Re: [poedit-users] Suggestion 2 - Shortcut customization

Hi,

This suggestions of mine are mainly targeted as _suggestion_ for option to  
have the ability to customize the shortcuts, and it's in two parts:
1. Adding (or expanding) a function, ie:
- Copy a source
- Delete a translation
- Mark as fuzzy
- Mark as not fuzzy
2. Shortcut customization - users can assign any combination of keys to  
above (and other suggested) functions

Of course those are arbitrary :) It's there just to serve as an example,  
because I use Trados a lot, and this is the way I would set up those up on  
my PC.
Even so, if customized like that, its much better, because you can press  
ALT+HOME or ALT+END without looking down to kbd, while I have to look down  
and search for U. Over years I managed to type about 60% of keys without  
looking down, just feeling their position, or taking a quick look down  
when every once a while. Letters in the middle of the kbd are rarely used  
in English, especially in one word (tzu, ghjk) and to the right, around  
ENTER, I have Croatian-specific characters (šđčćž).
(btw, Trados is integrated in Word as a bunch of macros, so you can  
customize those shortcuts as well, and I know few people that have changed  
default shortcuts into combinations with "letters". I did something like  
that on my PC for other shortcuts, like ALT+Q for "get translation from  
suggestion" and such.)
Trados shortcuts are looking quite ridiculous on a first glance and that's  
the way I thought for the first month. But later on I realized they are  
organized with a good sense. So, if those functions do exist, those are  
the key I would assign to those.

For example, DejaVuX does not use ALT or CTRL in combination with  
INS-DEL-HOME-END (for main functions!), but it uses ALT and CTRL + arrows  
for some, and ALT, CTRL and SHIFT plus some letters that are just above  
SPACEBAR:
ALT+ arrow down - mark as translated and go to next unchecked line
CTRL+ arrow down - mark as translated and go to next line (can be  
translated, can be empty)
CTRL+SPACE - clear (delete) translation

... and other that always involve keys you can locate "by the touch". I  
can't reach U in such way, maybe someone can, and therefore I'm suggesting  
that an option for customization would be very nice to have. And to add  
few others.

No hurry or pressure here. I know how projects like this take time, and  
especially a free time :)
I truly admire, and like, your work so these are suggestions that I know  
for sure would be appreciated by translators. There is a even a decent  
market place for you, because there are few other apps that can work with  
PO files, but each have serious drawbacks:

DejaVuX is very expensive (mine I purchased with few other friends, it is  
registered to one of them, and we are "sharing" it among ourself). It also  
has a trouble importing non-English characters, regardless of the  
encoding, and before you open the PO file, you need to add a "language  
description line" - quite annoying when you work with bunch of files.
And, there is no way to have "fuzzy" lines marked!

Other apps are also expensive, but there you are presented with either  
very clumsy interface, or clumsy database search, or are generally very  
slow during automatic (DB) searches and take a lot of CPU percentage.
Each of them has clumsy integration of spellchecker. Mainly, it comes down  
to the same procedure I use with poEdit - export to another file and it  
there, then manualy search and replace in original. Or, it cannot be done  
on the fly, like in the Word (correct/check/underline while typing), but  
is a command that has to be preformed separately.

Comparing to those, poEdit is the fastest, "lightest", simplest… and  
cheapest! If you add few more functionalities for "spoiled ones" (like  
me), you can gain popularity among professional translators. They are  
quite a spoiled bunch ;)

What helps you is the popularity of PO files in localizations (which I'm  
trying to expand bugging various programmers to switch from something to  
PO) Only thing they are missing is a good translating tool. Only other  
that is close is Heartsome XLIFF Editor, but it does not work directly  
with PO files - instead it converts them to the xliff. Therefore, poEdit  
is much faster (and stable!) when looking in general.
Heartsome XLIFF Editor also needs Java, so if some problem is encauntered  
with Java, it is always a serious problem.

Above are on Windows, but on Linux there are other apps (like Kbabel) that  
work with PO files much better then their Windows counterparts, but each  
of them lacks stability, speed and clarity of GUI that poEdit offers.  
Kbabel if fine, but GUI is overpopulated (personal opinion!), and DB  
access is either slow or often crashes. While it is great for work with  
large projects, like KDE localization, it's a bit overkill when a small  
update of PO file(s) is needed.

In my opinion, poEdit is the only app that can handle PO files with no  
trouble and to do it fast, especially on Windows. About 99% of profesional  
translators use Windows, mainly because there is no decent (or stable)  
translating tool on Linux. Sadly, 75% of those people do not know that  
Linux exists at all, less alone that there are translating tools on Linux.  
So, Windows needs a translation tool that can work with PO files.

Currently, for large files I use DejaVuX, but only if there are no  
fuzzies, in other words - for fresh translations (and several other  
issues). Also, DejaVu can import Trados database which is great for me as  
I have several large DB's.
But, for medium size and smaller files, for checking, for updating, and  
for creating the MO file (for more then 80% of projects), regardles of the  
project size and number of files in it, I use only the poEdit!

There is one more issue - with any other translating tool that can work  
with PO files, you need to create a "project". You cannot work directly  
with the PO file. You need to spend 10-60 minutes creating the project,  
assigning this and that, and adding a file to a project is a real drag.  
Naturaly, you cannot use a project directly - you neded to export it into  
PO file. So, if you forgot to set up something, that export could end up  
God knows where on you HDD and under what name!
poEdit beats them all on this ground. There is nothing like "open, save  
and that's it" procedure :D

Therefore, all my suggestions are from devoted end-user (who knows nothing  
about programming, hehe), with only the best intentions :D

Best regards,
Renato


Dana Sun, 04 Nov 2007 21:14:58 +0100, Vaclav Slavik <[email protected]>  
napisali ste:

> Renato Pavičić wrote:
>> quite good. To copy source - ALT+INS (instead of ALT+C)
>> To delete translation - ALT+DEL (instead of deleting the content
>> manually)
>
> This makes sense...
>
>> separate shortcut for each operation:
>> To mark as fuzzy - ALT+HOME
>> To mark as not fuzzy - ALT+END
>
> But this doesn't, to me, looks like arbitrary shortcuts to me.
> (Admittedly, Alt-U is not much different in this respect.)
>
> vaclav


-- 
Best regards,
Renato Pavicic

mailto:repavici<att>globalnet.hr
also mailto:renato<att>translator-shop.org
homepage: www.translator-shop.org

Official Opera translator for Croatian language since April 2006

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