Adrian Komiński 

On this we can agree!

Unknown said:

Needless to say Word preview worked beautifully in Trados 2011 with Office 2007... (couldn't help it, Paul)

But the problem here is not Studio, it's Word.  Once Microsoft moved to their click to run installer they stopped providing the required components that are needed to be able to deliver an embedded preview.  So we have had to try and find other ways to make this work.

Unknown said:

EDIT: tried doing the embedded preview, and Trados actually gave me an error, so... yeah, should've posted this in the old thread. But then, I don't even need the embedded preview at all.

Today I run the click to run version and can actually achieve all three variants of the preview without the problems you descibe so would be inclined to look at external influences first.  These would be things like you security software and available permissions to be able to run both applications smoothly.  Try disabling your security software temporaily, and any backup software you might be running and see if this helps.   If it does add things back in until you find the cause of your issue.

My sole security software is the wretched Windows 10 itself and its built-in security features. I'd gladly disable Windows 10 forever - and switch to Mac - had the different translation software I use been compatible with the latter.

So, which Office SHOULD we buy, then?

Besides, the thing sometimes works fine, and sometimes doesn't, due to which I'm not sure if I can buy your explanation! At this very moment I'm in the process of translating a file that keeps crashing on me every 5th segment or so, and then re-opening. Sometimes it won't even re-open, displaying some lame error (file couldn't be opened, or something) - and then opening again obediently when I re-launch the preview manually.

This doesn't ALWAYS happen with every file, but it does so quite often, with different documents. I don't work with any "special" formats or anything. Just regular .docs / .docxs.

Hi  

Unknown said:

When I said there was a long lag before a change made to the file showed up in the preview, I should have said that when I confirmed a segment there was a long lag before the change (i.e. the new target segment) was displayed in the preview. Sorry for the confusion.

No problem... I can confirm this problem.  Refreshing the segment with the translation in files like this is indeed problematic and very laggy.  This is soomething the developer I discussed this with also confirmed and the solution he's been working on will address this problem.  I can't say when it will be available, can only say it's in hand and eventually we'll have an improved solution for this kind of issue.

Unknown said:

Hopefully your Studio will be faster.

Unfortunately it isn't!  I don't have the Studio on speed you might think I do :-)

Regards

Paul

Thank you Paul,

I am looking forward to the new solution :-)

I was worried that it might not be technically possible to speed things up ...

Best regards,

Bruce Campbell

ASAP Language Services

Paul, so what are your symptoms exactly when it comes to the imperfect preview? I have previously mentioned a number of issues (not merely lag). Do you experience any of them too? (crashing and restarting, etc)

As mentioned by Bruce, in your video you didn't confirm any segments, which is a pity! Did Marketing at SDL not allow it?

On a serious note, though: I'm SO counting on that dev eventually fixing the problem! And I hope it's not just one dev but a whole army of geeks working tirelessly night and day on providing us with the (properly working) functions we paid top dollar for. By the way: you can even get the DPI dev off his post and reassign him to the Preview team - I don't care about the microbuttons anymore! Now that I fixed my input lag issue, working in Studio became actually enjoyable, like in the good old times. Only the preview thing is a huge black spot on this image of a happy translator. Sure you can search everything in PDFs, but that's not what I bought Trados for. I could have stuck with my MemoQ on a free ELM licence.

Enough of complaining, though.

PS. Just got a marketing bullshit mail from SDL on seminars about valuating translation jobs. Not that I'm being a besserwisser, but you could probably reassign the guys behind this too.

Hi again Paul,

An idea just occurred to me with respect to Studio Preview.

Your video showed that the Preview works quickly when moving from segment to segment without confirmation.

So the problem is with updating the Preview window after confirmation.

If the developer is having difficulty shortening the confirmation lag, then perhaps a toggle switch could be added to the Preview window to toggle between automatic and manual updating.

If the file was a nasty one that caused long delays on updating, I could live with manually updating the Preview window after confirming a batch of segments.

I generally work in batches anyway, first filling in a batch of segments and then reviewing and confirming each segment one-by-one. I could then add in a manual update of the Preview window after completing a batch.

Of course, this would not be needed if the developer is sure that she/he can eliminate the lags for all files. If she is having difficulty, however, this might be an interim solution that is not too difficult to implement.

Best regards,
Bruce Campbell
ASAP Language Services

Just so there is no confusion, here is what I mean in more detail:

When the toggle is set to manual updating, the Preview window would still react to movements from one segment to another in the Studio editor, including moving down when a segment is confirmed. That is, the highlighting in the Preview window would switch to the new active segment and the display in the Preview window would move to show the new active highlighted segment if the new active segment was previously not shown in the Preview window.

The only difference would be that when the toggle was set to manual updating, the new contents of the confirmed target segment would not be displayed in the Preview window until a manual batch update was performed.

Best regards,
Bruce Campbell
ASAP Language Services

Hi Adrian,

I went through exactly the same thing: trying a feature, finding out there was a major problem and then expecting someone to fix it.

My advice: Don't hold your breath.

Studio is a massive piece of code with patches on patches on patches. Some parts have not been rewritten for decades.

Point out problems, and they will hopefully be put on a very long list somewhere.

If you are lucky, someone might look at what you consider to be a major problem. But there are so many problems that it could be years before it is looked at, or fixed, if it can be fixed at all.

Studio does have a lot to offer, but I no longer expect all of its features to be useful. In fact, I find Studio to be much more reliable if I turn off all the bells and whistles and restrict my use to its basic functions, with as few as possible changes to the default settings.

As I mentioned before, I gave up on the Studio preview many years ago and developed my own workaround with PDF files and Dragon commands, since Studio's preview might never reach a state where I feel it is good enough to use.

Best regards,
Bruce Campbell
ASAP Language Services

Hi Adrian,

I am happy to hear that Studio is generally working well for you.

I started scaling back on the bells and whistles and non-standard settings in an attempt to keep Studio running reliably.

For example, I waited until Studio 2019 SR1 before trying to install Studio 2019 as there is typically a wave of bugs after each update. The wave appears particularly large with 2019.

After a number of problems, I gave up on installing Studio 2019 SR1, and reverted to Studio 2017 SR1 by recovering my system from a backup.

But even now I am encountering problems with Studio suddenly disappearing. The window just closes -- unexpectedly and apparently randomly, right in the middle of a job.

Since I am running an almost "out-of-the-box" version of Studio 2017 SR1, I am pretty confident that the problem is due to the update from Studio 2017 SR1 CU7 to Studio 2017 SR1 CU15. (At least I hope that is the reason.)

So, after reverting to Studio 2017 SR1 after attempting to install Studio 2019 SR1, I now have to revert from Studio 2017 SR1 CU15 to Studio 2017 SR1 CU7.

Interestingly enough, both versions of Studio 2017 SR1 are available for download from the SDL website, so I imagine that SDL is also not completely confident about 2017 SR1 CU15 ...

But I might not be able to revert back to CU7. After uninstalling Studio 2019 SR1, Studio 2017 SR1 refused to install, giving an error message that I had a newer version installed! So I had to recover my system from a backup in order to get rid of Studio 2019 SR1 completely.

I might have the same problem when I try to revert back to CU7. I really don't want to go back to an old system backup from November (I don't keep all of my backups forever.)

And even if I do revert back to Studio 2017 CU7 (by uninstalling and installing, or by using my November backup), my SDL account no longer shows a licence for Studio 2017. That disappeared when I attempted to install Studio 2019.

So I also have to worry about the lack of a Studio 2017 licence. I might have to use a trial licence for a while, but I have seen people on the forum mentioning that you can't use a large TM for the trial version...

As is usual with Studio, the whole process is full of question marks.

The waves of bugs and lack of certainty following each update, and the Studio installs and uninstalls waste enough of my time. If I was also trying out fragment matching, LookAhead or other new (and probably buggy) features as they are introduced, then I would not have a clue where the problems were coming from, particularly since some of the bugs I have had to deal with are somehow passed on from one version to the next -- even if you do a clean install.

But regardless of the difficulties I have with Studio, I still find it a valuable tool, even if I just use the basic features.

I am just a bit cautious given the problems I have had in the past and wish I could simply install and uninstall the package, and revert back to previous versions without all of this fuss and uncertainty.

Best regards,
Bruce Campbell
ASAP Language Services

Hi Bruce Campbell

You can find out which updates of a program you have installed, and uninstall them to leave the previous version installed.

Control Panel > Programs and Features > Installed updates:

All the best,

Ali