layout in Editor View using a plug-in?

Hello,
in Studio 2014
I know that natively you can't choose between left/right and top-bottom source/target TUs layout in the Editor View, but isn't there a plug-in that would allow to switch between the two views? (as Studio can export for review either in left-right and top-down).

I ask the question for someone that has a vision issue in one eye only, and who is much more comfortable reading and working with top-down layouts.

Thanks a lot




[locked by: Steven Whale at 11:08 AM (GMT 1) on 28 Apr 2020]
Parents
  • Hi Frédéric,

    The export goes to Word, it's not an option in the Editor. If this was a simple thing to do you can be absolutely sure we would have done this in the product a long time ago. The choice of technology that was made in 2009 for the Editor was a poor one and it has made it difficult to do many things that you may see in other tools... things like showing a horizontal approach as opposed to side by side. The new Online Editor has this capability to switch views, but the desktop editor does not, and probably won't.

    I guess if someone created a completely new Editor as a plugin then this may be possible... and perhaps a plugin could be created to show the source target of the active segment in a new view part and use that for editing... but a plugin to support a change in the current editor is not going to happen.

    Regards

    Paul

    Paul Filkin | RWS

    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

  • So, the question is: how long will SDL stick to this wrong technology since we now know that it was a bad choice?
    Is this why we can't use TMs in both directions without using AnyTM (which, contrary to what SDL is trying to tell us, is simply a faster way to create a new TM and is not a real implementation of a TM which works both ways)?
    I start suspecting that this poor technology is also the culprit behind the terrible TM Editor, and the overall slowness of Trados.
    I do hope that SDL will one day come up with a new tool that will allow for more programming flexibility than the current incarnations of Trados.
Reply
  • So, the question is: how long will SDL stick to this wrong technology since we now know that it was a bad choice?
    Is this why we can't use TMs in both directions without using AnyTM (which, contrary to what SDL is trying to tell us, is simply a faster way to create a new TM and is not a real implementation of a TM which works both ways)?
    I start suspecting that this poor technology is also the culprit behind the terrible TM Editor, and the overall slowness of Trados.
    I do hope that SDL will one day come up with a new tool that will allow for more programming flexibility than the current incarnations of Trados.
Children
  • Hi Wojciech, hi Paul,

    If the background technology could have been better chosen, I know nothing of that but I prefer the 'side-by-side' layout. I worked in Trados long before Studio, and for me its top-to-bottom layout gave less continuity and appreciation of the context or the document as a whole. I was glad when Studio was brought out with the SDLX-type Editor layout. Am I in a minority?

    Maybe a plug-in that added an extra window containing the active segment in a top-to-bottom layout would be easier to achieve?

    Ali :)
  • Hi Alison,
    I don't mind the side-by-side layout, though I prefer the top-to-bottom slightly more. I was referring to the whole technology, which makes it impossible to implement various solutions. Most CATs give you some choice - Trados doesn't. And it's all due to the wrongly chosen technology back in 2009, which, I assume, has some rigid limitations. This is probably why, the TM Editor is so poor and frankly - useless, and we have been waiting for years for a mere slider for browsing through terms.
    It's not that I'm annoyed by the fact - I've come to terms with it ;) I would simply like to know if SDL are going to discard the useless technology that causes so many limitations - not now, obviously, but in 4-5 years maybe.
    I mean, am I the only one who notices that despite some nice additions like fragment matches and excellent Autosuggest, this all looks like trying to pimp up an old Mercedes?
    Trados loads about 3-4 times slower than most of its competitors - I know, because I've checked. Importing TMs to a Big Mama TM takes ages, TM cannot be used in both directions, you can't use Preview unless you have MS Word installed and even if you do, after modyfing a segment the Preview refreshes after a few seconds instead of immediately.
    Once again, don't treat it as some kind of a rant of an angry translator. I don't want to offend anyone. I know SDL are doing everything they can, but even the best mechanic can't do much if the car is simply an unsuccesful construction.
  • Hi Wojciech,

    Ah, I see. I understand. Though, I'm very happy with Studio as it is - so long as we beta testers are listened to when improvements are in progress.

    This being said, where mechanics are concerned, my first car was a Wolseley 1500 and that was in 1978 so maybe I'm just old fashioned:

    Isn't she beautiful? I loved her sooo much. She had a walnut dashboard and purred like a kitten.

    But seriously, no offence taken at all [:D]

    All the best,

    Ali

  • Unknown said:
    And it's all due to the wrongly chosen technology back in 2009, which, I assume, has some rigid limitations. This is probably why, the TM Editor is so poor and frankly - useless, and we have been waiting for years for a mere slider for browsing through terms.

    Don't leap to conclusions.  I was referring only to the Editor as this uses different technology to the rest of Studio.

    Unknown said:
    Trados loads about 3-4 times slower than most of its competitors - I know, because I've checked.

    Depends on the machine.  I don't have the same differences you report, but I also don't worry too much about the start up time.  It's not really something I do over and over again throughout the day.

    Unknown said:
    Importing TMs to a Big Mama TM takes ages.  Copied from your other post "I have a relatively fast computer (Athlon x4 2.8 Ghz, 6 GB RAM, SSD Disk, Win 7 installed 3 months ago, not cluttered whatsoever) and updating my Big Mama (88,000 units) with the segments from my project TM (usually about 500 TU) takes about 2 minutes."

    I don't find this... again I think it depends on the machine (and I don't necessarily mean the hardware).  I ran a quick test with a TM containing approx. 450K TUs, and updated it from my Project with a file containing approx 2k segments.  So all larger than the files you are using.  My laptop is an Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4610M CPU, 3Ghz, 16 Gb RAM, Samsung SSD 850 EVO 1TB, Win 8.1 64-bit all installed well over a year ago.  So nothing earth shattering here in terms of performance, but a decent spec'd laptop.  The update took 9 seconds.  In reality I tested this before I recorded it and the first time I did it without the recording software running it took 4 seconds, but either way the performance was not poor:

    Unknown said:
    TM cannot be used in both directions

    The TMs in Studio were never designed to be multidirectional and contain data that is a one to many relationship in one direction.  AnyTM, which is part of the product, does make it possible to get around this if you wish to work in both directions.  In fact it allows you to work with any TM you like and this isn't possible in most other tools.  In fact I don't know a tool that does support this capability.

    Unknown said:
    you can't use Preview unless you have MS Word installed

    I think the html preview available with the new (new in 2015 onwards) Word filetype does not require Microsoft Word to be installed... but I need to double check that.  But for all other versions or types of preview you are correct.  I guess you set off the quality of the preview which in Studio is a perfect rendition of what you would see in MS Word.  For many users this is very important and not possible any other way.

    Unknown said:
    even if you do, after modyfing a segment the Preview refreshes after a few seconds instead of immediately.

    I can't say I never experience this, but I don't find it as slow as you report.

    Unknown said:
    I know SDL are doing everything they can, but even the best mechanic can't do much if the car is simply an unsuccesful construction.

    Don't take what I said about the Editor as referring to the whole product.  The product teams are always looking at how to improve the product and have looked at completely replacing the editor.  But this is not a trivial piece of work and the efforts so far have been based around trying to support multiple products which only adds to the complexity of the problem.  Don't expect anything soon, but it is always on the radar of the teams as we move the technology platform forward.

    Unknown said:
    Once again, don't treat it as some kind of a rant of an angry translator. I don't want to offend anyone.

    I doubt any offence is taken.  I do think you need help under the hood of your machine though if you are consistently seeing the sort of performance issues you have mentioned and are unable to resolve them on your own.  At the very least the support team might be able to nail down the source of the problem so you have the ability to address it even if you don't.

    Regards

    Paul

    Paul Filkin | RWS

    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

  • Dear Paul,

    Once again, I didn't mean to be all grumpy about Studio, but my experience regarding its slowness is quite overwhelming.

    When I was talking about my project TM, I meant a new TM that I create especially for a given project. When I complete the project, I export the TM to tmx to clean it in Heartsome TMX Editor and then re-import it to the Big Mama. It's during this re-importing process where I experience huge lags. Studio imports 25 TUs every 5-6 seconds, so the process takes about 2-3 minutes for a TM of about 500 units. I really don't think it's the fault of my computer.

    Anyway, thanks for your reply. It cleared a few things out for me.