This looks like an (unsuccessful) attempt to fix the UX nonsense - the Studio 2017 check box actually says "YES, do NOT merge segments across paragraphs" when checked... which does not make sense.

The Studio 2019 option says "YES, DO merge segments across paragraphs" when checked... which finally makes sense.

But the developers missed one fundamental point - that the default state of such reverted option must be reverted too, i.e. the default state of the check box should be OFF.

Evzen Polenka said:

But the developers missed one fundamental point - that the default state of such reverted option must be reverted too, i.e. the default state of the check box should be OFF.

The default state is off.

Otherwise you're correct.  It was changed to make more sense.

Ah, in that case I apologise... then all seems to be actually okay.
Apart from a fact that it's nowhere to find any mention of such changes. Especially if it appeared in Studio 2019 since the very beginning as there are no 'normal' release notes anywhere for first release of new versions; only the big marketing-ish "What's New", full of PR-ish blablabla, but without any technical value.

Hi Evzen Polenka

"Disable" was changed to "Enable" in an update. The 2019 documentation hasn't even been updated and still says "Disable". So basically they "slipped" this feature in without telling anyone and have not spoken about the compatibility issue between 2017 and 2019. Another issue is now 2019 will have different behavior depending on your version... In the software world, this is called a "breaking change", and its important to tell your customers about it as it can cause unexpected behavior

If Paul says that the default value is reverted (together with reverted meaning of the option), then the problem could be in migration of existing setting - the user's value has to be reverted as well.

Jesse Good

In 2017 this is the default:

In 2019 this is the default:

Essentially these are exactly the same in their behaviour.  The 2017 text was very badly written, the 2019 text is a lot more clear.  I think your confusion confirms exactly why this needed to be changed.

Hi all - we'll update the documentation as well, thanks for pointing this gap out.

I see now. They didn't just change the name, but they also changed the default value to match with the name change. I was under the impression you could enable merging but also "disallow" source editing at the same time (but that seems to be not possible in the UI)

Daniel Brockmann

Thanks. Would you be able to tell me in what version of Trados 2019 this was introduced in? Perhaps SR2?

Hi Jesse Good - this was changed for the initial Studio 2019 release. Thanks, Daniel