1. A New Generation of Tools: Wordbee (Premium Content)
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In my early college days I lived in the historic German/Roman city of
Trier, but I never really warmed up to it as a place. (Perhaps it was the slow,
drawling German spoken there. This is where I really started to talk with a strong
Hamburg dialect as my own small -- and admittedly immature -- statement of
identity.) But I sure liked Trier's mighty neighbor, Luxemburg. (Luxemburg may
not often be described as "mighty," but its big city flair in
comparison to sleepy Trier seemed to suggest just that.)
That's why I'm happy to report on some interesting translation
technology coming out of Luxemburg: Wordbee. Wordbee
is a young, completely web-based translation environment tool (TEnT) in two
different editions (Team and Freelance) that offers a handful of
unique features, some that also exist in other tools but are surprisingly
mature in this one, and then some that its makers might need to tweak a little.
The basic concept behind Wordbee is a) the assumption that the
future of TEnTs is web-based and b) that the "control over data and
process should be provided in one tool" (a quote from one of the
developers I talked to), i.e., a TEnT with a translation environment that
includes robust project management capabilities which should not be
overwhelming and could be learned on the fly. These are fairly high
aspirations, but in some ways I can see why they are saying this.
Before we go any farther, however, let's talk about the finances: Since this is a web-based tool, you don't
purchase a license but you pay a usage fee according to the SaaS -- Software as
a Service -- concept. If you want to use it in a team environment, you can
purchase any number of floating licenses that you can pass between your team
members. A freelance license gives you space for 250 MB for documents and 250,000
segments in the TM; if you go beyond that you can buy more space or download
the data to your desktop. But if you want to just check things out, there is a
free trial period available.
In a recent newsletter I mentioned that we should not move faster than
technology really enables us, and one area I quoted was cloud-based computing. In
some areas of the world we can rely on fairly stable and ongoing connections, but
in other areas we can't. And even ninety-nine point something percent uptime
sounds great only when you are not on the other side of that number (the point
something) -- and especially right before your delivery deadline. Still, the fact
is that things seem to be moving in that direction, and it's probably not
surprising that many of these tools come from within the EU. Not only are some EU
translation organizations interested in finding cloud-based translation
technology solutions, but most member states boast a robust Internet infrastructure.
And then there are other aspects that can only be achieved with a
cloud-based solution. Think of crowdsourcing -- one area in which Wordbee
is trying to make some inroads (thus "Wordbee"). But rather
than looking at crowdsourcing as a process with a large undefined mass (à la Facebook
or Twitter), it uses the principles of crowdsourcing in a professional
environment: In-house translators and project managers subscribe to RSS feeds where
new projects are announced and then locked once a translator claims them.
One feature that is amazingly strong in this tool is the translation
user interface. So far I have always praised XTM's online
translation interface as the best available, but after seeing Wordbee's,
I am glad to concede that it should have that badge of honor. As most of us know
only too painfully, online interfaces are notoriously hard to build. They often
rely on the mouse, have very few or no shortcut menus, or are so filled up with
random options and buttons that they are very hard to navigate. Wordbee's
translation interface is different. Keyboard shortcuts can be assigned and
customized to a total of 26 different commands; you can find right-click
access to shortcut menus in many different areas of the program; and the
translation view (in tabular format) along with the TM, dictionary (many preconfigured
online dictionaries), preview (presently only implemented for HTML), comments,
and revision history (!) panes are also freely configurable.
The translation process itself might need some work, however. Sending a
segment pair to the TM requires several steps when it should really be an
automatic procedure, and I was not able to find a way to add data on the fly to
the terminology database (perhaps there is a way, but I wasn't able to ask over
the weekend). On the plus side, there is an assemble process of existing
database chunks (similar to that of Déjà Vu or memoQ). The list
of supported document formats (MS Office 97-2007, InDesign CS3/CS4
[in the INDD and INX export formats], OpenOffice, RTF, XML, HTML-based
formats, as well as various other source code file formats, including .resx, c,
and Java files) is fairly impressive for a new tool, though I was disappointed
that the promised extraction of embedded files in MS Office formats did
not work for me.
I looked only at the Freelance version, so I cannot say much
about the project management aspect. The file management in the Freelance
edition confused me a bit at first but made a lot of sense after I doodled
around with it a little bit -- I assume that the same will be true for the
larger Team edition's project management components. They indeed seem to
have tried to keep the options rather minimalistic to avoid overpowering the
user.
One intriguing aspect of the product is this: You might argue all day
about the clever name, but Wordbee's makers wouldn't care. The product
is specifically geared toward customizability for whoever uses it, so you can
even "rename" the product and add your own label -- meaning that we might
see this tool within all kinds of third-party products and incarnations in
years to come.
Oh, and before I forget: As cool as the user interface is, it wouldn't
hurt to have a native English speaker go through it. Though it might lose some
of its Lëtzebuergesch charm, it could also provide a couple fewer stumbling
blocks.
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2. A New Generation of Tools: Crowdin.net (Premium Content)
| On to the next tool: I would like to introduce a man whose name has the most
occurrences of "y" of anyone I have ever met: Sergey Dmytryshyn. At
least the Latin version of this name is quite impressive! Sergey is one of the
folks behind a project that in itself is rather impressive as well: Crowdin.net.
Before I tell you more about it, just one more fact about the Crowdin.net
team: They are located in Ukraine. You may remember that I have pointed out
many times that Ukraine seems to be a hotbed for language-industry related
things (AIT, Practiline, TranslationDirectory.com -- check
out links to some of TD.com's surveys in my Twitter feed --
and now Crowdin.net).
I had a long chat with Sergey about his site and tool, but let me tell
you first about the tool itself.
Crowdin.net is a (so
far) free platform for the translation of a number of software file formats in
a crowdsourced environment. As of now, GNU gettext .po, iPhone/MacOS X
.strings, Qt .ts, Android, BlackBerry, Symbian, .resx, Java .properties, and
Delphi DKLang files are supported, but there are plans to support other formats
also (you can actually vote for other file formats). The concept is this: After you register, you
can create a project in which you can upload any number of the supported file
types and create groups of translators (there is a page where you can invite
them). You can also mark your project as open for everyone, in which case
others can find your project and send you a message asking you for permission
to translate. Once the accepted translator logs in, he or she can see the list
of files in his or her language combination, open them (the software code is hidden
and only the translatable text will be displayed), and start to translate.
During the translation, the translator will be shown three different kinds of
matches: MT matches from the Google and Microsoft MT engines (at
least in my language combination, the MS engine performed notably better -- not
surprising since IT data makes up a lot of what that engine is trained from)
and translation memory matches.
The TM concept is quite a bit different than in most other tools. Rather
than having individual TMs for every project, there is only one large TM for
every language combination (if applicable) from which all data is read and into
which all data that is translated is written into. Currently there are about
150 languages supported, many of which already hold very large amounts of
software translation-related data. (English has more than a million strings; Arabic,
Catalan, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian,
Italian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Turkish, and Ukrainian have between half a
million and a million; and even languages like Xhosa, Zulu, Afrikaans, and Macedonian
have at least 100,000 strings. It's impossible to tell what languages those
languages are matched with, but in many cases it is naturally English.) The
data right now comes from translations of open-source software (I specifically
asked whether they also used the Microsoft TMs, which Sergey emphatically
denied) so the quality is a mixed bag, but that's what you get for now. When
you translate you can select one of the TM (if available) or MT matches or type
in your own translation and then "suggest" it. All this is possible
with the help of (non-configurable) keyboard shortcuts. When you go back to a
segment that you already translated the target field will be empty again but
you can see your own translation in the Suggestions field where others
now can vote for or against it. A file can be exported at any stage and the
translations used will be the ones with the highest votes. As the project owner
you will continue to be informed about the project in the form of an RSS feed
you can subscribe to.
Interesting? I sure think so.
Here are some of the questions that I discussed with Sergey.
Presently the main target audience is developers of shareware or
open-source applications for whom it is unreasonable to go through the
traditional localization process (from the list of supported file formats you
can see that there is a particularly strong support for developers of mobile
applications). This group will always have free access to Crowdin.net,
but eventually (presumably in the summer) the tool will also be marketed to
service providers who will then have to pay a fee for its use. (Sergey: "I
think they are a solvent audience.")
While right now everything goes into one large public TM, there are some
thoughts about adding options to prevent the sharing of TMs -- which might be
an important feature if language providers are indeed going to use this.
Also, there is presently no way to filter data (such as filter OS-specific
terminology: Windows vs. Linux vs. Macintosh), and though this
was not in the plans before we talked, it may be now. ;-)
Presently, the only file types that are supported are software files
(see above), which of course is not going to be sufficient when other data such
as documentation, websites, or collateral materials needs to be translated.
While it is possible to convert text-based formats to .po files (in fact, the
site offers a host of conversion utilities for this), this also will not
suffice for everything so there are two options around this: translate within Crowdin.net
and export a project-specific TMX file (planned for the near future) or for Crowdin.net
to support XLIFF and translate all kinds of format that way (vaguely planned).
I would encourage you to go to Sergey's site and poke around. It has a
very attractive user interface, and while it's not quite as streamlined in the
translation interface as Beetext (and there are some real hiccups in the
project management interface), it works just fine.
(Oh, and just to be fair, while someone is proofreading Beetext,
it would not hurt to do the same for Crowdin.net.)
So are these the tools of the future? No idea. I do think it's fantastic
that our industry continues to be interesting enough for developers to
continually come up with new solutions, and in these two cases solutions that
respond with a very creative approach to current developments, such as
crowdsourcing.
And while we're speaking of current developments in crowdsourcing, Twitter just announced its leading crowdsource translators for German, French, Spanish, Italian, and
Indonesian -- and you will be hard-pressed to find any professional translators
among them.
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3. Pin the Tail on the
Donkey
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I am sure that those of you who are not using Windows 7 get a
little tired of "Windows 7" tips left and right. The fact is, though,
it's a pretty good operating system, and if you are still using Windows
now and plan to use it in the future, you will at some point also use Windows
7.
One of the areas that has been completely overhauled is the taskbar
area. The QuickLaunch area -- the little strip to the right of the Start
button -- has been sort of merged with the taskbar: you now "pin"
shortcuts to applications directly on the taskbar. At the same time, the usefulness
of these shortcuts has been extended significantly.
Windows 7 also introduced
the "jump lists." These are accessible through most of the
application icons (the shortcuts) on the taskbar or icons on the Start
menu if you right-click the taskbar shortcut or hold your mouse over the Start
menu link. With some applications these jump lists give you quick access to application-specific
properties, but most applications just offer you a list of the most recent documents
or websites you had open -- very, very handy. And there is nothing easier than
pinning an application shortcut to the taskbar. Right-click on any .exe file
and select Pin to Taskbar (alternatively, you can also select Pin to
Start Menu); or you can right-click the taskbar icon of any open
application and select that same command; or you can just drag it to the
taskbar. To unpin, just right-click again and select, you guessed it, Unpin the
program from Taskbar. Why do I spend all this space talking about this
feature? I've recently worked in a number of projects with an uncommon
combination of necessary tools and I found it super-helpful to create these
little shortcuts just for the duration of the project and delete (unpin) them
once the projects were done. So there.
And while we are talking about those buttons on the taskbar: the most
logical way to open them may be to use the mouse, but there also keyboard
shortcuts: WinKey+T selects the
first of the buttons and then cycles through the rest; alternatively, the WinKey + <number> selects the icon
that corresponds to the number (1 for the first, 2 for the second -- you get
the picture).
Oh, and one more thing: If you need to open a second instance of a
program (like a second browser window or a second instance of Excel) but
you only have that icon that has now been replaced with an
"open-look" icon, you can click on it with the middle mouse key (typically
the wheel) or, if you don't have one, press Shift
and click.
Oh, and ONE MORE thing: Nah, let's do that in
the next newsletter.
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4.
Open Up Your Mouth and Feed It!
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I'm sure it would be fun to play with an iPad. But after reading
several reviews I was depressed to realize that the one truly distinguishing
factor between the iPad and a laptop is this: the iPad is to
consume, the laptop is to produce (and to consume). I think this is a rather sad
commentary on society: We look at computers increasingly as consumers (of
games, multimedia, music, etc.) and tend to forget that this really is more or
less incidental to computing -- which, as the term itself implies, denotes
something proactive and productive.
So, on that note, let's get right down to two productivity tools, one of
which is only in the concept stage while the other actually exists.
The flip-flop mouse, literally a mouse that is worn like a
flip-flop and is clicked with your toes, was developed (in concept) for folks
who can't use their arms -- but I think it would be a fantastic productivity
tool for just about anyone who is tired of taking his or her hands off the
keyboard all the time.
And, yes, there are also some foot-mice (and, I hate to admit it, but
"mouses" would be grammatically correct here as well!) that actually
are for sale. These, which Naomi de Moraes pointed out to me (no pun intended), are
actually NOT pointing devices but foot pedals that can be programmed to "replace
repetitive keystrokes or mouse clicks with the action of your foot. Enter, Tab, Shift, Ctrl, Alt... anything
you can type on the keyboard can be memorized," including keyboard
shortcuts. I sometimes struggle with using my hands in certain ways -- these
might be good productivity tools for those times. (Or for times when I just
want to wiggle my toes a little more.)
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| The Last Word on the Tool Kit | |
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