notes/comments and external search question (OmegaT support)

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notes/comments and external search question

Thread poster: Thijs Vissia

Thijs Vissia
Netherlands

Feb 28, 2019

hi, I'm new to the forum and also largely new to CAT tools and OmegaT,

I'm really enjoying OmegaT so far. Until now I've translated directly in a OpenOffice, but I'm starting to see the benefits of CAT tools. I've also tried CafeTran which I came across first, and that also does work quite well but I much prefer the friendlier and more elegant interface of OmegaT, and I'm gradually finding out solutions to things that were still unclear to me earlier.

One clear downside of the program for me is the lack of a way to work with the comments in word-processor files, to add/edit them from within OmegaT and to have them be exported in the target file.

In my translations, I almost always need to use comments to communicate with both the client as well as with proof readers or intermediate agencies. I send them the commented target file, with comments intended for both the end client and sometimes another translator/proof-reader who usually also offers corrections in comments. At this point I can just revise in a word processor, but for making the initial translation and adding my own comments it's unbeatable to both have it all together in a single application and being able to eventually export it in context with the translation itself, for others to review.

My comments usually contain interpretive issues, various suggested alternatives, etc. in other words stuff directly connected with the form of the translation itself, as it is going from rough to fully revised and finished. As I edit the translation, I also edit and reconsider comments, so it's not just a matter of adding each one a single time. To add them to the source file in Word/OpenOffice would mean having to reload the open translation in OmegaT for them to be visible there and not lose track, or to go back and forth.

Part of this note-taking can clearly be done with notes instead and these work great, but they do not offer (to my current fledgling knowledge at least) a way to go beyond their visibility inside OmegaT.

I was wondering if it's been/being considered to add the possibility of adding comments or perhaps (if this is easier to program) having the option of notes being exported as comments in the target file.

In spite of this issue, I want to thank the developers for all the work they've put into the program as it is, and I look forward to keep working with it.

Finally, I've another unrelated question: the browser used by “external search” seems to be set by default. On a mac, it opens safari instead of whatever browser the user has set as his default - is there a way to change this? ▲ Collapse

Dr. Jozsef Dikter

Didier Briel

France
Local time: 23:51
English to French
+ ...

You can export notes

Mar 1, 2019

Thijs Vissia wrote:
Part of this note-taking can clearly be done with notes instead and these work great, but they do not offer (to my current fledgling knowledge at least) a way to go beyond their visibility inside OmegaT.

You can export notes to a nice formatted HTML documents using a script:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/omegatscripts/files/write%20scripts/
(write_notes.groovy)

Finally, I've another unrelated question: the browser used by “external search” seems to be set by default. On a mac, it opens safari instead of whatever browser the user has set as his default - is there a way to change this?

OmegaT doesn't know what your system has decided to use as a default browser. If it's not the one you want, you could ask in the Yahoo support group, where other Mac users may perhaps help you:
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/OmegaT/info

Didier

Claudia Leão

Dr. Jozsef Dikter

Thijs Vissia
Netherlands

TOPIC STARTER

notes/comments and external search question

Mar 1, 2019

Didier Briel wrote:

You can export notes to a nice formatted HTML documents using a script:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/omegatscripts/files/write%20scripts/
(write_notes.groovy)

OmegaT doesn't know what your system has decided to use as a default browser. If it's not the one you want, you could ask in the Yahoo support group, where other Mac users may perhaps help you:
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/OmegaT/info

Didier

Thanks Didier for both suggestions. Will check out the script to see if it's an advantage.

Maybe for the moment the best way is to using notes while I'm working in OmegaT, and then just copying them into in the target file as comments when I'm done.

I was under the impression that I did see Word and Openoffice comments inside the comments panel, but yesterday while testing this again, I only managed to retrieve them as translatable text by choosing this in the file filter. I'm not sure what I might have done earlier to get them to appear inside the comments pane? It now comes up blank even though there are a bunch of comments in my source .odt or .docx files.

As for the browser question, I thought there'd be a way to let OSX call the default browser, but I'm not a programmer and maybe this isn't possible with java. Maybe it's possible in a future update to let users hand pick their preferred browser in the prefs.

Didier Briel

France
Local time: 23:51
English to French
+ ...

Java uses the default browser

Mar 3, 2019

Thijs Vissia wrote:
I was under the impression that I did see Word and Openoffice comments inside the comments panel, but yesterday while testing this again, I only managed to retrieve them as translatable text by choosing this in the file filter. I'm not sure what I might have done earlier to get them to appear inside the comments pane?

Normally, it's not possible.

As for the browser question, I thought there'd be a way to let OSX call the default browser, but I'm not a programmer and maybe this isn't possible with java.

Java calls the default browser. If you want to check with other users why OS X doesn't use your prefered browser, that's something you should discuss in the Yahoo support group.

Maybe it's possible in a future update to let users hand pick their preferred browser in the prefs.

It would be a lot of development (probably hard-coded for each platform), with not much benefits. When the operating system works as expected, the default browser is called.

Didier

Dr. Jozsef Dikter

Thijs Vissia
Netherlands

TOPIC STARTER

default browser

Mar 4, 2019

Didier Briel wrote:

Java calls the default browser. If you want to check with other users why OS X doesn't use your prefered browser, that's something you should discuss in the Yahoo support group.

Maybe it's possible in a future update to let users hand pick their preferred browser in the prefs.

It would be a lot of development (probably hard-coded for each platform), with not much benefits. When the operating system works as expected, the default browser is called.

Thanks for the further answers.

Solved the browser issue, Safari was indeed set as default, with Firefox set as the browser for most web file formats.

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