Studio 2014, whilst containing many significant user enhancements, also brought with it some significant additions to the technology platform available to developers.
These enhancements provide a developer with the ability to extend or customise the user interface… so change the way Studio looks and is used… and it also allows a developer to create custom functionalities that they can add into the interface as if they were part of the application itself. Actually once added they are indeed part of the application!
CodingBreeze… the developer who brought us AnyTM and MT AutoSuggest… is ahead of the game and he has created the first OpenExchange available plugins that take advantage of this capability. BeGlobal AutoSuggest was the first and this gives you an additional option in your AutoSuggest settings that provides suggestions in the target language as you type. Out of the box you have this with AutoSuggest Dictionaries, Terms from your MultiTerm Termbases and from AutoText… but now by using the new API you can also have suggestions coming from BeGlobal.
This is really cool because the quality (for supported language pairs) of suggestions is excellent as Machine Translation is particularly useful for short sentences.
So you have this additional option shown here after installing the plugin. I’m not going to elaborate on this now as this post is about his second plugin that was released to the OpenExchange today… Bookmarks Studio Plugin! I’m particularly pleased to see this for a couple or three reasons. The first is that I see users asking how to mark where they were in a translation all the time, so this is great for anyone who wants this. The second reason is that this shows how we can expect to see other providers, like ApSIC Xbench for example, use this capability to enhance their own products when working with SDLXLIFF. The third reason is the most exciting, and this is because I think we can expect to see many developers fully integrating their existing external applications, or creating functions and integrations they only thought of in the past… and they will all be able to work seamlessly within the Studio environment… I love that!
Bookmarks Studio Plugin
So, what is this plugin and how does it work? Well the installation will add some new items to your ribbon in a few views… the options in each view vary a little, so you won’t get Add bookmark in the Projects View for example as there is no file open, but they cover these options:
This image was taken from the Advanced Ribbon when I have a file open for translation and the options provide me with the ability to do the following by clicking on the icons or using a defined shortcut.
Add bookmark
This allows me to add a bookmark with a comment for the current segment so that I can easily recognise it and come back to that segment at a later date.
Go to last segment
This is one of two default bookmarks that automatically remember where you last were. So clicking on this icon will open the file you last worked on at the segment you last reached. No need to add a bookmark at all for this… it happens by default.
Go to last segment in project
This is the other default bookmark and it’s particularly useful if you are working on multiple Projects. This allows you to automatically open the file and segment you were last in for that particular Project. So you activate the Project and click on the icon… and again you don’t have to remember to mark this segment as the plugin tracks these locations automatically.
Bookmark settings
There is only one setting, which is to automatically jump to the segment you were last working on when opening a document… or not! But the note provides a useful reminder that it is possible to have Studio automatically open the last file you worked on when starting up. So if you use this new Bookmarks plugin you can have the added benefit of having the file and segment open exactly where you left off whenever you restart Studio!
View Bookmarks
This is probably the workhorse view of the plugin. If you click on the icon to View bookmarks then you are presented with a new view that can be placed anywhere you like using the built in windows commands.
This is really neat because you can add, edit, delete and navigate through your bookmarks in a really simply way and this navigation tool can be accessed from the Projects, Files and Editor views of Studio. In addition, if your bookmark list is a busy one then you can also filter the display to only the files you are working on, or all the files in the current Project for example.
I think this is an excellent addition to the OpenExchange and is also a great example of the sort of thing that is possible using the integration API in the Studio Platform. I’m looking forward to seeing what’s next!
Finally… just in case you missed the link in the article this is where you can find it – Bookmarks Studio Plugin!
Great stuff! Somehow I’ve missed BeGlobal AutoSuggest, which sounds really useful. But for some reason, although it’s now listed as a Studio plug-in, I can’t get it listed under AutoSuggest providers. Do you have any idea why?
Hi Mats, two possible reasons I think. The original version would only work on Studio Professional… CU2 for Studio 2014 has resolved that problem. The other possibility is that you also need to have the latest version of BeGlobal AutoSuggest released yesterday I think (possibly not updated on the OpenExchange yet but definitely available from CodingBreeze) that takes advantage of CU2.
And of course you need to have an API key from BeGlobal for this to work but I guess you’ve done that bit?
Thanks, Paul, for your suggestions. The problem is identified but not solved: for reasons unknown I cannot update my Studio to the CU2 “version”. (The automatic update failed, as do all my attempts at manual updates.)
Hi Mats, I think if I was you I’d do this. First uninstall Studio 2014 completely (I’ll mail you on this as you were on the Beta) and then download the full version from your account and start again. Updating CUs is not normally a problematic area.
Hi
I used to read your posts and it revealed very useful; but I have a question I can’t find any answer searching on google, maybe you would be so kind to help me.
Is there a way to ask Trados to analyse the documents excluding numbers?
Well, if you could help me I would be grateful,
Thanks
Virginia
Hi Virginia, yes. The easiest way is to lock all the number only segments (I assume these are what you’re referring to) and then exclude locked segments from the analysis.
I also assume by “Trados” you’re referring to “SDL Trados Studio”?
Regards
Paul
Hmm, I’ve just started playing around with Bookmarks in Studio (2017), but to be honest, I can’t see the point, when we already have Comments. What would be a use case to use Bookmarks instead of just using Comments?
Michael
I guess the fact you have a separate view in the Project View where you can see all your bookmarks in one place, across all projects. So now you can quickly go to whatever project you wish, to the right place, once you have the info you were waiting on for example. Comments won’t support this as they are only in the files when you open them. You can also have Studio start at a specific location in your bookmark settings… might be useful sometimes.
Nothing earth shattering here, but I do think they have a place.