Month: October 2010

Categories
Felix

Latest development roadmap for Felix

As the new search and TM management features start to shape up in Felix, I want to give an updated roadmap for Felix development. Below are the main features/improvements I’m planning for the upcoming releases.

Please let me know if there’s something you want that’s not on the list, or if there’s a feature that’s especially important to you.

1.6 series (current series)

  • Improved search features
  • Improved memory management
  • QC features

1.7 series (early 2011)

  • Glossary placement
    (Automatically insert glossary translations)
  • Term extraction
    (Automatically extract glossary entries from TMs)
  • Template creation
    (Finding patterns/called “assembly” in Déjà Vu I think)
  • Rule-based glossary matching/placement
    (E.g. [\d\d億円] -> [\d.\d billion yen])

2.0 series (summer/fall 2011)

  • Plug-in framework
Categories
Align Assist Felix

Version 1.3 of Align Assist released

I’ve just released version 1.3 of Align Assist.

You can download the latest version here.

Wow, has it really been a year since version 1.2 was released? I had been neglecting Align Assist for a while, but fortunately some Align Assist users gave me good feedback, and spurred me to make some improvements. There are still a few things on my list, but I want to release the improvements so far now.

This is a good example of how the best way to get new features in your software is to tell the developers that you want them!

Below are the main improvements in this release.

  1. Default settings for TMs and records
  2. “Move To” command
  3. Improved Split function

1. Default settings for TMs and records

You can now set default values for translation memories and records. To set default values, in the Align window, from the Tools menu, select Defaults.

These default values will be saved in your Felix TM.

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2. “Move To” command

There is now a Move To command on the context menu. Right click a cell and select Move To from the menu, then enter a row number to move a cell to an arbitrary row.

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3. Improved Split function

The Split function (for splitting a segment into two segments) is now easier to use. Instead of cutting and pasting the text to split, you can just click in the text box where you want the segment to be split. The segment will be split at the location of the cursor.

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About Align Assist

Align Assist is a free (MIT license) utility for aligning legacy translations into translation memories. It supports a wide range of formats, and can create Felix and TMX memory files.

Categories
Felix release

Version 1.6.3 of Felix released

I’ve just released version 1.6.3 of Felix.

You can download the latest version here.

The main improvements and bug fixes in this version are as follows.

  1. Regular expressions allowed in Search window
  2. Manager action: Strip tags
  3. Manager action: Trim spaces
  4. Excel: Press escape key to halt long operations
  5. Excel: Hidden cells are not auto-translated
  6. Word: Press escape key to halt long operations
  7. Bug fix: Hiragana characters were not found in Search window


1. Regular expressions allowed in Search window

You can now use regular expressions in the Search window. To use a regular expression, prefix the query by the string “regex:”.

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2. Manager action: Strip tags

You can now batch strip all formatting tags from a TM or glossary from the Mangaer window.

To perform a batch action, go to the View or Browse page for the TM or glossary, and then click “Global Actions for {Memory Name}”.

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3. Manager action: Trim spaces

You can now trim surrounding spaces from the segments in a TM or glossary from the Mangaer window.

To perform a batch action, go to the View or Browse page for the TM or glossary, and then click “Global Actions for {Memory Name}”.

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4. Excel: Press escape key to halt long operations

In Excel, you can press the escape key to halt long operations: auto translation, adding glossaries, and adding memories.

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5. Excel: Hidden cells are not auto-translated

In Excel, hidden cells are no longer counted for auto translation

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6. Word: Press escape key to halt long operations

In Word, you can press the escape key to halt auto-translate actions

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7. Bug fix: Hiragana characters were not found in Search window

In the Search window, Hiragana characters were not found in some circumstances. This is now fixed.

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Categories
Felix tools

Some Word macros for use with Felix

There are two main ways to extend Felix: through scripting and customizing its templates.

I’m planning to set up a dedicated section of the website with useful scripts and macros for automating Felix. In the meantime, there are two that I recently wrote for Felix users.

HighlightGlossMatches

This Word macro will go through the current document, and highlight all terms for which there is a match in the currently loaded Felix glossaries.

Download HighlightGlossMatches

ReplaceGlossMatches

This Word macro will replace all the glossary matches in the current selection with their translations. It sorts the matches so that longer terms are replaced first.

Download ReplaceGlossMatches

To install one of the macros, first unzip it, and then from Word, press Alt + F11 to bring up the Visual Basic window. From Word 2007/2010, you could also go the the View ribbon, click Macros, and then click Create.

In the Visual Basic window, right click on Normal in the upper left window, select Import, and then import the unzipped macro module.

Incidentally, I’m also currently working on a tool that will make customizing the Felix templates easier. Stay tuned!