Month: December 2009

Categories
Uncategorized

New Felix forum

I’ve just created a forum for Felix.

Click here to go to the forum.

Participation is open to all, but some features (like posting) require user registration.

I had actually been debating with myself for some time about whether to create a forum. Felix already has a mailing list, and I felt that adding a forum might dilute the discussion. On the plus side, forums are more Google-friendly, and make it easier to follow up on conversation threads after some time has passed.

The dilemma was resolved when several Japanese-speaking users told me that they would prefer a Japanese-language forum to ask questions and discuss Felix (which is only natural). I thus decided to create a Japanese-language forum, and it then went from being a question of finding a reason to create an English-language version, to finding a reason not to.

I ended up using PunBB as the forum software. There was no Japanese localization for the latest edition of PunBB, so I took an old localized version and added the new translations myself. I plan to release my localized strings after I’ve been able to shake them out a bit.

Categories
Felix release

Version 1.5.3 of Felix released

I’ve just released version 1.5.3 of Felix.

You can download the latest version here.

This release includes several bug fixes and feature enhancements, especially relating to remote memories and adding glossary terms. See below for details.

Improved Support for Remote Memories

  • Bug fix: Editing a remote translation/glossary entry from Felix added a new one, instead of editing the existing one
  • Bug fix: Mixed half/full-width glossary entries were not always found in Memory Serves
  • Bug fix: Name showed up as [New] in Memory/Glossary Manager
  • Bug fix: Name showed up as [New] for concordance searches
  • Bug fix: Created by/modified by information was not preserved in remote entries
  • Bug fix: The source and target languages were not shown in the Memory/Glossary Manager dialog boxes

Easier to Add Glossary Entries

  • If the a glossary text box is empty, the selection on the left is used as the source/translation
  • Bug fix: F3 button brought up blank Add Glossary dialog when reviewing translations or viewing a query with no translation candidates
  • Bug fix: Text was not preserved between source and HTML tabs
  • Bug fix: When editing advanced properties in the Add Glossary dialog, it is not necessary to enter a source or translation
  • The Advanced dialog for glossary entries has a “Make defaults” checkbox, to set default values for all glossary entries added
  • Bug fix: If all text was removed from the glossary text boxes, the formatting was retained
  • The “Add to” list box setting is preserved after closing the Add Glossary dialog box.

Improvements to Search Window

  • Keyboard shortcuts: New Search (Alt+N), Search Page (Alt+S), Replace Page (Alt+R), and Show/Hide Help (Alt+H)
  • When all filters are deleted, does not show all records
  • The number of records changed is displayed after the Replace All button is pressed.

Other Felix Improvements

  • Bug fix: Switching views in glossary windows did not always cause new search to be conducted
  • Bug fix: Glossary window background color preferences were not reflected in saved preference files
  • Bug fix: Match coloring did not use CSS preferences for the word-based algorithm
  • Bug fix: Needed to run as admin to use “Check for updates” feature from Windows Vista/Windows 7

Improvements to the Microsoft Office Interfaces

Excel:

  • Maximum cell length for adding glossaries/TMs increased from 1,024 to 32,767 characters

Word:

  • Common abbreviations are no longer recognized as ends of sentences (“Mr.”, “Mrs.”, “Ms.”, “Dr.”, “e.g.”, and “i.e.”)
  • Bug fix: Canceling Felix Preferences dialog in Word still changed settings

… plus other minor fixes and improvements

Categories
Memory Serves release

Version 1.5 of Memory Serves released

I’ve just released version 1.5 of Memory Serves.

Download the latest version here.

Below is a list of the fixes and improvements in this version:

  • Runs as single instance: if you try to run Memory Serves and it is already running, it will open a web page to the Memory Serves site and exit. This prevents errors due to two instances of Memory Serves competing for the same port.
  • System tray icon. This lets you easily see if Memory Serves is running. You can also right click the icon to launch Memory Serves in your browser, or quit the server. Display of the system tray icon can be controlled in the preferences.
  • Rudimentary statistical information is displayed on the view memory/glossary page (% of records validated and reliability rating stats).
  • The memory footprint was reduced slightly.
  • Other minor tweaks to the view pages

About Memory Serves

Memory Serves is a free application that lets you share Felix translation memories (TMs) and glossaries over your local network or VPN.

Categories
Felix tips

Browsing your TMs/glossaries in Felix

Until recently, there was no real way to browse through your TMs and glossaries in Felix. One technique was to save the TM/glossary as an Excel file, and view it from Excel, but that obviously isn’t really satisfactory.

With the new Search feature in Felix, however, you can browse, edit, and delete your TM/glossary entries right from Felix.

The trick is to enter a search condition that will match all your entries, and then browse the results. I prefer to set the search term “created-before:2050”, which means “Show me all entries created before the year 2050”. Unless you own a time machine, this should match all the entries in your TM/glossary.

See below for some screenshots illustrating how to do this.

Assuming you want to browse a glossary, in the Glossary window, click the Search toolbar button.

Search button in Glossary window
Search button in Glossary window

The Search window appears. In the search box, enter “created-before:2050”.

Enter parameter in search window
Enter parameter in search window

All results are retrieved, and displayed in page view.

The entire contents of the glossary are displayed in paged view
The entire contents of the glossary are displayed in paged view

You can browse through the results, edit entries, delete entries, and so on. Incidentally, for this demonstration I used the Felix glossary created from the EDICT Japanese-English glossary file.