Can multiple users access the same TM? Thread poster: romine
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romine
Local time: 23:20
English to German
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We are a team of three in-house translators currently using Wordfast Pro, but we have been unhappy with it for a while, and especially since upgrading to WF Pro 5. We are currently looking for alternatives. We are considering OmegaT because we only need a simple and efficient basic tool.
One of the many reasons why we are so unhappy with WF Pro 5 is the fact that the three of us can no longer access the same TM at the same time. We are mostly working with one very large TM which is... See more We are a team of three in-house translators currently using Wordfast Pro, but we have been unhappy with it for a while, and especially since upgrading to WF Pro 5. We are currently looking for alternatives. We are considering OmegaT because we only need a simple and efficient basic tool.
One of the many reasons why we are so unhappy with WF Pro 5 is the fact that the three of us can no longer access the same TM at the same time. We are mostly working with one very large TM which is stored on a shared network drive, so it does happen quite often that more than one of us needs to work with that TM at the same time. This was possible in WF Pro 3 with the txt file TMs, and I was wondering if it can be done with OmegaT, or if that's generally impossible with TMX format TMs. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | About common TM in OmegaT | Sep 21, 2019 |
As far as I know, it is possible.
| | | | | | Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 23:20
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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| @Romine: team projects in OmegaT | Sep 21, 2019 |
romine wrote:
The three of us [want to be able to] access the same TM at the same time. We are mostly working with one very large TM which is stored on a shared network drive, so it does happen quite often that more than one of us needs to work with that TM at the same time.
OmegaT uses two types of TMs, namely a single active TM and one or more passive TMs (referred to by some OmegaT users as "reference" or "legacy" TMs). Any segment that is translated, gets added only to the active TM. Both the active TM and the passive TMs are searched for fuzzy matches, but only the active TM is ever written to.
From your description, I gather that the very large TM is not a BTM but a main TM, right? In other words, when more than one translator uses it, all segments translated by those translators are added to that TM in real time. Right?
This isn't really possible in OmegaT, because the active TM in OmegaT has a non-configurable name and is stored in a non-configurable location. You can customise the location of the passive TMs (and e.g. put the passive TMs permanently on a shared folder somewhere and just remember to point to it every time you create a new project in OmegaT), but the active TM is always stored in a local location and can be accessed by one instance of OmegaT only.
(Also, while OmegaT can consult many glossaries, only one glossary is considered the "active" one, i.e. the glossary that terms will get added to from within OmegaT itself. So while anyone can edit any glossary in a text editor, OmegaT itself can add terms to only one glossary (named glossary.txt).)
I'm not sure if you can share multiple passive TMs and multiple passive glossaries across a shared drive, but I imagine it must be possible, since OmegaT doesn't write to those TMs.
Team projects in OmegaT
However, there is a feature in OmegaT called "team projects". To use team projects, one or two people in the team need to have technical know-how, because they have to set up an SVN or Git version control service. The individual translators don't need any technical knowledge -- they simply start OmegaT on their computers and connect to the server using two simple steps, and the continue as normal. But someone has to set up the project (or projects), and although this process is described in the OmegaT user manual (chapter 6.1 and 6.2), it can be a frustrating experience if you're not a ner^H^H^Hperson who is familiar with version control services anyway (such people are often computer programmers).
In a team project, any edits that any translator makes to the active TM and the active glossary gets shared with all other translators. Files that the team leader adds to the project (by uploading them to the server via FTP or a version control client) gets shared with everyone. Any other files that any other translator adds to his local version of the project locally (e.g. additional glossaries that he doesn't want to share, or additional source files that he doesn't want other translators to see), are not shared with other translators in the team. Only files that are added to the project by the team leader, gets shared with everyone, and only new translations or new terms that are added to the one active TM and the one active glossary gets shared/synchronised with everyone.
Generally, a new project would be created for each new translation job. However, the user manual says that it is possible to set up a team project that shares no source files, and shares only one active TM (it's called a "minimal sharing"). I guess this would mean that you could create a single project in OmegaT and just keep reusing it over and over and over (with individual translators adding and removing source files whenever they want to), so that all translators using that project always use the same active TM, but don't work on or have continual access to the same source files.
So, do you have a geek from down the street who can help you set this up?
This was possible ... with the txt file TMs, and [but is it] generally impossible with TMX format TMs?
The file format of the TM doesn't really matter. The fact that WFP3 and WFC use TXT TM files isn't the reason why you would be able to access the same TM file on the shared drive from multiple computer or multiple programs. It rather depends on the program(s) that access the file.
You can find better assistance with this sort of thing from the more "official" OmegaT support forums:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/omegat/lists/omegat-development
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/omegat/info
[Edited at 2019-09-21 09:14 GMT]
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romine
Local time: 23:20
English to German
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TOPIC STARTER
Thank you both for your helpful replies. I came across the user manual describing team projects in my research but I still needed some more information.
@ Samuel: Yes, working with WF Pro 3, we were all using the same active TM, simultaneously updating it in real time.
And yes, we have a trusted geek who should be able to set up a team project, I just wanted to clarify if something like this is possible before we bother him with this.
| | | | | Teambase from author of DGT-OmegaT | Sep 21, 2019 |
romine wrote:
We are a team
Teambase
http://185.13.37.79/?q=node/20
"Teambase is an alternative way to share work in real time between OmegaT users, using a SQL database as in intermediate. The main advantage compared to using Git or Subversion is that there is no latency: each segment validated by you is immediately available for all users connected to the same database; they do not have to wait for the next time you save, automatically or not. And of course you will immediately see other people's work the same way. Another advantage is that you are not required to share the entire project : Teambase can be used to share real-time work between projects related to the same thematic, such as two manuals related to the same software. Last but not least, Teambase memories are shareable between various CAT tools, with some limitations but in real time."
There are links to other pages with details.
Milan
| | | | | Shared TMs - various methods | Sep 23, 2019 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
The file format of the TM doesn't really matter. The fact that WFP3 and WFC use TXT TM files isn't the reason why you would be able to access the same TM file on the shared drive from multiple computer or multiple programs. It rather depends on the program(s) that access the file.
The format matters because it is more difficult to update a TMX than a plain TXT file (due to the fact that this is an XML, so markups need to be open and closed correctly). When you save OmegaT's project memory, in reality it erases it with what is in the RAM, which normally contains what has been read when you opened the project + what you entered in the meantime. But if two people do it on the same TMX file, it can happen than translator B erases what translator A just wrote, because he does not have the contents in his own memory.
With TXT files you don't have this problem because the file is not erased, it is opened in APPEND mode,and the new entries are added to the end of the file, without even having a look to what was in the file before.
OmegaT does not currently support the TXT files from WordFast but DGT-OmegaT does ( http://185.13.37.79/ ) and I have also prepared a version of OmegaT 4.1 with this feature: http://www.silvestris-lab.org/node/43
Samuel Murray wrote:
Team projects in OmegaT
This feature forces you to share the main memory and eventually the rest of the project. New entries are sent to the server only on each save (either every 3 minutes or when you manually use SAVE menu). And sometimes, it occurs that two people modify a similar segment, in which case you have to check about conflicts, and decide which translation is the best.
Thanks Milan that you quoted Teambase as an alternative.
Contrarily to team projects, here each part of the project (each memory, each glossary, and the main memory) can be shared individually. And contrarily to team projects, as quoted by Milan, update is immediate : each time you send a segment, other people can immediately see it (but it does not decrease performances because since I send only modified segments, I don't have to do a "diff" between two TMX as in the team projects). Due to the fact that it is updated in real time, conflicts are less likely to happen because if somebody modified a segment, you can see it immediately.
One other point, the main reason why my clients prefer Teambase, is that it is also available for Trados, and it is possible to share the same project between Trados and OmegaT! In the future, maybe it could be open to other CAT tools (if you can give me the required API...) in the same conditions.
As for text files, this is actually not supported by main core OmegaT, but the two versions for which I gave a link in this message are capable of using it.
If you want to test, there is a possibility to rent a server instead of trying to install it yourself. Once you have downloaded one of the compatible versions, follow the tutorials to create your hosted server and access it from OmegaT. Since actually nobody really tried to do so, in case there is any difficulty - if anything does not work or if my tutorial is not clear, since I am not sure anyone already read it - don't hesitate to reply to this message: I will be happy to do my best to make it work.
Before anybody asks the question: Teambase is free (license EUPL 1.1) if you download and install it yourself. The hosted service is here to help you if you don't want to install it yourself - only in this case it has a cost.
Regards
Thomas
| | | | romine
Local time: 23:20
English to German
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TOPIC STARTER
Thank you so much for all of your replies and explanations, I really did not expect to get so many thoroughly helpful replies! We are currently taking some time to wade through the options of different CAT tools and if anything is unclear once we get around to try it out, I might get back to you.
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