Forum: XTM Cloud support
Topic: A comprehensive review of XTM v.8.5 by a translator
Poster: SEA-words
This is a review of [b]XTM 8.5[/b], which follows my previous review of XTM 7.x published one year ago on Proz.com.
XTM staff keeps the communication open with their clients, as you can see from their replies in this forum, and they offer a personalized support.
I was given the opportunity to test and review their latest version for this updated review (version 8.5), and anybody can request a free trial here.
I asked for an [b]enterprise account[/b] which provided access with the PM’s section, which is where the surprise came - XTM was developed considering the PM’s needs first, so the translator’s part was a little neglected in the past versions. This has improved a lot in the latest release, though XTM has still work to do on that side.
I will break down my new review in the same way as done for my first review.
Background info
Testing environment: XTM v. 8.5 on Chrome v. 37 running on Mac OS X (10.9.5), DSL connection with a nominal speed of 4 Mpbs in download and 500 kbps in upload.
Test project: 1 file of 10,000 words with about 5% repetitions and various fuzzy matches, an existing TM imported in XTM, 1842 segments.
Working with XTM
1) XTM is now, I can confirm actually working also with [b]Chrome, Safari and IE[/b]. I can now click directly on an email link and let it open in Chrome instead of using Firefox. This review is based on XTM using Chrome as my browser.
2) You still need a solid connection. To be honest, it is not really XTM’s fault if your connection is slow and it takes 5 second to move from a page to another. But I suppose the more features which are loaded in the background, the more data transferred, thus the longer it takes to move from one page to another. In my experience, this means around 6 seconds, which can be annoying.
3) There is still no way to restore multiple segments translated offline, but XTM has an offline tool that allows you to translate offline ([i]then what about the online TM and glossary?[/i]).
4) You can [b]zoom in and out[/b], but you will have to reload the editor window in order to fit the page.
5) In XTM, everything you need to access requires at minimum one click. To run a concordance search, you have to highlight the word, right-click, choose Concordance and then select the default option or the Exact match option. [i]NOTE: You can also now use Alt+\ keystroke to invoke concordance on selected text since version 8.6[/i].
6) There are still [b]no batch processing capability for translators[/b]. (XTM have this in their development pipeline for early 2015)
TM in XTM and Terminology
Points 7) to 14) of the previous review. A translator who is assigned a project in XTM by an agency had no control over TM management, fuzzy threshold, or the glossary. Some of these features are customizable by the agency, for example the ability to edit the existing glossary, but nonetheless [b]the translator is not able to add a TM or a glossary to be used in parallel for his own ease[/b].
About point 11) – [b]Autopropagation[/b], it works pretty much the same: the first translation you type is auto propagated across all the document, but if you edit your translation, it doesn’t get auto propagated automatically. Instead, now when a segment is a repetition, you can click on the word ‘repetition’ and apply a “repetition” filter to your file. A new page is loaded showing all of the repetitions of the document (not just the one you selected). Then you can click on a double-arrow green icon next to each segment and choose to apply that translation to all of its repetitions. This can be quite time consuming, since you have to load a new page, and then click on the green arrows. So, you need to get it right at the first strike. Also, the repetitions are shown out of context, so you will have to check them again once the repetition filter is removed.
Typing in XTM
15) I don’t know if it is thanks to Chrome or XTM, but now I was able to select a word and drag and drop it in the same segment. However, it is still annoying that to select a word in the source segment, you have to click twice: the first time to activate the segment, and the second to select the word. And when you select the segment, it slides upward and you have to move your cursor to select the actual word. It would be nice if I could just click twice in the same point.
16) I was [b]able to change the capitalization[/b], but oddly XTM chose the keystroke SHIFT+F2 (in Mac: fn+SHIFT+F2), while in common text editors it is usually SHIFT+F3 (in Mac: fn+SHIFT+F3). Please note that this keystroke shifts between all in lower caps and all in upper caps, only.
17) I am using a Mac and I was able to insert accented letters by simply holding SHIFT+letter and then picking the accent I’d liked to use. This was awesome, but – again - I don’t know how much credit goes to Chrome and how much to XTM.
18) I wasn’t not able to test tags in XTM 8 since my test file had none. Also, I wasn’t able to customize XTM’s keystroke for Mac.
19) I did not find any issues with the Find/Replace tool to report.
Finalizing your job
Spellcheck and QA work only on a given page. So I suggest that you choose to display 500 segments per page in Settings (wrench icon on the left sidebar). However I had trouble with the QA in the 500 segments display. XTM support suggested to use the 100 segments display, instead. Too bad that in an 1800-segment project this means 18 pages to check, instead of 4.
Also, [b]the QA still doesn’t include basic checks such as consistency of translation[/b] (you should check them manually applying the repetition filter) or punctuation at the end of the sentence, which are in my opinion essential.
Conclusions
XTM has definitely been working hard to improve the translator’ side of its cloud-based CAT tool, and I hope they will continue to do so.
One should also consider that [b]cloud-based CATs are not competing with offline CAT[/b], rather providing a new working environment based on the cloud, to meet the client’s needs (possibly less the translators’)
As it continues its development, XTM has become one of the most complete cloud-based CAT tools I have tried so far (other CATs tried: Transifex, Google toolkit, Wordfast Anywhere, Coach).
[Edited at 2014-10-14 21:20 GMT]
Topic: A comprehensive review of XTM v.8.5 by a translator
Poster: SEA-words
This is a review of [b]XTM 8.5[/b], which follows my previous review of XTM 7.x published one year ago on Proz.com.
XTM staff keeps the communication open with their clients, as you can see from their replies in this forum, and they offer a personalized support.
I was given the opportunity to test and review their latest version for this updated review (version 8.5), and anybody can request a free trial here.
I asked for an [b]enterprise account[/b] which provided access with the PM’s section, which is where the surprise came - XTM was developed considering the PM’s needs first, so the translator’s part was a little neglected in the past versions. This has improved a lot in the latest release, though XTM has still work to do on that side.
I will break down my new review in the same way as done for my first review.
Background info
Testing environment: XTM v. 8.5 on Chrome v. 37 running on Mac OS X (10.9.5), DSL connection with a nominal speed of 4 Mpbs in download and 500 kbps in upload.
Test project: 1 file of 10,000 words with about 5% repetitions and various fuzzy matches, an existing TM imported in XTM, 1842 segments.
Working with XTM
1) XTM is now, I can confirm actually working also with [b]Chrome, Safari and IE[/b]. I can now click directly on an email link and let it open in Chrome instead of using Firefox. This review is based on XTM using Chrome as my browser.
2) You still need a solid connection. To be honest, it is not really XTM’s fault if your connection is slow and it takes 5 second to move from a page to another. But I suppose the more features which are loaded in the background, the more data transferred, thus the longer it takes to move from one page to another. In my experience, this means around 6 seconds, which can be annoying.
3) There is still no way to restore multiple segments translated offline, but XTM has an offline tool that allows you to translate offline ([i]then what about the online TM and glossary?[/i]).
4) You can [b]zoom in and out[/b], but you will have to reload the editor window in order to fit the page.
5) In XTM, everything you need to access requires at minimum one click. To run a concordance search, you have to highlight the word, right-click, choose Concordance and then select the default option or the Exact match option. [i]NOTE: You can also now use Alt+\ keystroke to invoke concordance on selected text since version 8.6[/i].
6) There are still [b]no batch processing capability for translators[/b]. (XTM have this in their development pipeline for early 2015)
TM in XTM and Terminology
Points 7) to 14) of the previous review. A translator who is assigned a project in XTM by an agency had no control over TM management, fuzzy threshold, or the glossary. Some of these features are customizable by the agency, for example the ability to edit the existing glossary, but nonetheless [b]the translator is not able to add a TM or a glossary to be used in parallel for his own ease[/b].
About point 11) – [b]Autopropagation[/b], it works pretty much the same: the first translation you type is auto propagated across all the document, but if you edit your translation, it doesn’t get auto propagated automatically. Instead, now when a segment is a repetition, you can click on the word ‘repetition’ and apply a “repetition” filter to your file. A new page is loaded showing all of the repetitions of the document (not just the one you selected). Then you can click on a double-arrow green icon next to each segment and choose to apply that translation to all of its repetitions. This can be quite time consuming, since you have to load a new page, and then click on the green arrows. So, you need to get it right at the first strike. Also, the repetitions are shown out of context, so you will have to check them again once the repetition filter is removed.
Typing in XTM
15) I don’t know if it is thanks to Chrome or XTM, but now I was able to select a word and drag and drop it in the same segment. However, it is still annoying that to select a word in the source segment, you have to click twice: the first time to activate the segment, and the second to select the word. And when you select the segment, it slides upward and you have to move your cursor to select the actual word. It would be nice if I could just click twice in the same point.
16) I was [b]able to change the capitalization[/b], but oddly XTM chose the keystroke SHIFT+F2 (in Mac: fn+SHIFT+F2), while in common text editors it is usually SHIFT+F3 (in Mac: fn+SHIFT+F3). Please note that this keystroke shifts between all in lower caps and all in upper caps, only.
17) I am using a Mac and I was able to insert accented letters by simply holding SHIFT+letter and then picking the accent I’d liked to use. This was awesome, but – again - I don’t know how much credit goes to Chrome and how much to XTM.
18) I wasn’t not able to test tags in XTM 8 since my test file had none. Also, I wasn’t able to customize XTM’s keystroke for Mac.
19) I did not find any issues with the Find/Replace tool to report.
Finalizing your job
Spellcheck and QA work only on a given page. So I suggest that you choose to display 500 segments per page in Settings (wrench icon on the left sidebar). However I had trouble with the QA in the 500 segments display. XTM support suggested to use the 100 segments display, instead. Too bad that in an 1800-segment project this means 18 pages to check, instead of 4.
Also, [b]the QA still doesn’t include basic checks such as consistency of translation[/b] (you should check them manually applying the repetition filter) or punctuation at the end of the sentence, which are in my opinion essential.
Conclusions
XTM has definitely been working hard to improve the translator’ side of its cloud-based CAT tool, and I hope they will continue to do so.
One should also consider that [b]cloud-based CATs are not competing with offline CAT[/b], rather providing a new working environment based on the cloud, to meet the client’s needs (possibly less the translators’)
As it continues its development, XTM has become one of the most complete cloud-based CAT tools I have tried so far (other CATs tried: Transifex, Google toolkit, Wordfast Anywhere, Coach).
[Edited at 2014-10-14 21:20 GMT]