Mats Linder 

Mats Linder said:

My first question is: What does this really mean? Any project which is created without pre-translation will contain only source language segments, so that is nothing particular. But what does the second part of this sentence mean?

The question you are pondering refers to "an *.sdlxliff file which contains source language segments only".  So, open a project folder in Studio for a project you have completed, then navigate to the source language folder and use the single document process to open it.  You will see something like this:

Note that the target language is optional.  This is because the sdxliff doesn't contain ant target language segments, or indeed any target languages at all.  So now when you think about the second part of your question:

Mats Linder said:

create further *.sdlxliff files which have a target language assigned to them

If I add a target language... any target language I like... the sdlxliff will become a target language sdlxlff that I can translate and will now contain the target language segments.  This trick is something some experienced project managers use to avoid the work in managing multilingual projects. 

Imagine you had a project with 50 target languages.  You now have to create 50 packages and send them out, then manage the return of 50 packages coming back.  If you send the source language sdlxliff you only need to send one file and one email to all translators since they will add the target language for you. This is fraught with the potential for failure, or at least problems however since translators using different versions of Studio may cause the chain to break when you get them back and they have not been prepared in the way your version of Studio would like them.  So NOT doing this is is recommended unless you really have control of your supply chain and you know what you're doing!

Mats Linder said:

Second question:

I think I answered this while answering the first one:-)

Mats Linder said:

When I use this method, the first dialog always suggests the same language pair, namely English (United Stated) and German (Germany).

If you are opening a bilingual file (sdlxliff for example) and the target languages have been set then it will always open with the languages in the bilngual file.  If not then you get the default from here:

Unless you open a bilingual file that is capable of recognising the languages in the file and then you will have whatever languages there are in the file.

Mats Linder said:

So what use is really the Language Pair settings here?

The single document workflow doesn't use project templates.  So you need to add whatever resources you want to be picked up for a particular language pair in the default template.  If you work with project templates you are not restricted to one set of options per language pair as you can have as many of the same language pairs with different settings for each as you like.

I hope that answers your questions?

Thanks once more for your kind patience! Even more so considering that the answers to questions 3 and 4 were already given in my own manual! But your description of the addition of target languages to a (target) .sdlxliff file was completely new to me. Still I don't see that you answered my second question, i.e.:

- Why the word "(optional)" next to the target language field? Isn't the choice of target language always optional every time I create a new project? So why does it say so only here (and not when I create a project in the ordinary way)?

-  The corresponding Help text has a note which says: "If you want to create an *.sdlxliff file that has no target language you can leave this box blank." How is this possible when it is never blank to begin with?

Mats Linder said:

- Why the word "(optional)" next to the target language field? Isn't the choice of target language always optional every time I create a new project? So why does it say so only here (and not when I create a project in the ordinary way)?

No, if you create a project based on a project template (even the default) then the target languages are always defined in the template here:

You can of course change it, so in that respect it is optional.

If you use the single document approach it's sort of similar but because the languages presented come from two places (potentially) the wording is different and I reckon this is where your confusion comes in.. It is either "set" based on what you have in here... and of course you can change it so it is still optional even though it doesn't say "optional":

Or it's picked up by the languages in a bilingual file.  A bilingual file, like an xliff, already contains the languages your project should be using so they will dictate what language appear when you open the file.  So if I take a source language sdlxliff for example out of a project I already have in Studio I see this with an "optional" target language as there isn't one there yet, and also note the source language is not the one in my settings above.  It's Welsh and this is because my blingual file is Welsh to English.  The target suggested as optional is German and this is coming from my settings under File -> Options -> Editor -> Languages:

If I take one from the target language folder I see this where both source and target are detected:

This only ever occurs with bilingual files such as xliff (and of course an sdlxliff is an xliff).

And just because I imagine you might ask this next... if you try and add a bilingual file to a standard Studio project, and not a single file project, where the project template languages (en-US to fr-FR in my template) are not the same as the languages of the bilingual file then the project languages won't be changed to suit... you'll get an error like this telling you that you have obviously made a mistake:

I hope that's a little more clear?

Mats Linder said:

-  The corresponding Help text has a note which says: "If you want to create an *.sdlxliff file that has no target language you can leave this box blank." How is this possible when it is never blank to begin with?

But it is blank!  Let's take a much simpler example than an sdlxliff to look at this.  In this one we have both source and target:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xliff version="1.2" >
  <file original='somefile.txt' source-language="en-GB" target-language="de-DE" datatype='plaintext' >
    <header>
      <note>simple xliff</note>
    </header>
    <body>
     <trans-unit id="1">
      <source>First sentence</source>
      <target>First sentence</target>
     </trans-unit>
     <trans-unit id="2">
      <source>Second sentence</source>
      <target>Second sentence</target>
     </trans-unit>
     <trans-unit id="3">
      <source>Third sentence</source>
      <target>Third sentence</target>
     </trans-unit>
     <trans-unit id="4">
      <source>Fourth sentence</source>
      <target>Fourth sentence</target>
     </trans-unit>
    </body>
  </file>
</xliff>

If I open it in Studio I see this where the source and target languages are NOT optional since they have been set in the file already:

In this one we only have source:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xliff version="1.2" >
  <file original='somefile.txt' source-language="en-GB" datatype='plaintext' >
    <header>
      <note>simple xliff</note>
    </header>
    <body>
     <trans-unit id="1">
      <source>First sentence</source>
     </trans-unit>
     <trans-unit id="2">
      <source>Second sentence</source>
     </trans-unit>
     <trans-unit id="3">
      <source>Third sentence</source>
     </trans-unit>
     <trans-unit id="4">
      <source>Fourth sentence</source>
     </trans-unit>
    </body>
  </file>
</xliff>

If I open this in Studio I see this where the target language is optional because it is blank in the file (probably the "in the file" bit will make it clear for you):

If I now set this to be Yoruba:

Then the translated file might look like this as Studio will add Yoruba as the missing target language to the file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xliff version="1.2">
  <file original="somefile.txt" source-language="en-GB" datatype="plaintext" target-language="yo-BJ">
    <header>
      <note>simple xliff</note>
    </header>
    <body>
     <trans-unit id="1">
      <source>First sentence</source>
      <target state="translated">gbolohun akọkọ</target>
     </trans-unit>
     <trans-unit id="2">
      <source>Second sentence</source>
      <target state="translated">Awọn gbolohun ọrọ keji</target>
     </trans-unit>
     <trans-unit id="3">
      <source>Third sentence</source>
      <target state="translated">Kẹta gbolohun</target>
     </trans-unit>
     <trans-unit id="4">
      <source>Fourth sentence</source>
      <target state="translated">Ẹkẹrin gbolohun</target>
     </trans-unit>
    </body>
  </file>
</xliff>

If I also open this translated file in Studio I now see this:

All detected and not optional anymore.

But on this bit specifically ...

Mats Linder said:

"If you want to create an *.sdlxliff file that has no target language you can leave this box blank."

If you do this (and I've actually never come across anyone who does this... but perhaps there are some) also note what you lose:

No target language in the file, and you won't be able to use a TM or an MT provider since it won't know what to use.  So for me it's an odd option to allow this, but maybe Daniel Brockmann knows what the usecase is?

Mats Linder said:

- Why the word "(optional)" next to the target language field? Isn't the choice of target language always optional every time I create a new project? So why does it say so only here (and not when I create a project in the ordinary way)?

No, if you create a project based on a project template (even the default) then the target languages are always defined in the template here:

You can of course change it, so in that respect it is optional.

If you use the single document approach it's sort of similar but because the languages presented come from two places (potentially) the wording is different and I reckon this is where your confusion comes in.. It is either "set" based on what you have in here... and of course you can change it so it is still optional even though it doesn't say "optional":

Or it's picked up by the languages in a bilingual file.  A bilingual file, like an xliff, already contains the languages your project should be using so they will dictate what language appear when you open the file.  So if I take a source language sdlxliff for example out of a project I already have in Studio I see this with an "optional" target language as there isn't one there yet, and also note the source language is not the one in my settings above.  It's Welsh and this is because my blingual file is Welsh to English.  The target suggested as optional is German and this is coming from my settings under File -> Options -> Editor -> Languages:

If I take one from the target language folder I see this where both source and target are detected:

This only ever occurs with bilingual files such as xliff (and of course an sdlxliff is an xliff).

And just because I imagine you might ask this next... if you try and add a bilingual file to a standard Studio project, and not a single file project, where the project template languages (en-US to fr-FR in my template) are not the same as the languages of the bilingual file then the project languages won't be changed to suit... you'll get an error like this telling you that you have obviously made a mistake:

I hope that's a little more clear?

Mats Linder said:

-  The corresponding Help text has a note which says: "If you want to create an *.sdlxliff file that has no target language you can leave this box blank." How is this possible when it is never blank to begin with?

But it is blank!  Let's take a much simpler example than an sdlxliff to look at this.  In this one we have both source and target:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xliff version="1.2" >
  <file original='somefile.txt' source-language="en-GB" target-language="de-DE" datatype='plaintext' >
    <header>
      <note>simple xliff</note>
    </header>
    <body>
     <trans-unit id="1">
      <source>First sentence</source>
      <target>First sentence</target>
     </trans-unit>
     <trans-unit id="2">
      <source>Second sentence</source>
      <target>Second sentence</target>
     </trans-unit>
     <trans-unit id="3">
      <source>Third sentence</source>
      <target>Third sentence</target>
     </trans-unit>
     <trans-unit id="4">
      <source>Fourth sentence</source>
      <target>Fourth sentence</target>
     </trans-unit>
    </body>
  </file>
</xliff>

If I open it in Studio I see this where the source and target languages are NOT optional since they have been set in the file already:

In this one we only have source:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xliff version="1.2" >
  <file original='somefile.txt' source-language="en-GB" datatype='plaintext' >
    <header>
      <note>simple xliff</note>
    </header>
    <body>
     <trans-unit id="1">
      <source>First sentence</source>
     </trans-unit>
     <trans-unit id="2">
      <source>Second sentence</source>
     </trans-unit>
     <trans-unit id="3">
      <source>Third sentence</source>
     </trans-unit>
     <trans-unit id="4">
      <source>Fourth sentence</source>
     </trans-unit>
    </body>
  </file>
</xliff>

If I open this in Studio I see this where the target language is optional because it is blank in the file (probably the "in the file" bit will make it clear for you):

If I now set this to be Yoruba:

Then the translated file might look like this as Studio will add Yoruba as the missing target language to the file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xliff version="1.2">
  <file original="somefile.txt" source-language="en-GB" datatype="plaintext" target-language="yo-BJ">
    <header>
      <note>simple xliff</note>
    </header>
    <body>
     <trans-unit id="1">
      <source>First sentence</source>
      <target state="translated">gbolohun akọkọ</target>
     </trans-unit>
     <trans-unit id="2">
      <source>Second sentence</source>
      <target state="translated">Awọn gbolohun ọrọ keji</target>
     </trans-unit>
     <trans-unit id="3">
      <source>Third sentence</source>
      <target state="translated">Kẹta gbolohun</target>
     </trans-unit>
     <trans-unit id="4">
      <source>Fourth sentence</source>
      <target state="translated">Ẹkẹrin gbolohun</target>
     </trans-unit>
    </body>
  </file>
</xliff>

If I also open this translated file in Studio I now see this:

All detected and not optional anymore.

But on this bit specifically ...

Mats Linder said:

"If you want to create an *.sdlxliff file that has no target language you can leave this box blank."

If you do this (and I've actually never come across anyone who does this... but perhaps there are some) also note what you lose:

No target language in the file, and you won't be able to use a TM or an MT provider since it won't know what to use.  So for me it's an odd option to allow this, but maybe Daniel Brockmann knows what the usecase is?

Thanks Paul - the <not set> target language is a bit of an oddity and just there for offering a complete set of features that users might want - but it is not used much at all as you will almost always have a target language to work with in this flow. (It might also be a leftover from the times when it was not possible to quickly test the results of tweaking file type settings and then opening a source file without any target language just to see the effect of the file type changes. We have introduced the quick preview in file type settings for this so this makes the no target language use case even more rarely required).