| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | New low price CAT Tool BTT Translator 1.2 Thread poster: Mogge
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Mogge
Local time: 12:33
English to Swedish
Hello!
I am not sure this is the right place for this post but here it goes.
I have a small software company developing a CAT tool for translators and it is called BTT Translator 1.2.
At the moment it supports .doc/.rtf/.txt documents.
The price is only 25 Euros and if you are interested you can download a Demo version at http://www.softranstech.com/
... See more Hello!
I am not sure this is the right place for this post but here it goes.
I have a small software company developing a CAT tool for translators and it is called BTT Translator 1.2.
At the moment it supports .doc/.rtf/.txt documents.
The price is only 25 Euros and if you are interested you can download a Demo version at http://www.softranstech.com/
BR
Janne Svanström ▲ Collapse
| | | | | you should add this to translatorstraining.com | Aug 22, 2008 |
Hi Mogge. ProZ emailed me something about translatorstraining.com which has some video presentations which compare CAT tools. You should talk to them about getting your tool on their site too. Good luck!
| | | | Mogge
Local time: 12:33
English to Swedish
TOPIC STARTER | thanks for the tip | Aug 23, 2008 |
Hello cEyeToldUso!
Thanks for the information, appreciate it a lot. Will check that site and see what it looks like.
Thanks again and have a good weekend!
| | | | | Only for Windows users | Aug 23, 2008 |
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Anni
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esperantisto 
Local time: 13:33
Member (2006)
English to Russian
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
Just another little program for Windows/Word with limited capabilities…
I'll wait until you develop something really interesting.
| | | | Maria Karra
United States
Local time: 06:33
Member (2000)
Greek to English
+ ...
| to esperantisto | Aug 23, 2008 |
esperantisto wrote:
Just another little program for Windows/Word with limited capabilities…
I'll wait until you develop something really interesting.
Hi, esperantisto.
I'm curious, what do you mean by "boring" and "interesting" when you refer to software? As someone who has written software tools I can tell you that this type of feedback isn't constructive. If you don't like a program, it's much more helpful to explain why, so that the developers can take your feedback into account when they work on the next version.
Maria
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 12:33
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| Thanks, I think | Aug 24, 2008 |
Mogge wrote:
I have a small software company developing a CAT tool for translators and it is called BTT Translator 1.2. At the moment it supports .doc/.rtf/.txt documents.
Cool. It is always nice to see new programs on the market -- it gives translators more choice. Sure, the big programs can do everything, but you don't always want a program that can do *everything*, right?
But Janne, why don't you tell us a bit about how BBTT differs from other translation programs in the same market segment? What is the design philosophy -- what are you trying to create that is different from what is currently available?
Also, the demo is far too restrictive to test the program:
"Demo limitations are: Max 25 words/Language in Database and 10 lines per document."
Sure it is impossible to stress test the program if the TM can only contain twenty five words, and any document may only contain ten lines. The only thing the demo is capable of showing you is the nice blue and grey GUI.
If we're honest about it, there is no free demo version. The real demo is the EUR 25.00 one (because the actual price is EUR 250.00). You're essentially asking translators to pay EUR 25.00 for the privilege of testing the software.
[Edited at 2008-08-24 06:50]
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 12:33
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| And dotNet, and possibly MS Word | Aug 24, 2008 |
M. Anna Kańduła wrote:
Only for Windows users
It also requires .Net 2.0 or higher. And I haven't been able to test it without MS Word, but it does seem to require MS Word, although I can't figure out if it would be possible to do TXT and RTF files without MS Word installed.
[Edited at 2008-08-24 06:43]
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| It is possible | Aug 24, 2008 |
Samuel Murray wrote: M. Anna Kańduła wrote:
Only for Windows users It also requires .Net 2.0 or higher. And I haven't been able to test it without MS Word, but it does seem to require MS Word, although I can't figure out if it would be possible to do TXT and RTF files without MS Word installed.
So like I wrote - only for Windows users.
This software is only one one system users and of non interest for others. I my intention was to point out that to Mogge, as many programmers don't even consider non-Windows users, while creating their software. Some don't even realise there are non-Windows users out there.
Anni
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 12:33
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| Same can be said of... | Aug 24, 2008 |
M. Anna Kańduła wrote:
I my intention was to point out that to Mogge, as many programmers don't even consider non-Windows users, while creating their software. Some don't even realise there are non-Windows users out there.
This is veering off-topic, but... the same can be said of Linux and Mac programmers. They often simply don't consider Windows users. Is KBabel available for Windows users? Unless you count extremely geeky workarounds, the answer is "no". But... is this such a bad thing?
[Edited at 2008-08-24 08:57]
| | | | | guess what... | Aug 24, 2008 |
M. Anna Kańduła wrote:
This software is only one one system users and of non interest for others. I my intention was to point out that to Mogge, as many programmers don't even consider non-Windows users, while creating their software. Some don't even realise there are non-Windows users out there.
Anni
Of course not. Why would they? It would be silly.
OSX (and linux - are there any?) users are a minuscule group among translators. Total mac market share is well under 20%, maybe under 10%... and a large chunk of that is made up of hip youngsters and creative types in the music/photo/video business, not translators.
Mac is not worth bothering with until your software is successful enough that you can start thinking about spending part of the revenue on developing versions for niche markets. Maybe not even then.
Did you think Mogge didn't know that? Are your feelings hurt that this won't run on your fancy mac?
| | | | esperantisto
Local time: 13:33
Member (2006)
English to Russian
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | Boring means boring | Aug 24, 2008 |
I'm curious, what do you mean by "boring" and "interesting" when you refer to software?
I mean that this program does not offer anything new or different as compared to programs already in the market.
As someone who has written software tools I can tell you that this type of feedback isn't constructive.
As someone who has taken part in development of several programs in different ways (l10n, documentation writing, testing, submitting bug reports and RFEs), I can tell you that if you want constructive feedback, don't write boring programs.
What I'd find interesting, would be (at least):
a) cross-platform/multi-platform;
b) supporting many file formats;
c) have good built-in (or plug-in) spelling/grammar checking capabilities.
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Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 12:33
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| Boring versus... | Aug 24, 2008 |
esperantisto wrote:
What I'd find interesting, would be (at least):
a) cross-platform/multi-platform;
Multi-platform isn't really exciting from a user's perspective. Very few users use more than one platform. Multi-platform is exciting from a developer's perspective, or perhaps from a marketeer's perspective. But programs like these aren't written for developers or marketeers. They are written for translators.
b) supporting many file formats;
What good is it if a program supports many file formats, but the vast majority of users need only one format? Take a look at the impressive list of file formats supported by Trados, for example. Yet most translators deal almost exclusively with word processing files. Again, multiple esoteric file formats may be interesting from a developer's or a beta tester's perspective, but what value does it really offer to the end-user? I'd rather have a program with many features that do a few formats, than a program that does many formats but have only few features.
c) have good built-in (or plug-in) spelling/grammar checking capabilities.
In my opinion, spell-checking is such a specialised field that requires such vast amounts of programming resources that it would be silly of a CAT tool developer to spend too much time developing support for it. Sure, the simpler languages can be dealt with using a simple brute-force word-list approach, but proper spell-checking isn't just one small piece of translation management.
There are existing projects that focus exclusively on the development on spell-checking -- why expect CAT tool developers to re-invent the wheel all over again, when in fact they should be focussing on improving translation management itself?
| | | | esperantisto
Local time: 13:33
Member (2006)
English to Russian
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | Samuel, did you really read my post? | Aug 25, 2008 |
I say, “what I'd find interesting”
Samuel Murray wrote:
Multi-platform isn't really exciting from a user's perspective. Very few users use more than one platform.
Right, few have more than one platform. But wrong, that multi-platform would be only for them. It would be exciting for those who consider migrating from one platform to another: if you have tools that you've gotten used to, migration will go smoother.
What good is it if a program supports many file formats, but the vast majority of users need only one format?
Good is that you can undertake a job that the vast majority of users won't.
I'd rather have a program with many features that do a few formats, than a program that does many formats but have only few features.
Well, I agree. But the program advertised here has both few features (well, maybe not few per se, but less than other programs) and few file formats.
c) have good built-in (or plug-in) spelling/grammar checking capabilities.
In my opinion, spell-checking is such a specialised field that requires such vast amounts of programming resources that it would be silly of a CAT tool developer to spend too much time developing support for it.
I don't say, they'd develop support on their own: it's enough to interface to an existing tool. And it would be silly not to do so.
So, I say again: that BTT Translator is just another tool, one of quite many, with nothing outstanding. And nothing outstanding is boring.
| | | | Mogge
Local time: 12:33
English to Swedish
TOPIC STARTER | About BTT Translator | Aug 25, 2008 |
First of all I want to thank everyone for all your posts, good and bad is very useful for me.
I will try and answer as many questions as I can here but if I miss any questions you have just ask me.
It is only for windows users (Anna)
This is true for a number of reasons. First of all because Windows is by far the most common OS and if I want to try and sell this program I have to go with the biggest segment. Second reason is that I am familiar with Windo... See more First of all I want to thank everyone for all your posts, good and bad is very useful for me.
I will try and answer as many questions as I can here but if I miss any questions you have just ask me.
It is only for windows users (Anna)
This is true for a number of reasons. First of all because Windows is by far the most common OS and if I want to try and sell this program I have to go with the biggest segment. Second reason is that I am familiar with Windows OS and so any development time is much shorter on Windows then on any other Operating system. My third reason is a more general point, I can always find things I want to improve or add (like support for Linux) in a software but I also have to make a decision when to release it, or I will spend years improving a software and never releasing it.
That said I would like to make a cross platform of BTT Translator if I find an interest for the software on for example Linux, but this would be earliest for version 2.0 or maybe even a later versions then that.
BTT design philosophy and limitations (Samuel)
So why I started developing this software in the first place is actually an encounter with Trados. I was helping my girlfriend with some tasks she needed to do as a beginner, I found the software pretty hard to understand at a first glance and even just reading the manual to accomplish the task(might have been an import) was not easy. So I wanted to do a software where you could actually start translating after only reading the manual for 5-10 minutes. Of course with more complex features in any software it tends to get harder and harder to understand (without training). But for me I want to make software’s you can use without training or endless hours reading manuals as then I feel you are actually helping the software and the software is not helping you.
Demo restriction.
Actually from the beginning I had a fully functioning trail version where people could use the software and see if it meet their demands. But that was also pretty easy to crack which meant the trail version became a non pay software and this is why I created the Demo version instead. However I take the point about being to restrictive and I can for sure release some of the restrictions.
So a no limitation on the document and 100-250 words/Language in the database might be enough for testing the software?
My goal is for people to truly test the software on their machines making sure it works like they expect it to before making any purchase.
For .doc and .rtf you need to have minimum MS Word 2000 installed but for .txt you do not need MS Word installed. Easy way to check this is to open task manager and then start a translation. For .doc and .rtf you will see a new instance of MS word started but for .txt not.
More interesting features (Esperantisto)
I can agree that support for different formats is a good things and specially I am thinking of .xml files and maybe .pdf even thought that is not an easy format to support. I am planning to support more file formats in the next version although I am not sure exactly which ones it will be. For this version as it was aimed as a tool to quickly start translating and most common format is .doc that was the main format to support.
A good spelling/grammar built in is not a easy task to do and I do not think it will be included as an own feature. There might be a possibility for using MS Words built in grammar/spelling or some other 3rd party software in future versions.
So this became a rather long post but I hope I cleared up some of the questions.
Thanks again for all your posts ▲ Collapse
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