Leaving Transit, moving to CafeTran Thread poster: Hans Lenting
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Hi Ben,
thanks for joining us here!
CAT tools come in different flavors and that's a good thing: every professional translator can choose the tool that suits his needs best. This doesn't mean, of course, that other tools are bad. Transit, for instance, is not bad at all. It's just that nobody in Ramsen (CH) cares to get involved at Proz.com or in any other user forum ...
Enough said about Transit. Let me focus on CafeTran. Why am I that enthusiastic about i... See more Hi Ben,
thanks for joining us here!
CAT tools come in different flavors and that's a good thing: every professional translator can choose the tool that suits his needs best. This doesn't mean, of course, that other tools are bad. Transit, for instance, is not bad at all. It's just that nobody in Ramsen (CH) cares to get involved at Proz.com or in any other user forum ...
Enough said about Transit. Let me focus on CafeTran. Why am I that enthusiastic about it? There are many reasons. Let me describe the most important one:
I'm in the habit of saving terminology in nearly every segment I translate. Of course this is related to my language combination, with two languages that are very alike.
So for me, easily saving terminology is very important. I think CafeTran is the champion here. First of all, it allows me to save terminology in a plain text file. Even if I have 650.000+ entries. It allows me to execute very fast global changes with a simple text editor. No indexes that have to be rebuild, etc. etc. No importing, no waiting. CafeTran allows me to save my terminology in my Dropbox. It offers a nice feature set for merging, updating, sorting glossaries. In fact, it offers all I've ever wanted in this regard. No huge SQL engine to be installed, no crashing, no tons of overhead, no instability. Just: be productive, enjoy. Every working day.
CafeTran offers a very advanced way of saving terminology. It allows you to ignore leading numbers, trailing punctuation characters etc. when saving the content of segment pairs as term pairs.
Auto-inserting terms from the glossary into the target text segment is also very advanced: you can let CafeTran perform case modifications based on the position of inserted terms in the segment etc.
But let me return to your question why I decided to move from Transit to CafeTran:
2 years ago I decided that it was better for me to use virtualized instances of Windows, each with different CAT tools, instead of getting frustrated because the last Windows update ruined CAT tool X.
I liked the hardware Apple offered, so I decided to migrate to OS X, installed a virtualization host and installed several guests with Windows (XP). I've used that set up for almost two years. Then I realized that development at STAR's has stopped (more or less). After that I thought that when looking for a new CAT tool it would be a good idea to look for a tool that doesn't tie me to a specific operating system. I'm happy with OS X now, but maybe I'd like to use Linux in future. It is a nice idea that in that case I don't have to change my CAT tool.
Cheers,
Hans ▲ Collapse
| | | | Benjamin Phister (X) 
Local time: 11:46
French to English
| Does CafeTrans support TBX? | Jun 24, 2012 |
Thanks for your detailed reply.
Like you, one of the features I like best with Transit is its term management. The termbase structure in Transit is very rich (synonyms, abbreviations, user fields...).
I read over the CafeTran docs, and didn't see much about its termbase structure. Does CafeTran support a sophisticated structure, or merely simple two- or three-column glossaries?
Does it support the TBX standard (so I can easily import terms from TermStar?<... See more Thanks for your detailed reply.
Like you, one of the features I like best with Transit is its term management. The termbase structure in Transit is very rich (synonyms, abbreviations, user fields...).
I read over the CafeTran docs, and didn't see much about its termbase structure. Does CafeTran support a sophisticated structure, or merely simple two- or three-column glossaries?
Does it support the TBX standard (so I can easily import terms from TermStar?
I'm confused about the use of CafeTran glossaires and databases. Which do you use? I like to have several glossaries open simultaneously for my projects.
Finally, did you look at MemoQ before choosing CafeTran? It seems to be the up & coming CAT tool...
Thanks
Ben ▲ Collapse
| | | | Hans Lenting
Netherlands
Member (2006)
German to Dutch
TOPIC STARTER | No TBX support (yet) | Jun 24, 2012 |
Hi Ben,
Like you, one of the features I like best with Transit is its term management. The termbase structure in Transit is very rich (synonyms, abbreviations, user fields...).
I only use alternative translations in Transit – so I don't need a hierarchical structure.
I read over the CafeTran docs, and didn't see much about its termbase structure. Does CafeTran support a sophisticated structure, or merely simple two- or three-column glossaries?
A new build with more advanced term base structures is on its way. Perhaps Igor can comment on that.
Does it support the TBX standard (so I can easily import terms from TermStar?
Not yet, but if your aim solely is to migrate your termbase, you can go via MARTIF:
http://cafetran.wordpress.com/2012/06/24/how-to-convert-transit-nxt-martif-dictionary-files-to-cafetran-glossary-format/
I'm confused about the use of CafeTran glossaires and databases. Which do you use? I like to have several glossaries open simultaneously for my projects.
I prefer the plain text format for its compactness and ease of making global changes. I use three different glossaries: Active Glossary, to which I add new terms on the fly, Background Glossary (my Big Papa) and a Client Glossary (containing client-specific terminology). AMOF the number of glossaries is unlimited.
A new build that allows to set priorities for 3 different glossaries will be released later this year.
Finally, did you look at MemoQ before choosing CafeTran? It seems to be the up & coming CAT tool...
Yes I did. Your mileage may vary. I prefer the Java solution(s) for reasons explained earlier. Speaking of: Swordfish supports TBX already. You might take a look at it.
Cheers,
Hans
| | | | Hans Lenting
Netherlands
Member (2006)
German to Dutch
TOPIC STARTER
Ben,
Benjamin Phister wrote:
Does it support the TBX standard (so I can easily import terms from TermStar?
Creating TBX compatibility isn't high on Igor's to do list.
If TBX is only relevant to you for migrating your termbases to CafeTran, there are other solutions. I'm glad to advise here.
BTW: Which fields of a TBX record do you use?
Cheers,
Hans
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| My two cents regarding Transit problems | Jul 3, 2012 |
Hello Hans,
reading your posts about problems with Termstar databases I always thought - why on earth are you using Transit in a virtual environment??? This is your main work application, written for Windows, so you should use it under Windows to achieve the highest performance.
I think, this was your topic about using MS SQL databases, which led me to try them out almost 1 year ago. Previously I was using the standard MS Access databases and I wasn't really happy about... See more Hello Hans,
reading your posts about problems with Termstar databases I always thought - why on earth are you using Transit in a virtual environment??? This is your main work application, written for Windows, so you should use it under Windows to achieve the highest performance.
I think, this was your topic about using MS SQL databases, which led me to try them out almost 1 year ago. Previously I was using the standard MS Access databases and I wasn't really happy about the speed of putting new entries into them. Discovering MS SQL made me totally happy! Thank you!
I'm still using Transit XV, because I don't like Transit NXT's look and feel. But I see, the core of this CAT tool is the same. So I can't understand, why don't you get Transit and Termstar running like I do. I NEVER had any bigger issues neither with Transit nor with Termstar. Yes, it crashed a couple of times because of my fault - that's it (but then again, the autosave funktion, set to do backups every 1 minute, recovers all the project perfectly!).
I'm glad you are enjoying CafeTran - I myself am trying this tool out.
I don't want to pull you back to Transit - the time will come and you'll see, which is better  .
I just wanted to express my opinion about using a software in an virtual environment - I don't think it is a good practice...
Respect! ▲ Collapse
| | | | Hans Lenting
Netherlands
Member (2006)
German to Dutch
TOPIC STARTER | Why do I use VMs? | Jul 3, 2012 |
Hello Egidijus,
Thanks for your reply!
reading your posts about problems with Termstar databases I always thought - why on earth are you using Transit in a virtual environment???
Because I have to work with several CAT tools (at least for finalizing and delivering projects). In the past I've found that they can interfere with each other. Now I have every CAT tool in its own VM.
I NEVER had any bigger issues neither with Transit nor with Termstar. Yes, it crashed a couple of times because of my fault - that's it (but then again, the autosave funktion, set to do backups every 1 minute, recovers all the project perfectly!).
May I ask how large your background dictionary is?
I just wanted to express my opinion about using a software in an virtual environment - I don't think it is a good practice...
I have received never any warnings about this from STAR AG. And they know my configuration exactly.
CafeTran is extremely powerful when adding new terms on the fly. And that's what I do about 80 % of the time when translating.
Cheers,
Hans
| | | | | I'm a termbase freak too :) | Jul 4, 2012 |
Hans Lenting wrote:
May I ask how large your background dictionary is?
Hans
AFAIK, my termbase with 70k is almost 10 times smaller then yours, but I'm not afraid of adding much more terms into it, because I don't experience any speed decrease and I truly believe, that I will not.
With every translation I'm adding/deleting/changing hundreds of terms/expressions to ensure the highest consistency of a translations, so I understand your style of work very good.
If CafeTran delivers that performance, then it is really worth using!
| | | | | Setting database priorities | Jul 6, 2012 |
Egidijus Slepetys wrote:
With every translation I'm adding/deleting/changing hundreds of terms/expressions to ensure the highest consistency of a translations, so I understand your style of work very good.
If CafeTran delivers that performance, then it is really worth using!
CafeTran delivers, and I think you can do without the deleting/changing part of your adding/deleting/changing habits if you use multiple databases and make use of the priority settings.
http://cafetran4mac.blogspot.com/2012/07/top-priority.html
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Hans Lenting
Netherlands
Member (2006)
German to Dutch
TOPIC STARTER | Transit is unstable on native Windows too | Jul 6, 2012 |
Egidijus Slepetys wrote:
reading your posts about problems with Termstar databases I always thought - why on earth are you using Transit in a virtual environment???
Like you I've used Transit XV for years on a native Windows machine. It was unstable there too. It all depends on the number of terms in your database. IIRC the critical number of term pairs was 300,000.
| | | | Hans Lenting
Netherlands
Member (2006)
German to Dutch
TOPIC STARTER | Adding terms in Transit is slow | Jul 6, 2012 |
AFAIK, my termbase with 70k is almost 10 times smaller then yours, but I'm not afraid of adding much more terms into it, because I don't experience any speed decrease and I truly believe, that I will not.
Although this topic actually belongs in the Transit forum, I'll respond to it here.
 Please note that term searching isn't slow with the Transit SQL DB. It is the term pair adding that is very slow. Even when you use a very small DB for new terms (1,000 terms).
Besides that, the SQL driver crashes regularly.
One other big disadvantage for me is that it is impossible to let Transit recognize terms literally (without chopping off the ending). I don't want to use that (though I can see it can be useful for other source languages).
Yet another disadvantage: Probably because of the 'chopping' Transit doesn't recognize three letter words that are alike in German and Dutch.
All this can be replicated, all this has been reported and confirmed by STAR.
Please discuss Transit further in the Transit forum.
Thanks
Hans
[Bearbeitet am 2012-07-06 06:40 GMT]
[Bearbeitet am 2012-07-06 06:40 GMT]
| | | | Hans Lenting
Netherlands
Member (2006)
German to Dutch
TOPIC STARTER | CafeTran now supports TBX and Martif | Sep 23, 2012 |
Benjamin Phister wrote:
Does it support the TBX standard (so I can easily import terms from TermStar?
Hi Ben,
As of yesterday CafeTran can import TBX and Martif.
Cheers,
Hans
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