memoQ 2014 Release 2: beware of Hungarians bearing updates!

Just kidding, actually. Facebook groups are, of course a buzz with tales of bugs and crashes the day after Kilgray's milestone release, and in my own office I heard a flurry of curses behind me as my Portuguese translator discovered the "can't quit" bug that someone had written about. This was just a short time before I delivered the last files for one of the busiest weeks of translation I've been hit with in months, weeks where I decided to live dangerously and do all the work with the bleeding-edge beta for yesterday's release. For me it was actually a rather bloodless experience.

Sure, I saw bugs. Screen refresh weirdness in the first few beta builds and my favorite (non-lethal) quirk: multiple instances of memoQ web search. I guess the developers figured we can't get too much of a good thing!

Triple play, anyone?

I didn't write as much about this release as I intended to originally, partly because I was too busy, but also because I took a very different approach this time, using the beta opportunity to do a little informal psychological research to support some upcoming tutorials I'm working on to help people make a smooth transition to the new interface and cope better with the costly challenges of flipping between versions if required to by some projects (for example with conservatives who still use old memoQ servers.

Those who are not absolute newbies on the technology scene are well aware that the months after any release from any provider of translation technology are always a risky time for those eager to get started with a new version. The prudent advice to anyone is don't hurry. There's no use slamming Kilgray or SDL or anyone other firm for the inevitable bugs after any release, at least not until two or three months have passed and the version has put through the real-life wringer in a way no testing program can do. After that, fair game as far as I'm concerned. Those first months are usually a critical time in which many improvements not even anticipated by the designers occur. So regardless of the official line, people, for the next three months any of you using memoQ 2014 R2 are beta testers. And that's a good thing, a chance to participate in a good development process. SDL Trados Studio users, DVXn fans and everyone else are on more or less the same curve each time a big upgrade hits.

In my beta test over the past month I made few attempts to explore new features. Instead, I focused on my usual workflows to see how they felt in the new environment. As I indicated in my first blog post on this release I was not entirely comfortable after a week of work just with thew new version. And I'm still not. I am less productive than I want to be, because changing the translation environment interface is always a costly process associated with reduced productivity. This is why I am such a strong advocate of interoperability and tell people to go deep with their environment of choice and learn how to work with information prepared in other environments with just your favorite tool for maximum efficiency and better earnings if you work at full capacity.

What I have learned so far is that this learning curve will be longer and steeper for me than I anticipated. However, the Kilgray ribbon designs for the new memoQ are well-designed for the most time, and I can reason my way through them and find anything. It just takes time right now. So make the transition when you aren't going to be under the gun for a while. Kick the tires soon (you can install versions in parallel at no risk) but take it slow and easy. The trip may be long, but it is clearly worth it in the end for a design that will benefit most in the long run.

And focus on keyboard shortcuts. The more you depend on those, the easier your work will be in the months ahead. Stay tuned.

Finding resources on Kilgray's Language Terminal

Kilgray’s online platform for translation, Language Terminal at https://www.languageterminal.com/, may be a game-changer in many ways. Not only does it offer affordable, on-demand memoQ translation server capacity for small teams on demand, it provides free InDesign server availability to users of any tool for converting InDesign formats to XLIFF and PDF for translation and review, back-up features fully integrated with recent versions of memoQ, some evolving project management and invoicing tools and a growing library of light resources shared by users. This post discusses how to find and use these resources, which can be useful in all supported versions of memoQ.

Accessing your account
The user menus of Language Terminal can be accessed in two ways: in a web browser from the URL above or from the link on your memoQ Dashboard.

If you are not already a Language Terminal user, a free account can be set up in just a few minutes.

Looking for resources
The current user interface for finding resources on Language Terminal is confusing to some users. The Resource menu link in the orange navigation bar shows a list of resources you have uploaded yourself to Language Terminal. The dropdown list indicated by the arrow filters your own resources. To find resources from other people, click the Advanced Search button.

There is nothing “advanced” about this search. It simply allows you to use four fields to find resources which are publicly available on the site. Be careful of your selection criteria for language as some resources (like auto-translation rules) are not language-specific by definition even if they might have been created for use with a particular language.

The result of the search for English stopword resources to be used in terminology extraction to filter out “noise” words (like prepositions, pronouns, articles and common vocabulary) looked like this at the time I performed the search:

Download the resources you want by clicking on their names in the Resource column. The shared library of filters, QA profiles, auto-translation rules, stopword lists and more on Language Terminal continues to grow. Why not contribute something yourself?

In any case, Language Terminal is a useful place to archive one’s valuable light resources, such as segmentation rules developed over time with great effort, and these are not shared with others unless you specifically release them. Given the occasional unfortunate “disappearances” of light resources known to occur with some memoQ upgrades, this is a very useful backup option to have, and it would be nice if future integration of Language Terminal and memoQ were to facilitate more complete, automated resource backups from desktop systems.

memoQuickie: keyboard shortcuts for migrants (updated)

(PM - Pro - 2013R2 - 2013 - 6.2 - 6.0 - 5.0)

You can adapt memoQ keyboard shortcuts to your personal preferences or to be ergonomically compatible with other translation environments tools you use frequently for better productivity and reduced risk of errors.

Although keyboard shortcuts can be managed in the Resource Console, it is more useful to do so under Tools > Options… > Keyboard shortcuts, because that is the only place where a given set of keyboard shortcuts can be selected for use. Marking the checkbox for a list in the dialog shown above will make it the active one.

Look carefully at the keyboard shortcuts available in memoQ. Not all of these commands are found in menus (for example, the shortcut for quick search with selected text in a translation grid, Ctrl+Shift+F by default). To examine a set of keyboard shortcuts, select it and click Edit to show the list.

To change a keyboard shortcut, select the value in the Shortcut key column of the editing dialog and press the new key combination.

memoQuickie: keyboard shortcuts for migrants

Sometimes I am asked what a particular keyboard shortcut is in memoQ. I usually answer, "I have no idea!" Why? Because as a former Déjà Vu user, I adapted my memoQ shortcuts to match DVX. Those who frequently switch applications to SDL Trados Studio or another tool can do the same for better productivity and ergonomics.

Select Tools > Resource Console... > Keyboard shortcuts. Select the default resource, then click Edit in the menu at the bottom of the dialog. This will allow you to create a "cloned" copy of the defaults, which may be edited to use the shortcuts you desire. Custom resources can be saved and exported for use on other computers.

Select the shortcut to change and type the alternative key combination

The alternative path to access keyboard shortcut resources is Tools > Options... > Keyboard shortcuts. Here you can select the active set of shortcuts.