I am sorry if I seem a bit dimwitted, but I don't understand. You say, as long the paths do not change, it is not a problem. But if I move the project folders to a different location (on the same computer), the paths will change per definition, won't they? Perhaps I was not being clear about the fact that I meant moving files to a different location ON THE SAME COMPUTER. Or perhaps the drive letter doesn't count as part of the path?

No need to be sorry. You should know, that my education is mechanical engineering, so I may tend to simplify things which are possibly not so obvious like I think.

So let us go for an example:
Project path:
d:\projects\customer a\project 1\... (project files) (NO TM, TB here)
t:\TMs and TBs\path for TMs and TBs

When you now move the project to p:\projects\customer a\project 1\... (project files), the path to your TBs and TMs won't change.

In IT terms (more or less); Studio stores absolute paths and not relative paths, which would usually be a problem. But if you keep your folder structures exactly the same on your computers, this is not a problem anymore. Regardless the project location (within project Studio remembers the "relative paths") Studio stores the path to TMs, TBs as "asbsolute path".

Example:
Project location on drive q:\
We have there folders like source, target and TM and Termbase
Looks like that:
q:\Project 1\Source
q:\Project 1\Target'
q:\Project 1\TM
q:\Project 1\Termbase
When you move this folder elsewhere, Studio will remember, that the TM and TB was in q:\Project 1\TM (Termbase) and will require it to be on q:\, even if the project will be now stored on d:\

But when your TBs/TMs are in a different location, common for all projects you create, this location will not change for Studio, so when you move projects, the project location will change, but not the one of TMs and TBs - this is why Studio remembers them properly then.

All this is a bit more complicated, when you use Project TMs, so I will not try to explain that here.

Thank you for the tip about finishing projects. I never realised this had any practical value. But can finished projects still be opened? I sometimes have clients who want me to go back and update finished projects after client feedback, for instance, so I never really know for sure when a project is truly finished.

Of course. Just reopen such project by double clicking the SDLPROJ file and then right click it on Studio list - you will see a "Revert to in progress" option.

Just give it a try with a small project. You will learn how it works very soon - testing that on you own is much easier than describing.
The only crucial thing is in my opinion the location of TMs and TBs. If they are always kept at the same place, all other things do not cause significant problems. But when you move TMs, Studio will moan as long as you specify all the locations again. So for this reason I never move TMs to other drives than d:\ - in all my machines TMs (and Tbs) are on d:\ in exactly the same path.

Hi Marie,

Perhaps I should defend my comments!

Unknown said:

"To add them back into the Projects View if you do move them all you have to do is open the SDLPROJ file from the new location and that’s it." However, several of my colleagues say that this doesn't seem to work. When you try to open the file, Studio will tell you, they say, that the project is already present in the project list.

If y7ou don't remove the project from your list before moving it then of course Studio will tell you the project is already there.  So the process would be this:

1. Remove the Project you wish to move from Studio

2. Move the project (copy the whole project folder including the sdlproj file)

3. Open the sdlproj file in Studio using the "Open Project" command

That will work.  The things that can go wrong of course are if you have TMs, Termbases, AutoSuggest Dictionaries etc. in your project that are in a different location.  If these resources are not present on the computer in the new location of the project then you will get warning messages that they are not there.

Unknown said:

Paul Filkins also says in his article that Studio writes the location of the projects into a file called the projects.xml. I am wondering if this file must perhaps be edited manually for the above procedure to work? And if I move (or copy) existing project folders to a new location, should I also copy the projects.xml file there?

Definitely not.  If you remove the Project from Studio using Studio then the reference in the projects.xml will also be removed.  If you add it back in using Studio then the projects.xml will be updated.  Problems usually occur when people move projects to a new location but don't tell Studio that they did this.  Studio is not sitting there watching to see whether you move your projects around in Windows Explorer ;-)

Unknown said:

By the way, I have worked in Studio 2011 so far, and I am about to upgrade to Studio 2015. I would like to be able to open my Studio 2011 projects in the new version. Can I move (or copy) them to the desired location before installing and then simply open each project file from the new location in Studio 2015? Will the Studio 2011 projects.xml file also be used by Studio 2015 to locate existing projects created in Studio 2011, or will they be included in a newly created 2015 projects.xml file when opened in Studio 2015?

The best thing to do is use the Studio Migration Utility described in this article:

But if you don't do this then you can do what you have suggested.  Copy the projects to the location you want and then open the projects in Studio 2015 from the sdlproj.  The projects.xml in Studio 2015 will be automatically updated.

Don't over complicate this, it's really not difficult and I do it regularly.  Just focus on the projects and if you do get messages about missing TMs and Termbases then just locate them when prompted.

Regards

Paul

it is probably because so many colleagues have complained about the problem and given up on it.

If I get you right, the best thing to do might be to simply remove all projects from the projects list before moving my project files. Should I just remove them by "finishing" them, or is there another way that would (for whatever reason) be better?

If you don't remove the projects from the list and move them, the list will be updated automatically with the next start of Studio - projects, which cannot be found will be removed - so at least happened to me.

To remove a project from the list it does not matter if it is finished or not. Just right click - you can remove at once or first finish and then remove.

If I get you right, using a GREP search and replace program to replace the paths in the SDLPROJ files is just an alternative to doing it from within Studio when prompted, right? I hope so, because I have never used a GREP search and replace program before and don't even know exactly what it is.

GREP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grep - but this wasn't what I meant. I just meant a software for global search and replace. But it isn't necessary. You can also update by answering Studio questions.

In my projects, there is usually a project TM stored within the project folder structure plus another two TMs stored somewhere else (typically my "total TM" containing all translation units in that language pair from all projects I ever did + my "this client TM" containing all translation units in that language pair from all projects I ever did for that particular client). So if I get you right, these should all be found by Studio without problems after moving project files around as long as my "total TM" and my "this client TM" have not been moved. And if I do move those, I can simply tell Studio about it when prompted.

Project TMs within the project structure will always be recognized, regardless where you put the project. If the corresponding main TMs will not change their location while the project is moved, Studio will just open the project and you can work with it in the new location exactly the same as would it not have been moved at all.

This is exactly what I meant previously: if your (main) TMs/TBs remain where they were, you can move projects with NO prompting in Studio, as it remembers the absolute path to TMs/TBs.

And to what Paul says about using the Projects directory, created by Studio: I am a Studio user since the very beginning and NEVER put any projects there. This has not influenced Studio behavior in any way. Since over 5 years (so one or two years later than my Studio start) I put all my projects on a NAS, while the TMs and TBs are stored on an internal HDD. Studio accepts this structure - and my file and folder structure exists more or less since 1990! Some slight changes have been applied to it during years, but the way I organize my files remains the same for 26 years now :)