Month: December 2008

Categories
Felix release

Felix version 1.4.2 released

I’ve just released version 1.4.2 of Felix. This new version includes several improvements and new features requested by users, a few bug fixes, and improved support for some older Windows configurations.

Download the latest version of Felix.

The main new features and improvements are described below. See the manual for a full list of changes and improvements.

Separate file extensions for memories and glossaries

Felix translation memory and glossary files now have separate file extensions. By default, translation memories are saved with the “.ftm” extension, and glossary files are saved with the “.fgloss” extension. You can still use files with the old “.xml” extension, and save TMs and glossaries as “.xml” files.

New feature: profiles

You can now save user profiles in Felix. This is handy when you have multiple different sets of memories/glossaries, that you want to load in different situations (e.g. depending on the client).

Save your current profile
Select Tools >> Save Preferences.
Load an existing profile
Select Tools >> Load Preferences.

The following information is saved:

  • Translation memory files
  • Glossary files
  • User preferences
  • Window size and position
  • Text zoom level

New feature: improved zooming

With previous versions of Felix, you could control the zoom level of text using the CTRL + Mouse Wheel combination. Now there’s a zoom dialog box to give more fine-grained control over the zoom level. To display the Zoom dialog, select View >> Zoom… from the menu.

Using the zoom dialog box to control the text zoom level

When you start Felix, the last zoom level you used is restored.

Categories
Felix tools

AlignAssist version 0.6 released

I’ve just released version 0.6 of Align Assist.

Align Assist download page.

Align Assist main window

This is a bug-fix update. The previous versions of Align Assist didn’t properly display the grid rows in some cases when splitting segments, and the Split dialog box had some display issues.

About Align Assist

Align Assist is a free program for aligning legacy source and translation files, and creating Felix translation memories from them. It supports a wide range of file formats, including MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, as well as XML, HTML, text, and CSV. There is also limited support for PDF files.

Categories
Felix release

Felix version 1.4.1 released

I’ve just released Felix version 1.4.1. The main new feature of this version is error logging and reporting in Felix and the three Office add-ins (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint).

Download the latest version.

If you experience a structured exception while using Felix, you can now send a log file and a binary dump of the error, which will allow me to pinpoint exactly where in the code the error occurred.

While using Felix, if a “structured windows exception” occurs, an “Error Report” dialog will appear.

Felix Error Report dialog box

Enter a brief description of what action you were performing when the error occurred, and then click Send.

If you’re using MS Outlook as your email program, the following dialog may appear:

Felix Error Report dialog box

If it does, click Yes

An email then pops up. Check the body text, and then send it.

Felix Error Report dialog box

If you’d like to make sure that the error reporting feature works, then there’s a “secret” shortcut that will generate an error for testing purposes. Contact me if you’d like to know it.

Categories
Felix tools

Align Assist version 0.5 released

I’ve just released version 0.5 of Align Assist.

Align Assist download page.

Align Assist main window

This is a minor update, with several minor new features and improvements, such as the ability to display the log file.

About Align Assist

Align Assist is a free program for aligning legacy source and translation files, and creating Felix translation memories from them. It supports a wide range of file formats, including MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, as well as XML, HTML, text, and CSV. There is also limited support for PDF files.

Categories
e-commerce

Avangate eliminates PayPal fees on payments

I recently switched from Plimus to Avangate as my primary order processor, because Avangate has much better support for Japanese.

I receive my payments to my PayPal account, but when I started getting payments from Avangate, I noticed that PayPal was charging me a fee of around 3.9% of the payment. I never had this fee with Plimus, and needless to say an added 3.9% fee made Avangate pretty uncompetitive cost-wise, so I contacted Avangate and asked them what the story was.

After a bit of a delay and some back and forth, including me sending them screen shots of my PayPal page showing the fee for Avangate and no fee for Plimus, Avangate responded that they had changed their payment method to “mass payments,” and will cover the cost of transfer from now on. From their email to me:

We are currently using the PayPal service called „Send Money” to transfer the revenue to our partners and the commission is paied by the person receiving the amount.

Plimus was sending you the money through „Mass payments”, where the transfer fees are lower and they are paied by the sender.

We are willing to use this Mass payments service for your company, so there will be no cost at all for you when the monthly transfers are taking place.

The upshot is that I’ll no longer have the 3.9% PayPal fee charged for my payments from Avangate, and I’m a happy camper again.

Categories
Felix release

Felix version 1.4 released

After a bit of a delay, Felix version 1.4 is released. You can download it from the usual source.

The main improvements are as follows:

Translation History

Keep a history of your translations for a particular file, and automatically reflect any edits you make to the translation in your TM. For now, it’s available for Word and Excel; I’m planning to add the feature to PowerPoint within about a month.

Review Mode for Excel

Now Excel has a toolbar with a review mode, allowing you to correct your translations from within Excel.

See What’s New in the manual for a full list of additions and improvements.

Categories
Felix tools

Felix extension for OpenOffice Writer

I’ve just released a Felix extension for OpenOffice Writer. This extension allows you to use Felix from inside OpenOffice.

To install the extension, first download the file:

Felix_OpenOfficeWriter_1.0.zip.

Save the file to your computer, then unzip it. If OpenOffice Writer isn’t already running, start it.

Now from the Tools menu, select Extension Manager…

Tools - Extension Manager menu selection

The Extension Manager appears. Click Add, then select the file “Felix.oxt”.

Extension Manager dialog box

Close the dialog box, then close and restart Writer. The Felix toolbar and menu should appear.

OpenOffice Writer with Felix menu and toolbar

You can now use Felix from OpenOffice in much the same manner as MS Word. There’s no documentation yet, but the Felix manual entry for MS Word should provide an overview of the basics.

There are still some kinks to work out. For example, the extension currently ignores text formatting, and the keyboard shortcuts don’t seem to work properly in OpenOffice 2.4. I’ll be working to improve the extension, and release updates.

This extension is released under the MIT License, which means that you’re free to modify it, study and learn from it, or use it in other projects with no restrictions. If you do make improvements to the extension, however, I ask that you send them to me so I can feed them back to other users.