I’ve just released version 1.1 of Align Assist.
Download the latest version here.
This is a bug-fix release. It fixes a bug whereby one of the Align Assist data files became corrupt.
Align Assist is a free tool that aligns legacy translations to create Felix translation memories.
I’ve just released version 1.3 of Memory Serves.
Download the latest version here.
This new version has greatly improved performance, as well as two new features: search and replace, and an admin interface
Memory Serves is now much faster and more responsive. In the previous versions, performance would drop markedly with very large translation memories, but version 1.3 is up to 10 times faster.
Memory Serves has a powerful new search and replace feature, making it easy to explore and maintain your translation memories and glossaries. See the section on Search and Replace in the manual for details.
A new admin interface allows you to create and manage user accounts, view logs, and configure Memory Serves preferences. See the section on the Admin Interface for details.
Memory Serves is a free program for sharing Felix translation memories and glossaries over a LAN or VPN. Using Memory Serves, a group of translators can share their TMs and glossaries in real time, ensuring consistency and quality of translations.
I’ve just released version 1.2 of Memory Serves.
Download the latest version here.
In addition to some minor bug fixes (like a problem adding records with non-ascii characters in the context field), version 1.2 of Memory Serves includes a new program called Memory Importer:
Uploading large memories or glossaries to Memory Serves would sometimes cause a time out error; you can use this application to import your translation memory (.ftm/.xml) and glossary (*.fgloss/.xml) files into Memory Serves, without worrying about time outs.
To launch Memory Importer, go to the Start menu, then select All Programs >> Memory Serves >> Memory Importer.
Next, simply select a memory or glossary file, then click Import. You can also edit the meta information about the memory, such as the source language, creator, or client, or add notes about the memory.
Note that you have to run Memory Importer on the computer where Memory Serves is installed. It can’t import memories over the network (yet).
Memory Serves is a free application that shares Felix translation memories and glossaries over a local network, allowing multiple translators to share their TMs/glossaries in real time. Translations added to the memory by one translator are available to the other translators instantly.
This is great when several translators are working on the same project, when you have a company-wide standard glossary, or any time you need to share a memory/glossary that is still being added to.
Memory Serves creates a Web server on your local machine using the open-source cherrypy framework. This server is visible within your LAN or VLAN only; it’s not visible to the entire Internet. The IP address it uses is that of your own computer.
I’ve just released version 0.5 of Align Assist.
This is a minor update, with several minor new features and improvements, such as the ability to display the log file.
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.
Version 1.3 of Felix has been released. This release contains a large number of bug fixes and usability enhancements. Two of the main enhancements in this new version are Properties dialogs for the PowerPoint and Excel interfaces. I also took the opportunity to squash a bunch of small bugs that have been building up over the past few months.
You can see a full list of improvements here.
You can download the latest version of Felix here.
I’m planning the next release (version 1.4) for around mid-October. This will be the release that includes translation history files (similar to “bilingual files” in Trados-speak, but saved as separate files in a transparent format).
In between that time, I’m planning on adding improvements to three existing tools: Analyze Assist (analyzing files against TMs), Count Anything (which provides word and character counts for many different file types), and Align Assist (which is currently retired), as well as a first stab at a macro interface for Open Office Writer.
Version 1.1 of Felix is released. This is a minor release with several usability enhancements and bug fixes. It’s available from the Felix download page. Below is a list of improvements and bug fixes in this version.
The improvements and bug fixes are described in detail below. There will be one more minor release in June, followed by development of a network feature for Felix.
The layout of the memory window has been revamped and improved for better usability. Below are some examples of the new look.
No matches
Added new entry
100% match
(Since this is a 100% match, there’s no need to show the query — it’s identical to the source)
Fuzzy match
The memory window style sheet and layout templates have been moved to external files. This will allow them to be customized. For example, one Felix user had a very large monitor, and the match text appeared too small. By modifying the stylesheet (style.css), he was able to increase the text size and improve visibility.
The files are located in the local application data folder. The location of this folder will differ depending on whether you’re using Windows XP or Vista.
Vista: C:\Users\user-name\AppData\Local\Felix\html\
XP: C:\Documents and Settings\user-name\Local Settings\Application Data\Felix\html\
Felix has two matching algorithms for fuzzy matching: character-based and word-based. The character-based algorithm is best for Asian languages where words aren’t separated by spaces, while the word-based algorithm is best for European and other languages where they are.
Before, the user had to select the best algorithm themselves, but now Felix selects the best algorithm automatically by default. You can still select the algorithm manually in the preferences.
To simplify the interface, the choice of glossary-matching algorithms was removed. Felix now uses a special algorithm fine-tuned for glossary searches.
When registering glossary entries in the dialog box, extra spaces were often spuriously added to glossary entries. These extra spaces are now trimmed automatically.
The option to toggle markup (showing where the query and source are different) on and off was not being saved between lookups, making the user select again each time. Now the selection is remembered.
In version 1.0, the glossary-related tool tips were being shown for the memory window (for example, the tool tip for the “New” toolbar button was “Create a new glossary file.” Now the correct memory-related tooltips are shown.
In version 1.0, even if the UI language was switched, tool tips were sometimes displayed in the previous UI language. Now the tool tip language is also switched in all cases.
The Memory and Glossary preference sheets had different labels for the same features (normalizing case, width, and hiragana/katakana for searches). The same labels are now used.
If you try to look up or register a very long segment (> 1,000 characters) in MS Word, a dialog box will ask if you really want to do this. In version 1.0, answering “No” in the dialog box would sometimes not completely cancel the action.