memoQ 6.0.55: The Great Leap Forward with a Client API

Yesterday in the Yahoogroups forum, Kilgray's COO quietly announced the release of a new build of memoQ, which contains some very significant additions and improvements.

Important: memoQ 6.0.55 released 
Mon Sep 3, 2012 12:12 pm (PDT). Posted by: "Istvan Lengyel" 

Hi All, 

Sorry for the long silence since the previous memoQ build - we had something in the making. memoQ 6.0.55 was uploaded to our website today, you can download and install it. This build now supports 64-bit installation, however, we have an issue with AutoUpdate which we may or may not be able to solve (it's third-party software), so for the time being you have to install 6.0.55 yourself from the website, and it may remain so in the future if we can't fix this. Therefore AutoUpdate is not available for an indefinite amount of time. Besides numerous bugfixes, there is new functionality added: 

• - the long-awaited SDLXLIFF filter, 
• - a client-side API - only for users of the project manager edition (hello Paul :)), 
• - on the server side, the possibility to use FirstAccept from content-connected projects. 

We did not release this as a new version as the number of features does not qualify for a full new upgrade. I hope it will meet your expectations. 

István 

There were actually many other improvements; a great number of fixes to bugs in the concordance and LiveDocs, which were driving me nuts. Also, the performance for importing very large XLIFF files (think EU DGT scale!) was improved by an order of magnitude, though to see the full benefit one needs a 64-bit operating system and lots of RAM.

The SDLXLIFF filter should be helpful to the many memoQ users who translate files created in SDL Trados Studio. It has been possible to read this format since it first appeared using thestandard XLIFF filter, but this new filter offers better results.

I am particularly excited by possibilities offered by the new client application programming interface (API). This will enable certain functions of memoQ to be run from other applications, even when memoQ is not active. Available features include analysis and TM functions; I've seen three simple lines of macro code in Microsoft word that will export a memoQ TM to TMX, for example. I think this will lead to many interesting extensions of memoQ functionality and automation. Note that the API is only available in the Project Manager edition, but the additional cost of that version is less than I paid for my Déjà Vu X Workgroup upgrade years ago, and for those who work with multiple target languages or who need additional features for outsourcing and collaboration, an upgrade to memoQ Project Manager makes sense anyway.

And who knows? With rumors of SaaS resources for memoQ on the horizon, I can imagine more reasons to upgrade from memoQ Translator Pro.

Addendum: The documentation for the Client API is found at C:\ProgramData\MemoQ\SDK

Polish colleague Marek Pawelec also commented in the Yahoogroups list:

I'm happy to report that in version 6.0.55 you can import .sdlxliff files with mapping segment states without any hassle (see SDLXLIFF tab in filter settings) and if appropriate option is selected (States tab, Map memoQ states to XLIFF states on export, select SDLXLIFF in Source drop-down), memoQ states are properly mapped back to Studio states.

memoQ 6 desktop: working with other memoQ users

The best methods for memoQ desktop editions to work with other memoQ users are influenced by the versions of the software you and others use. If these versions are compatible, project information can be shared fully, including previews and status settings for the translation. Otherwise, many of the compromises of working with other translation environments apply.

Bilingual exchange files

Bilingual exchange files are generated via Project home > Translations > Export bilingual. If the other person also uses memoQ 6, the best and "friendliest" option is to create a memoQ XLIFF and include the skeleton and preview. The "skeleton" allows target files to be created. For earlier versions of memoQ, a simple XLIFF with the extension changed to XLF or one of the other bilingual formats will do. In memoQ 6, bilinguals are imported using the Import command (and are recognized automatically); in earlier versions, the Import/update bilingual command is used. The tags will always be respected.

If the bilingual DOC format is used for exchange, the finished work must be exported via Export bilingual. Other export commands produce monolingual target documents. The least complicated format to use for users of memo 4.2 to 5.0 is the two-column RTF.

Version 6 TMs and termbases are fully compatible with Version 5 of memoQ, and data can be exchanged with all versions via TMX and delimited formats.

Project backups

A fully configured project with all settings, translation files, TMs, termbases and corpora can be sent by creating a backup. On the memoQ Dashboard, select the project and click Backup selected. Warning: backup files can be very large, so you might want to detach very big TMs first, for example. And of course this requires the same version of memoQ to be used.

Handoff packages (PM version only)

If translations have been assigned by name in Project home > Translations, handoff packages for translators and reviewers, including necessary resources, can be created after running a check on Project home > Overview > General > Handoff checks.This, too, requires the same version of memoQ.

Another point to consider: memoQ versions 5 and 6 can co-exist on the same desktop computer, so if you need to continue working with clients who have the version 5 server, for example, there is little to stand in the way of upgrading to version 6. The only real difficulty might arise if you want to attach corpora you have migrated; this may require restoring the LiveDocs corpora from the backup of the old version or creating a new one.

memoQuickie: "compatible" XLIFF in memoQ 6, 6.2 and 2013

The recent builds of memoQ 6 have caused some confusion with Kilgray following the SDL practice of creating its own extension for XLIFF files, so these may not be recognized by other applications and would need the extensions changed to XLF or something else generally recognizable as XLIFF.

This can actually be done directly in the export dialog for the bilingual XLIFF file. Just change the file extension in the File name field. Despite a renamed extension, the file will be recognized as a memoQ bilingual when re-imported, and the translation of the original file will be updated.

If you encounter a compressed memoQ XLIFF export (MQXLZ), be aware that this is just a ZIP file. Rename the extension to ZIP and unpack it to get the real XLIFF (MQXLIFF) file. That file has a generic name (document.mqxliff) and should probably be renamed before it is shared.

Update 2013-07-23: Here is a short video I posted on YouTube to show how to export an XLF file and open it in SDL Trados Studio: