| موضوع میں صفحات: < [1 2 3] | Are there any CAT freeware tools available? دھاگا پوسٹ کرنے والے: Jorge Gonza
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| Philosophical | Jan 3, 2009 |
The point of my "comparatively innocuous statement" was not to insult anyone but rather to point out that depending on various circumstances free things or services are not always welcome by everyone. For example, some translators would not feel comfortable working along those who are hobbists in their vicinity. It did not criticize anyone or anything. It did not say anything about the quality of the product or the people behind it. It merely tried to show that our "free lunch" may have some con... See more The point of my "comparatively innocuous statement" was not to insult anyone but rather to point out that depending on various circumstances free things or services are not always welcome by everyone. For example, some translators would not feel comfortable working along those who are hobbists in their vicinity. It did not criticize anyone or anything. It did not say anything about the quality of the product or the people behind it. It merely tried to show that our "free lunch" may have some consequences as well as the very expensive one. It's more a question of philosophy and the times we live in. So frankly Mark, I do not understand your indignation as the power of your response shows. Besides, I do not find a definiton of a zealot to be offensive. Yes, I know it has a few meanings but the one I meant was "someone who is ardently devoted to a particular subject or activity", which is not a bad thing after all. Wishing all the best in the New Year to you and everyone in this forum, too ▲ Collapse
| | | | | OmegaT and the interface to the Dark Side | Jan 3, 2009 |
Marc P wrote:
... the CAT tool that I personally am happiest to use.
Thanks for the interesting overview, Marc. It inspired me to take a look at the project pages and do a little research on the tool to see whether it might be worth including in some interoperability guidelines I'm working on.
However, with regard to the challenge frequently faced by users of "other" tools, there doesn't seem to be any way of dealing directly with Trados-segmented files of any kind. Have I overlooked something?
I'm not interested at all in the pseudocompatibilities of TMX exchange nor with debating what is a standard and what is not. I would simply like to know if an average translator without a computer science degree can install OmegaT on his/her PC (under any OS, I don't care) and translate a Trados pre-segmented TTX or RTF/DOC file provided by a client without performing any cabalistic transformations with may compromise the integrity of the file.
| | | | Marc P (X) 
Local time: 07:55
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| OmegaT and the interface to the Dark Side | Jan 3, 2009 |
Kevin Lossner wrote:
However, with regard to the challenge frequently faced by users of "other" tools, there doesn't seem to be any way of dealing directly with Trados-segmented files of any kind. Have I overlooked something?
No, you haven't overlooked anything. OmegaT supports neither uncleaned RTF, nor TTX format.
There is at least one very geeky hack to support the former, and there has been some discussion within the project about supporting the latter. I suspect it is quite feasible, but of course someone has to implement it, and our developers are all volunteers. I'm not going to trot out the "it's open source so if you want it, you can program it yourself" mantra - I'm not a zealot - but it is worth considering that if the demand were there, one of our developers or an external developer could perhaps be paid to develop this kind of functionality within OmegaT. (This is pure speculation, since I don't know what level of work is involved.) In truth, the demand doesn't seem to be strong enough; those who want that level of interoperability generally go elsewhere (or in some cases use different products depending upon the situation); others, like me, don't have customers with Trados.
Trados interoperability was one reason why I bought Heartsome, but I've never had the time, never mind the inclination, to get to grips with Heartsome just for the sake of being able to do "Trados jobs".
Marc
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Marc P wrote:
No, you haven't overlooked anything. OmegaT supports neither uncleaned RTF, nor TTX format.
There is at least one very geeky hack to support the former, and there has been some discussion within the project about supporting the latter.
Thank you for clearing that up, Marc. Geeky hacks aren't something I like to recommend; if some reasonable facility for the latter were developed, I'm sure it would find use, but as you say, it's hard to coordinate that in a volunteer effort. However, the fact that this feature is included in a very large number of alternative commercial products may be taken as some indication of its importance I think, as well as evidence that it doesn't require any unique genius to do it.
If some fire-breathing "zealot" really wants to advance the cause in a bloodless way, TTX interoperability would probably be among the Greatest Leaps Forward. It would certainly be a great help to those hapless souls who feel no alternative but to submit to the Dark Side. Any other alternatives I might suggest involve spending money, sometimes even more than for a Trados license.
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| I have no idea what you mean to say there | Jan 3, 2009 |
Robert Tucker wrote:
FarkasAndras wrote:
If a company can't make a better product than hobbyists...
With reference to Microsoft
After reading the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics ... Gates contacted Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) ... to inform them that he and others were working on a BASIC interpreter for the platform.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates#Microsoft
Popular Electronics was a magazine started by Ziff-Davis Publishing in October 1954 for hobbyist and experimenters in electronics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Electronics
With reference to Google:
From humble beginnings in a garage in California's Menlo Park, the company is now one of the most recognised brands in the world
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7599342.stm
Yes, some of the biggest and most successful IT companies started from scratch. Actually, all companies did at some point.
But AFAIK they didn't start as non-commercial hobby projects so I don't see why you posted these links.
Are you agreeing with me or trying to debate the point?
| | | | Samuel Murray
نیدر لینڈ
Local time: 07:55
رکن (2006)
افریکانسسےانگریزی
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| TTX specification | Jan 3, 2009 |
Kevin Lossner wrote:
TTX interoperability would probably be among the Greatest Leaps Forward.
Can you give me a URL for the TTX specification, Kevin?
I'm always extremely skeptical about any program that offers interoperability with a format that doesn't have its specification published somewhere, for I suspect (perhaps unfairly) that the interoperability may be based on guesswork and a measure of reverse engineering.
| | | | Vito Smolej
جرمنی
Local time: 07:55
رکن (2004)
سلوویائیسےانگریزی
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SITE LOCALIZER | TTX interoperability | Jan 3, 2009 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
Can you give me a URL for the TTX specification, Kevin?
www.sdl.com (sg)
Please note that
i) the specification is "what TagEditor understands"
ii) keep your credit card handy if you want to learn more
otoh - here's the VBA code from plusToyz (c) Alex Visotski) for TTX to bilingual DOC or RTF:
Sub cnvTTX2Seg()
Dim tagname As String, tagvalue As String, MatchRate As String
Dim tagnum As Integer, i As Integer
Dim ok As Boolean
Dim curlyquotes As Boolean
OpenDoc "*.ttx", True, True
' and other introductory blah blah
do
' now to some real blah blah for every bilingual segment
Loop
' finalizing blah blah
End Sub
I mean, it works even without any special Regex libraries etc.
See my profile for the URL to PlusToyz.
| | | | | Free Software | Jan 4, 2009 |
Marc P wrote:
Most Windows users also use free software: Adobe Reader, for instance, can probably be found on most translators' hard drives.
Marc, Adobe Reader is not Free Software but freeware. Adobe Reader doesn't comply at all with all of the software freedoms:
* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
* The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
* The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
Igork wrote:
The whole disussion about free software makes me wonder how would those free translation software zealots react if some generous individual, hobbist - translator set up an office next to theirs and started the translation job for free, for pleasure, for "greater good".
Igork, I am a professional translator and a so-called "Free Software zealot" and I translate for free for Free Software projects, for the greater good. One of the applications I'm translating is OmegaT+ That doesn't stop me from charging good money for other translations.
By the way, Free Software hackers aren't just some hippies that code all day without getting paid. Most Free Software hackers are on the payroll of important companies such as Sun, Novell, Red Hat and Google.
[Edited at 2009-01-04 05:57 GMT]
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Robert Tucker (X)
برطانیہ
Local time: 06:55
انگریزیسےجرمن
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| Commerce, hobbyists, open source | Jan 4, 2009 |
FarkasAndras wrote:
Yes, some of the biggest and most successful IT companies started from scratch. Actually, all companies did at some point.
But AFAIK they didn't start as non-commercial hobby projects so I don't see why you posted these links.
Are you agreeing with me or trying to debate the point?
I think I was in fact mostly questioning the relevance of your reference to hobbyists. I believe many companies have started by people making a full time living out of their hobbies and many successful products have started out in hobbyists' workshop either by design or accident.
In my opinion the most important thing to remember about open source software is that the source code must be published so that other people are free to go on and develop it further. This it seems to me offers a very efficient way of developing software compared to one in which code is kept private and anyone wanting to develop a similar product has to start completely from scratch. Currently, commercially, I realize companies have to decide whether buying licences for ready-made closed code software is best for their situation or whether it's paying developers to work on open source code to develop a product specifically for their own needs (which, of course, then needs to be published and be available for others who can see to make further developments). The fact that people create programs in their spare-time and that open source code has to be published for free use is, of course, a bonus for those not able or wishing to spend a great deal on software. But yet again there is another advantage in that if many people use this software, industry and commerce has a ready pool of people already able to work with the software they need to use at work.
As far as OpenOffice and MS Office and related CAT tools is concerned, my feeling is that if someone or a company wants to buy MS Office in preference to OpenOffice they should know why they are doing so, rather than blindly follow others. If their only reason for buying MS Office is for compatibility with other people using it, then is seems to me clear evidence that the dominance of Microsoft is too strong. Though one has to recognize Microsoft's pioneering endeavour in the commercial field, I question that a single company should be allowed to continue to hold so much dominance. Most of the CAT tools mentioned in this thread are very capable of working with OpenOffice documents – I don't see what your point is about whether they have been created by hobbyists (even if those "hobbyists" are complete professionals in programming or linguistics) or by small or large companies.
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I question that a single company should be allowed to continue to hold so much dominance.
I am disturbed by the word "allowed" here. On the one hand, I do own MS Office mainly because of compatibility with my customers, and I am not overly happy about it; on the other hand, what methods of "disallowing" do you have in mind?
Antonin
[Edited at 2009-01-04 13:13 GMT]
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Would you go to one who insisted on using equipment better known for its price tag than its functionality?
... I wouldn't expect price to come into the equation at all.
| | | | | Absolutely... | Jan 4, 2009 |
Mulyadi Subali wrote:
i believe most people would agree that firefox is one of the best browser, if not the best. it's a freeware.
... but you go for it because it's the best, not just because it's free.
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Robert Tucker (X)
برطانیہ
Local time: 06:55
انگریزیسےجرمن
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Antonín Otáhal wrote:
I question that a single company should be allowed to continue to hold so much dominance.
I am disturbed by the word "allowed" here. On the one hand, I do own MS Office mainly because of compatibility with my customers, and I am not overly happy about it; on the other hand, what methods of "disallowing" do you have in mind?
Antonin [Edited at 2009-01-04 13:13 GMT]
I think people have an almost instinctive drive towards freedom and that consumer choice will ultimately move the market towards one where the choice is between what products can do working to a common standard.
I read recently that the idea of using a word-processor to produce documents which in effect equate to something you could stuff into an envelope will soon be passing us by, and looked upon, I guess, something like we regard calligraphy today. Already it would seem to me, someone working on a company's now already very important web presence will probably have scant regard for the word-processor; where ECM and ERM packages do need to output something in printable form they are very likely to do so in PDF or give the option of MS Word or OpenOffice.
| | | | andress
یوکرین
Local time: 08:55
روسیسےانگریزی
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| It doesn't work now! | Jan 4, 2009 |
Mikhailo, there is 'Failed to Connect' here, etc.
| | | | esperantisto
Local time: 08:55
رکن (2006)
روسیسےانگریزی
+ ...
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