I beg to differ:

As you can clearly see, the added term does appear immediately in the TB.

Yes, occasionally it does, but often it doesn't. And it's this randomness that is infuriating, and which makes the system essentially unusable in my opinion.

With the RyS plugin, and in memoQ, Déjà Vu, and many (actually most) other CAT tools, is always works. Period. So the user doesn't end up wondering, ‘Did it work this time?’.

I am not the only one who has reported this, as I am sure you must be aware. It has been a problem for years, and just doesn't seem to be going away any time soon.

As you say, you email someone in private and the problem is solved. If you have a problem with me, email me in private and we will chase it from the world. This is how it works in such situations. However, try to report a problem to - say - Deutsche Bahn... SDL is a bigger company with many developers, so it is not that easy to act and react. This said, I am not taking the side of SDL, but try to understand how things work. You may have noticed, that there have been many user requests, sitting there for years, from which some have already been implemented and for others we still wait, even though the numbers community likes for these ideas are very high. Nonetheless, things change.

SDL does not treat us user bad, to the contrary - this forum is the best proof, that they are willing to listen and to help. Unfortunately for us, small users, there are so many big institutional users out there, that SDL is resolving their requests first. For example, from what I know, the existence of "single document approach" is one of such features requested by a big entity. If you ask me, this would be one of the first things I would remove from Studio, as this way of working makes many user crazy...

Your point about these three non working shortcuts is valid, no question. But OTOH there are other solutions to achieve the same results, so there is a way and a solution. In my opinion, the best way to resolve this problem would be simply removing these (and maybe other non-working shortcuts) altogether and concentrate on much more important things, like the reliability of the term recognition. From what I see in the forums and mailing lists, not working shortcuts are not on the top of the list of bugs.

Michael Beijer said:

Others try to pretend the problem doesn't exist (SDL).

Come on Michael.. that's nonsense. It's not helpful when you make statements like this that are not true at all.  Just because something is a problem for a long time does not mean we don't care.  Sometimes resolving these problems is lot more difficult than you might think because they don't affect all users.

Anyone who thinks developers, in any company, don't care about this type of thing is clearly not really thinking this through.

Michael Beijer said:

Let me ask you though, if three specific keyboard shortcuts have not worked, at all, for around 5 years now, is it so unreasonable to ask that SDL removes any mention of them in their Help docs and interface?

Is it reasonable to remove things like this if they work for more users than they don't?

Michael Beijer said:

That is, yelling loudly in many different channels, for many years … is often the only way to (perhaps/maybe/if you are very lucky) achieve anything with a company like SDL. If something is obviously broken in CafeTran, I email Igor privately, he thanks me, and it is often fixed the very next day. Very classy.

Also a gross misunderstanding of how things work. Shouting only pisses people off and makes them waste their energy dealing with the fall out it creates... it doesn't get things done any faster.

Working with one or two developers in an environment without the sort of dependancies you get in a larger company is easy.  I see that every day working on Trados Business Manager.  If you really think this is classy it's only because you have no idea at all about software development in a more complex environment with more developers and more components that work together.  In fact I take that back... it is classy, and it's a real joy if you're lucky enough to have it.  But it's not the real and more complex world that we live in.

I know we have things that need work to get better in our software, and we do always try to push these things to the top of list within many competing priorities.  But when things affect a smaller number of users only... and it is small despite what you or another 10 users might think... it is very difficult to deliver the time to investigate and resolve.  That doesn't mean we don't care or that we won't do it... but it may be that things automagically get resolved when we make bigger changes to more fundamental things... or even if you happened to change your computer!  I'm not saying ti's your computers fault by the way!!

Thanks Paul for your wise words

I must say that I have noticed the problem Michael explains above. When I add a term to a termbase (and I have many end-client-specific termbases...) it is often the case that the newly added term will NOT immediately be recognised. If it is important, I have to close the project (or Studio) and restart. Obviously I can't do this for every term so, yes, it can be a significant obstruction to working with termbases.

Dan

Thanks Jerzy Czopik for such a rational reply with which I totally agree

Hi again Michael Beijer

I don't really need to reply to your questions because Jerzy and Paul have given you better answers than I could.

I'm not a defeatist, I'm a realist!

Ali 

Dan Lucas said:

it is often the case that the newly added term will NOT immediately be recognised.

This is a well know issue that the devolopment team are trying to resolve. It's most likely caused by Lookahead.  The hits from your termbase are already cached if you use this feature so when you add the new term it isn't seen because we're looking at the cache that didn't include this new addition.

Certainly a bug, and we know about it, and I'm hopeful we'll find a sensible solution so that we can have the beneft of working with lookahead and still being able to see new additions to the termbase. 

I agree with Paul that yelling loudly doesn't help, but then as far as I can see not yelling loudly doesn't help either, so if Michael finds it therapeutic he might as well yell.

One issue that Paul does not address is that although all software companies with a product of any significant size and complexity face similar problems, some companies are better at resolving these issues than others.

Where does SDL stand in terms of resolving these issues? I do not know. I have been using Studio for years, and the same old quirks and problems still seem to be there. How about the others? Hard to say. MemoQ seems to have an OK rep. Deja Vu not so good. Memsource has pretty good feedback. Maybe Studio is no worse than the others and that's all that it needs to be to prevent loss of share.

Transparency also helps. When I look at something like, say, Trello, the developers seem to make much more of an effort to disclose their plans.

Anyway, as I just commented, I too see this behaviour in MultiTerm and have done for years.

Dan

Glad to hear that, appreciate the clarification.

Paul, I do know that you guys at SDL don't all hate us, and probably even care about our feelings, but ...

Studio's unreliable term recognition problem dates back to quite a bit before Lookahead was introduced, IYAM. I just entered ‘term recognition’ into your forum search box (try it), and got a huge amount of hits. Here are just a few of them, which kind of says it all I think: 

• community.sdl.com/.../the-sad-sad-state-of-trados-studio-s-useless-terminology-tools (‘The Sad, Sad State of Trados Studio's Useless Terminology Tools’)

• community.sdl.com/.../losing-my-temper-with-term-recognition (‘Losing my temper with term recognition … I'm really losing my temper with term recognition, which has always been unreliable, but it seems to get worse: ...’)

• community.sdl.com/.../studio-2019-term-recognition-not-working-so-well (‘Studio 2019: term recognition not working so well.’)

• community.sdl.com/.../terminology-database-term-recognition (‘the terms are not recognized. If I search them, it works.’)

• community.sdl.com/.../unreliable-term-recognition (‘Unreliable Term Recognition … Is there a solution to the unreliable Term Recognition in Studio 2015? Term Recognition is a very useful facility but Studio 2015 seems to "forget" older terms. By forgetting, I mean that they are not displayed in the Term Recognition list although they are present in the associated (active) Termbase.’)

• community.sdl.com/.../term-disappears-in-term-recognition-after-switching-to-next-segment-in-studio-2015 (‘Term disappears in Term Recognition after switching to next segment in Studio 2015.’)

• community.sdl.com/.../67533 (‘Term recognition doesn't work in trados 2017 but the TB looks fine in Term viewer/Multiterm’)

• community.sdl.com/.../48205 (Termbase Viewer in Studio 2017 shows terms but "No results available" in Term Recognition window and terms are not redlined in source)

• community.sdl.com/.../66120 (‘Term recognition stops working in trados 2017’)

• community.sdl.com/.../81782 (‘Term recognition failing’)

• community.sdl.com/.../studio-2017-and-term-recognition (‘Studio 2017 and term recognition … Term recognition doesn't work properly in Studio 2017. Terms appear in the proper window but they are not suggested in the editor (they don't show as quick insertable terms). I have tried everything. … ’)

• community.sdl.com/.../no-term-recognition-unless-you-reorganize-the-termbase-multiterm-2019-and-groupshare-2015 (‘No term recognition unless you reorganize the termbase ...’)

• community.sdl.com/.../75884 (‘Slow term recognition’)

• community.sdl.com/.../69195 (‘Error in term recognition’)

• community.sdl.com/.../2-problems-regarding-term-recognition-too-slow-to-recognize-or-not-refreshed (‘2 problems regarding term recognition (too slow to recognize or not-refreshed)’)

• community.sdl.com/.../63669 (‘Term recognition STOPPED, in Trados Studio 2017’)

Also, I dare you to locate a single user who has any of those three shortcuts I mentioned above in working order. They just don't work, for anyone. Hell, you even said so yourself somewhere in the forums at some point if I remember correctly.

Anyway, I really tried to like/use Studio again (as I do every couple of months, hoping that you guys fixed the most annoying long-standing issues), but just can't handle the stress and randomness of using termbases in Studio. Back to CafeTran again for me.

Paul, I do know that you guys at SDL don't all hate us, and probably even care about our feelings, but ...

Studio's unreliable term recognition problem dates back to quite a bit before Lookahead was introduced, IYAM. I just entered ‘term recognition’ into your forum search box (try it), and got a huge amount of hits. Here are just a few of them, which kind of says it all I think: 

• community.sdl.com/.../the-sad-sad-state-of-trados-studio-s-useless-terminology-tools (‘The Sad, Sad State of Trados Studio's Useless Terminology Tools’)

• community.sdl.com/.../losing-my-temper-with-term-recognition (‘Losing my temper with term recognition … I'm really losing my temper with term recognition, which has always been unreliable, but it seems to get worse: ...’)

• community.sdl.com/.../studio-2019-term-recognition-not-working-so-well (‘Studio 2019: term recognition not working so well.’)

• community.sdl.com/.../terminology-database-term-recognition (‘the terms are not recognized. If I search them, it works.’)

• community.sdl.com/.../unreliable-term-recognition (‘Unreliable Term Recognition … Is there a solution to the unreliable Term Recognition in Studio 2015? Term Recognition is a very useful facility but Studio 2015 seems to "forget" older terms. By forgetting, I mean that they are not displayed in the Term Recognition list although they are present in the associated (active) Termbase.’)

• community.sdl.com/.../term-disappears-in-term-recognition-after-switching-to-next-segment-in-studio-2015 (‘Term disappears in Term Recognition after switching to next segment in Studio 2015.’)

• community.sdl.com/.../67533 (‘Term recognition doesn't work in trados 2017 but the TB looks fine in Term viewer/Multiterm’)

• community.sdl.com/.../48205 (Termbase Viewer in Studio 2017 shows terms but "No results available" in Term Recognition window and terms are not redlined in source)

• community.sdl.com/.../66120 (‘Term recognition stops working in trados 2017’)

• community.sdl.com/.../81782 (‘Term recognition failing’)

• community.sdl.com/.../studio-2017-and-term-recognition (‘Studio 2017 and term recognition … Term recognition doesn't work properly in Studio 2017. Terms appear in the proper window but they are not suggested in the editor (they don't show as quick insertable terms). I have tried everything. … ’)

• community.sdl.com/.../no-term-recognition-unless-you-reorganize-the-termbase-multiterm-2019-and-groupshare-2015 (‘No term recognition unless you reorganize the termbase ...’)

• community.sdl.com/.../75884 (‘Slow term recognition’)

• community.sdl.com/.../69195 (‘Error in term recognition’)

• community.sdl.com/.../2-problems-regarding-term-recognition-too-slow-to-recognize-or-not-refreshed (‘2 problems regarding term recognition (too slow to recognize or not-refreshed)’)

• community.sdl.com/.../63669 (‘Term recognition STOPPED, in Trados Studio 2017’)

Also, I dare you to locate a single user who has any of those three shortcuts I mentioned above in working order. They just don't work, for anyone. Hell, you even said so yourself somewhere in the forums at some point if I remember correctly.

Anyway, I really tried to like/use Studio again (as I do every couple of months, hoping that you guys fixed the most annoying long-standing issues), but just can't handle the stress and randomness of using termbases in Studio. Back to CafeTran again for me.

PS: If you ask me, all this is not due to the fact that ‘Studio is a very complex program’, as many people say (as if that somehow excuses the development team). It is the result of using Access databases as the underlying technology for termbases in Studio. And specifically, of the way they get locked/unlocked when a user is using them.

Switch to a better underlying database technology, and I bet all these problems would disappear in one fell swoop.