ApSIC Tools Weblog

Shortly after the release for Xbench 3.0 of the Korean spell-checking dictionary a few days ago, we’ve added spell-checking support for 14 more languages based on Hunspell dictionaries.

Languages added in this batch are:

• Bosnian
• English (Australia)
• English (Canada)
• English (South Africa)
• Galician
• Hindi
• Irish
• Kazakh
• Scottish Gaelic
• Swahili (Kenya)
• Swahili (Tanzania)
• Urdu
• Welsh
• Zulu

To check out these new dictionaries, in Xbench 3.0 go to Tools->Spell-Checking Dictionaries, choose the language and then click Install.

We’ve added another video to our YouTube Channel on a very typical use case of Xbench: Using Xbench checklists to gather client feedback.

You will see that the checklist feature in Xbench can be quite handy to help us ensure that we do not forget previous client feedback next time we receive a job from the same client.

The video is found here. We hope you find it useful!

We’re happy to announce that we have just published a Hunspell-based Korean spell-checking dictionary for Xbench 3.0.

This is the first of a few more spell-checking dictionaries that we will be adding in the next coming days.

To install it, in Xbench 3.0 simply go to Tools->Spell-Checking Dictionaries, choose Korean in the list of the languages and then click Install.

If you run into any issues when using this new dictionary, please let us know in our Support Page.

We’ve posted a new video on YouTube that will show you how the spell-checking feature works in Xbench.

Spell-checking in Xbench is a feature that can be very handy when you are unsure if you spell-checked each of the many small files in this project that you are about to deliver, or if you want to double-check that the translator you outsourced this job to did not forget to spell-check everything.

You can watch the video here.

We’re happy to announce that we’ve just published build Xbench 3.0 build 1148. This new build adds a few more features:

• New URL Mismatch QA Check. Although, it is true that you can already use the Xbench powerful checklist feature to catch URL mismatches (very typically created by improper handling of fuzzy matches), it is also true that mastering regular expressions and the Xbench PowerSearch grammar to create such a check is not trivial to everyone. Actually, every now and then our support team helped users to add the URL check into a checklist. With this new build, we decided to simplify that by adding a built-in QA check for URL mismatches. We’ve made a couple of practical design decisions:
• The URL check is case-sensitive. Although some portions of URLs are case-insensitive and other portions are case-sensitive, we think that it is good translation practice not to change the URL case, so we decided to flag uppercase/lowercase mismatches as well.
• For now, we will focus on the mainstream protocols (http:, https:, ftp:, file:, mailto:) to reduce the risk of false alarms, although the protocol list will grow in the future.
• New support for TIPP and XLIFF:doc. A few weeks ago, the Interperability Now! initiative reached an important milestone: it released the specification for TIPP 1.0 and XLIFF:doc 1.5, which was the first official release of this new set of conventions. As any standard becomes meaningful only if users can actually benefit from it, we decided to jump in quickly and add support for these formats in Xbench to help foster adoption in real-life workflows. With this new Xbench 3.0 build, you can now load a TIPP file directly and search or QA the XLIFF bilingual information it contains. Alternatively, you can also load an XLIFF:doc file directly with the XLIFF file type and Xbench will recognize the dialect. We do encourage software developers to add support for these new formats to capitalize on the synergies for users and developers that exist when formats are documented and designed with interoperability in mind.
• New support for UTX. UTX is a very simple tab-delimited terminology format. It is so simple that, in fact, UTX users are already loading their glossaries into Xbench as tab-delimited files and everything works, except for a few minor quirks. With this build, we made the tab-delimited filter smarter and now it accepts files with .utx extension, presents banned terms more evidently and does not show UTX commented out lines. Current UTX users do not need to do anything with their current Xbench projects, their files will simply be shown more conveniently.

This build also adds a few more enhancements and fixes.

You can download the latest build in the Download section at www.xbench.net.

We’re happy to announce that we have put in place a special promotion until September 30, 2013 for GALA members. ApSIC has been a GALA member for more than 10 years and the association has grown twenty-fold since, and now has hundreds of members.

We think that GALA makes a significant impact with its quest to educate the marketplace with the real value of translation and localization services. To help spread the message, GALA relies on a growing membership.

We would like to support that effort with a special Xbench promotion that aims to give more value to GALA’s membership and also to encourage even more companies to join GALA:

• To help current GALA members further capitalize on their membership: If you are already a GALA member, for each 3 subscription years bought between June 1 and September 30, 2103, we will add another year to your account (a 25% discount). To get the most out of this promotion, be sure to buy a multiple of 3 years!
• To encourage new companies to join GALA: If you join GALA between June 1 and September 30, 2013, for each subscription year that you buy during this period, we will add another year to your account (a 50% discount).

This promotion applies both to existing Xbench customers willing to extend their subscriptions and to new Xbench customers.

You can place your order at www.xbench.net. To redeem your awarded years, simply tell us that you are a GALA member — or that you just joined GALA — in reply to the email that you will receive to confirm your Xbench subscription years have been added to your account.

There is something unconventional in Xbench 30-day trial that we would like to share with you: Xbench 3.0 trial days refer to real use days, not to calendar days.

As you know, the traditional 30-day trial is the exploding one: you start it and 30 days later it is over. It does not matter if you did not find the time to actually evaluate the software at all. It effectively means that, in many cases, you barely are able to test if installing and uninstalling works.

When we set up the Xbench 3.0 evaluation program, we decided that in order to give you proper time to evaluate if the product is really for you or not, our trial would be based on the actual days the product is used.

So if you get hooked with Xbench and quickly become an avid user using it 5 days a week, you will finish your trial after some 45 calendar days.

Conversely, if you are are always too busy with other stuff and only have time to check Xbench once a month, your trial will last almost 3 years.

We hope you like our approach for trials. If you want to evaluate Xbench 3.0, simply go to www.xbench.net and download it. After you sucessfully complete your sign up, your 30-day trial will start automatically. Enjoy!

We’re happy to announce that you have now available the German translation of Xbench 3.0 User’s Guide on our Documentation Section.

Michael Widemann, Senior Project Manager and SDL Trados Trainer at Mareš GmbH in Munich has updated his work in previous translations with help of Trados Studio 2011 and, of course, Xbench 3.0!

So, once again, we thank Michael for his great contributions for the Xbench German community and look forward to his future contributions!

We’re happy to announce that we have posted the French translation of Xbench 3.0 User’s Guide on our Documentation Section.

Once again, Franck Charreire has contributed with his hard work to make this guide available to the French Xbench community.

Our big thanks to Franck once again not only for his continued support on the French User’s Guide but also for his remarks to improve the English User’s Guide. Nobody reads a manual as thoroughly as a professional translator, so we’re very grateful for all his useful feedback!

We are happy to announce that with Xbench 3.0 build 1136, we have added support for Trados Studio translation memories in .sdltm format.

To add a Trados Studio translation memory to your Xbench project, simply choose the new file type in Add Files to Project, or drag and drop a .sdltm file to the File Properties window.

Please download the latest build to try it out and do not hesitate to contact us if you run into any issues or have any suggestions.