ProZ.com Translation Forums

New Fluency CAT tool | I do not like getting unsolicited phone calls

Barbara Pillmeier — Tue, 23 Jul 2013 16:48:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: Barbara Pillmeier
Post title: I do not like getting unsolicited phone calls

ProZ advertised the tool in a mail that I received. I was interested and clicked to download the demo version. For some reason the download didn't work - and I lost interest already.

Today, I got a phone call from this company, because I clicked the link in the e-mail to check out this tool.

Helloooo? A phone call from the US just because I clicked the download button! Trying to give me whatever good conditions, etc. if I buy now.

I do not like getting unsolicited phone calls! E-mails are ok, because I can delete them without reading - which I will do whenever another mail comes in from this company.

After reading your comments, I definitely do not need such kind of a translation tool

....my five cents....

New Fluency CAT tool | Glossary tip

Tony M — Tue, 25 Jun 2013 06:51:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: Tony M
Post title: Glossary tip

[quote]Alexander Teplitsky wrote:

Russian words and phrases are changing depending on a multiple of circumstances (time, gender, case, etc.). Fluency can not learn all these forms, and therefore "translating over and over again" still necessary.[/quote]

I know nothing about the specific tool (I use Wordfast), but what I do to handle inflected forms is to enter into the glossary the root form in the source language and the uninflected root in the target language; that way, all I have to do each time is type the inflected ending.

Of course, I realize that doesn't help with things like the root vowel changing (as in German) --- but I still find it helps reduce the number of extra keystrokes required.

Personally, I find my CAT tool's glossary function a lot more useful than the actual translation memory. ;-)

New Fluency CAT tool | Fluency CAT tool

Pablo Bouvier — Tue, 25 Jun 2013 06:36:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: Pablo Bouvier
Post title: Fluency CAT tool

[quote]Alexander Teplitsky wrote:

I own Fluency, and I was trying to master it for several months... Then I quit. You wonder why?
My language pair is English - Russian. Russian words and phrases are changing depending on a multiple of circumstances (time, gender, case, etc.). Fluency can not learn all these forms, and therefore "translating over and over again" still necessary. Working with Fluency slows me down by two times at least. [/quote]

I will not criticize nor defend Fluency or any other CAT. In German, as in Russian, there is also a large number of flexible words, but this does not preclude the use of translation tools. The CAT are made for what they are made for: very repetitive or similar texts with the same or similar jargon.

New Fluency CAT tool | It's slows me down

Alexander Teplitsky — Tue, 25 Jun 2013 02:11:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: Alexander Teplitsky
Post title: It's slows me down

I own Fluency, and I was trying to master it for several months... Then I quit. You wonder why?
My language pair is English - Russian. Russian words and phrases are changing depending on a multiple of circumstances (time, gender, case, etc.). Fluency can not learn all these forms, and therefore "translating over and over again" still necessary. Working with Fluency slows me down by two times at least.

New Fluency CAT tool | Fluency

rtregaskis — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 03:35:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: rtregaskis
Post title: Fluency

I'm one of the programmers of Fluency and I wanted to take a chance to respond to Leon's complaints. Fluency has been released and has been used by translators all over the world for over 8 months now. The words "half-baked" and "not ready for productive work" would seem like quite a stretch to the many people who are currently using Fluency for production work. We do understand that as with all software, there will be "technical glitches," but Fluency is far removed from the beta stage. We are more than happy to work through any installation specific issues when we are contacted directly and go to any length to make sure Fluency is working correctly.

As far as our site is concerned, we released a marketing email from ProZ last week and had an overwhelming response, with over 500 people downloading the software at the same time which caused issues with our servers. These were fixed within 8 hours.

As far as terminology is concerned, we did not just take free dictionaries and make them available. The terminology is licensed from a third party provider who gathered the terminology over decades from LSPs and translators. We have not personally verified the millions of terms in every language and apologize for any errors. We have ongoing QA efforts in that area and welcome any specific feedback.

As far as the segmentation is concerned, we have considered adding SRX support, but our users have not requested such support. We do have regular expression based segmentation rules and exceptions that can be added to or edited. If SRX is a priority to any of our users, it will be a priority to us.

Despite some letters in the menus not being underlined (some are), you can still use the keyboard to navigate the menus. Although we have strived to make Fluency relatively simple, there is still a great deal of complexity to deal with, and one of the main things that we are trying to roll out in a conscientious way is keyboard shortcuts which may conflict with menu shortcuts. Once we have enough feedback and have determined the best way to move forward, we will make more of these features available.

We are happy to have constructive feedback from our users and offer 1st rate technical support. Leon, thank you for your feedback and please feel free to contact us at [email removed] if you'd like us to work through your installation issues with you.

[Edited at 2011-06-07 15:49 GMT]

New Fluency CAT tool | Tested!

Tiberiu Leon — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 07:34:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: Tiberiu Leon
Post title: Tested!

Hi, all!
I downloaded a demo version of the software. The installation of the program on Windows 7 went with no problems and the main window appeared. After a quick overview of the functions and menus, I decided to take if for a spin and tried to translate a doc file with an average formatting difficulty. The import of the file went well, but then the first glitches started to appear. At first, my impression was that it is not a finished product, that is still a work in progress and it is only a half-baked product. The first impression was confirmed after a while, when the software tried to update, but instead did not respond for at least half an hour. After restarting the application, it maybe started a loop, because I was not able anymore the pass by the first windows after the update, so I could not use the program anymore. I tried to reinstall it, used the repair function of the installer, but to no avail, so I decided to uninstall it.
The short period of time I was able to use the program was enough to get an overall impression of the program. The author / authors praises the integration of terminology dictionaries in the software. While the initiative is certainly to be praised, in my case, for Romanian, the dictionary was of poor quality. In fact, many words lacked diacritics, some were wrongly spelled, some had illegible characters and I think the company (whose site was actually down the last time I checked) selling the dictionary takes some freely available dictionaries from the net without editing and just puts them on display. So what should have been a strong point proved in the end to be a frustrating experience. Here I would like to see a feature implemented as in Transit XV: when right clicking a word, one should have a context menu with the possibility to choose from words from the dictionary, let's say by entering a number. This could be a competitive advantage over other programs, so the programmers could take into account this proposal.
I like to use shortcuts a lot, so I missed the fact that the menus had no underlined letters to navigate easily within the menus with the keyboard.
The segmentation seemed to be ok for the file I imported, also there seems to be no support for SRX segmentation rules. I had no luck editing the initial automatic segmentation. I entered some words in the manual segmentation rules, for instance it should not end the segment for "nr.", but I could not test the results after reimporting the files because, as I mentioned before, the program crashed and I could not use it anymore.
In conclusion, there are some technical glitches which prevented me from using the software at its full potential and I honestly think the program still needs a lot of work. As stated before, the program seems to be still in a prolonged beta stage and, at least for me, not ready for productive work.

[Edited at 2011-06-04 05:03 GMT]

New Fluency CAT tool | On terminology pre-translation

Samuel Murray — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 10:18:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: Samuel Murray
Post title: On terminology pre-translation

[quote]wstranslation wrote:
Fluency will preprocess you document looking for terms and identify them for pre-translation. This feature is still in beta. [/quote]

Aah. So, in other words, what other CAT tools call term extraction.

New Fluency CAT tool | installation problems

wstranslation — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 06:57:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: wstranslation
Post title: installation problems

We are aware that a few users have experienced installation/startup problems with Fluency. We are investigating these as quickly as possible, but have not yet been able to replicate these issues. This is our top priority. As this is a new product, we are experiencing some growing pains and appreciate your patience. For those of you experiencing issues, if you are still interested in evaluating Fluency and potentially purchasing, we would certainly be willing to provide further discounts if you can send us specific information about your issues (operating system, .Net version, etc.) and help us resolve them for you. Once again, our email is [email removed]

As for the quality of the dictionaries, as mentioned previously, we are involved in ongoing QA and as the dictionaries improve, they will be available to Fluency customers. Thank you for the interest and the feedback.

New Fluency CAT tool | worked for me

carl11 — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 06:22:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: carl11
Post title: worked for me

I downloaded and installed and didn't have any issues. I'm on a Windows 7 machine. Ironically, I have had more issues with MemoQ and Trados crashing so far then Fluency.

New Fluency CAT tool | A short trial run of Fluency

Ulf Samuelsson — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 22:42:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: Ulf Samuelsson
Post title: A short trial run of Fluency

I downloaded the Swedish version of Fluency to give it a test run, but I couldn't manage to actually translate anything. I managed to import a memory, but kept getting a database connection error and another fatal error when I tried to translate.
I installed Fluency on Windows 7, but didn't get any error messages during the installation.

As for the included glossary, I found it seriously lacking in quality when I tried to look up a few words. Specifically "allowance" and "audit" also included German, French and Spanish terms.

Also, I found it annoying that the terms listed are just a bunch of words, without any specific order. It would be useful to have each separate meaning of the original word have a separate set of suggested translations. Just a set of possible translations in random order isn't very helpful.

The concept of Fluency is good, but I found it to still be in beta stage as there are problems after a standard installation (meaning that I didn't make any changes to the standard installation path or any other changes during the setup of the program).

I'll try to install it in XP mode and see if that is working any better ...

New Fluency CAT tool | Reply from Western Standard

wstranslation — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 22:38:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: wstranslation
Post title: Reply from Western Standard

Our dictionary data has been licensed from Transoft Intl. Their website is transoft.us if you want to look them up. We have also done some QA on their dictionaries ourselves.

The sizes of the dictionaries obviously various quite a bit. Our average dictionary size for the languages we support is about 130,000. Our QA on the dictionaries is on-going and when we release new dictionaries, they will be available to Fluency customers.

As our product is new, the price model is evolving, so I would recommend getting in early. :) The current price is NOT sustainable, thus is denoted on our site as an introductory sale. We do however plan on continuing our “Agile Development” as termed by Mr. Zetzsche and as can be seen by the fact that we have released over 20 updates in the last 2 months.

Other questions:

"How does adding terminology work in Fluency? "

There are many different ways to add terminology in Fluency. Terminology import currently supports csv and tab delimited documents and soon TBX. To add terminology during a translation you can highlight the term and right click and hit “Add Term to Database”, click on the “Plus” button in the toolbar, or go to the menu item “Track Term”.

"Is it user-friendly? "

We think so

"Can it be done quickly? "

Yes

"Can the user edit the term entry directly, and/or is he forced to do so?"

You can highlight the term in question and it populates in a dialog box that appears and your enter the translation and any other information. You can edit it but you do not have to. There is also a terminology management interface.

"I don't know what "automatically discover terminology pre-translation" means. Can the Fluency guy here enlighten us?"

Fluency will preprocess you document looking for terms and identify them for pre-translation. This feature is still in beta.

To Mr. Murray, we apologize for issues you are having with installation. Please contact us at [email removed] or call us at [phone removed] or Toll-Free [phone removed] so we can help you resolve your issues.

New Fluency CAT tool | Fluency crashes for me

Samuel Murray — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:45:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: Samuel Murray
Post title: Fluency crashes for me

I downloaded the "Dutch" version of Fluency and installed it on Windows XP SP3. The installation dialog said that it could take 20-40 minutes, but the install took less than 5 minutes (less than 1 minute, if I'm not mistaken). When I ran Fluency for the first time, it tried to access the internet once (I allowed it), and then it crashed. I tried again, but it crashes. I rebooted, and tried again. This time, Fluency no longer tries to access the internet, but still... it crashes. I get a splash screen, and then... an error message from Windows asking if I want to submit an error report. Any ideas?

New Fluency CAT tool | Is the price sustainable?

Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 07:07:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Post title: Is the price sustainable?

[quote]Richard Tregaskis wrote:
The $179 for MemoQ is only for a one-year subscription. Fluency is a perpetual license. Fluency is also highly database driven. It was originally developed such that it could not function at all without a central database server that housed all of the terminology, TMs, and project files.[/quote]
Thinking about what Richard said about the perpetual license, I cannot help to wonder whether this price is sustainable in the long run. Let's suppose that Fluency reached 1,000 users, a user base many players still don't have in our market as far as I am aware. This would mean sales of a quarter of a million dollars. Yes, it might sound like an impressive figure, but if you start paying developers, sales people, IT expenses (you cannot keep 1,000 users happy with small servers), expenses at trade fairs, advertising, user gatherings, etc. etc., and a quarter of a million dollars feels like a dime in reality.

The permanent license model with further payment for new licenses is something that proved bad for us translators: SDL spent 5 years issuing just minor upgrades for Trados. On the other side of things, I own MemoQ since September and have already had some 10 upgrades and one new version, quite an achievement I think, and based on the 20%-a-year model: we pay 20% of the purchase price after the first year of use, and always have access to any upgrades. This keeps Kilgray developing new things to keep us happy.

Isn't there a risk that, with the perpetual license model, the makers of Fluency could run into the Trados troubles, thus making development painstakingly slow?

New Fluency CAT tool | On disclosing sources of dictionaries

Samuel Murray — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 06:54:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: Samuel Murray
Post title: On disclosing sources of dictionaries

[quote]FarkasAndras wrote:
I'd strongly urge the people behind Fluency to disclose the sources of their dictionary data for each language combination. Just saying "We have a dictionary and we promise it's big" is saying nothing, or maybe a bit worse than saying nothing. [/quote]

I agree. It can only do the image of Fluency good if they can say where they got their dictionary data from, and to also say a little more about the size and quality of their dictionary material.

New Fluency CAT tool | About Fluency's terminology features

Samuel Murray — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 06:51:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: Samuel Murray
Post title: About Fluency's terminology features

[quote]carl11 wrote:
Their site also clarifies the terminology import:
[i]Fluency™ allows the translator to import their personal terminology, automatically discover terminology pre-translation, add terminology while translating, and enforce terminology rules.[/i] [/quote]

Enforcing terminology rules is a nice thing to have, but many CAT tools have it (though it isn't what I would consider a standard feature in CAT tools). The issue is not whether there is terminology rule enforcement, but how good it is. How well does it deal with prefix and suffix inflected languages, and with multiword inflections, etc, for example.

Adding terminology while translating is also pretty standard in CAT tools, though some don't have it. On the other hand, if the terminology files aren't in a simple format, then it is really no selling point but merely a solution to a problem (-: The same goes for importing one's own terminology, although the question would be how many import formats it supports. How does adding terminology work in Fluency? Is it user-friendly? Can it be done quickly? Can the user edit the term entry directly, and/or is he forced to do so?

I don't know what "automatically discover terminology pre-translation" means. Can the Fluency guy here enlighten us?

Edited: forgot to credit carl11.

[Edited at 2010-06-25 06:59 GMT]

New Fluency CAT tool | @Andras

Samuel Murray — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 06:43:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: Samuel Murray
Post title: @Andras

[quote]FarkasAndras wrote:
[quote]Samuel Murray wrote:
I get the impression that this tool's main selling point is the fact that is comes bundled with a complete dictionary, and that the dictionary feature in Fluency is as powerful as the glossary features in other CAT tools. [/quote]

1. Can they offer a really good dictionary in my mother tongue (Hungarian) or yours (Afrikaans)? Of course not.
2. Good translators don't have much use for a general dictionary anyway.
3. Built-in dictionaries have never been and will never become a selling point of CATs.[/quote]

1. No, I doubt it, unless they purchase it from respectible dictionary makers. That said, the Hungarian and Afrikaans slice of the market is rather small.

2. I disagree. A general dictionary is a good translator's best friend.

3. I think built-in dictionaries can be a major selling point. If I could have a CAT tool that had a built-in dictionary, or that had the ability to look up text in a dictionary automatically (without any intervention), I'd be very happy to use buy it.

The fact that I get along just fine without looking up every word in the dictionary is simply the consequence of my inability to do so, and not because I have deliberately chosen to use the dictionary as litlte as possible.

New Fluency CAT tool | New Fluency CAT tool

Pablo Bouvier — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 21:02:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: Pablo Bouvier
Post title: New Fluency CAT tool

[quote]FarkasAndras wrote:

[quote]Pablo Bouvier wrote:

[quote]FarkasAndras wrote:

[quote]Samuel Murray wrote:

I get the impression that this tool's main selling point is the fact that is comes bundled with a complete dictionary, and that the dictionary feature in Fluency is as powerful as the glossary features in other CAT tools. [/quote]
If that's the company's thinking, I pity them. That's a hugely mistaken idea. I mean, can they offer a really good dictionary in my mother tongue (Hungarian) or yours (Afrikaans)? Of course not. And even if they could, good translators don't have much use for a general dictionary anyway. It's just hopeless.

The program itself may be excellent for all I know, but built-in dictionaries have never been and will never become a selling point of CATs. People who know what they are doing have zero interest in them.
Also, if the tool lacks the ability to create and import glossaries (from tab delimited txt/xls and/or from TBX) then it goes straight to the rubbish heap where it belongs. [/quote]

I would not dare to openly criticize an application that I have not checked myself in depth.[/quote]
Nor would I, which is why I don't do so without a caveat. If you read my post again, you might notice that it starts with "If that's the company's thinking" and goes on to say "The program itself may be excellent". [/quote]

Yes, you are right and I am sorry about the confusion. However, I still have the feeling we are assuming which is the company's policy relying only on evidences.

New Fluency CAT tool | Opinions

FarkasAndras — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 14:54:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: FarkasAndras
Post title: Opinions

[quote]Pablo Bouvier wrote:

[quote]FarkasAndras wrote:

[quote]Samuel Murray wrote:

I get the impression that this tool's main selling point is the fact that is comes bundled with a complete dictionary, and that the dictionary feature in Fluency is as powerful as the glossary features in other CAT tools. [/quote]
If that's the company's thinking, I pity them. That's a hugely mistaken idea. I mean, can they offer a really good dictionary in my mother tongue (Hungarian) or yours (Afrikaans)? Of course not. And even if they could, good translators don't have much use for a general dictionary anyway. It's just hopeless.

The program itself may be excellent for all I know, but built-in dictionaries have never been and will never become a selling point of CATs. People who know what they are doing have zero interest in them.
Also, if the tool lacks the ability to create and import glossaries (from tab delimited txt/xls and/or from TBX) then it goes straight to the rubbish heap where it belongs. [/quote]

I would not dare to openly criticize an application that I have not checked myself in depth.[/quote]
Nor would I, which is why I don't do so without a caveat. If you read my post again, you might notice that it starts with "If that's the company's thinking" and goes on to say "The program itself may be excellent".

New Fluency CAT tool | New Fluency CAT tool

Pablo Bouvier — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 14:46:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: Pablo Bouvier
Post title: New Fluency CAT tool

[quote]FarkasAndras wrote:

[quote]Samuel Murray wrote:

I get the impression that this tool's main selling point is the fact that is comes bundled with a complete dictionary, and that the dictionary feature in Fluency is as powerful as the glossary features in other CAT tools. [/quote]
If that's the company's thinking, I pity them. That's a hugely mistaken idea. I mean, can they offer a really good dictionary in my mother tongue (Hungarian) or yours (Afrikaans)? Of course not. And even if they could, good translators don't have much use for a general dictionary anyway. It's just hopeless.

The program itself may be excellent for all I know, but built-in dictionaries have never been and will never become a selling point of CATs. People who know what they are doing have zero interest in them.
Also, if the tool lacks the ability to create and import glossaries (from tab delimited txt/xls and/or from TBX) then it goes straight to the rubbish heap where it belongs. [/quote]

With all due respect for third opinions, I would not dare to openly criticize an application that I have not checked myself in depth. In my humble opinion, Fluency is a young product that will have its strengths and weaknesses as like any other similar product, but that will evolve like any other similar product too. Nobody has born as an adult.

On the other hand, I do not think it will be useful to us nor to Western Standard to provide them with a feedback based on assumptions rather than proven facts.

New Fluency CAT tool | No miracles

FarkasAndras — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 10:19:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: FarkasAndras
Post title: No miracles

[quote]carl11 wrote:

I looked on their site. They do actually offer a Hungarian/English dictionary, though not Afrikaans. Don't know how good it is, though they claim that it's big. Their site also clarifies the terminology import.
[/quote]
I can't find where they say so... But the thing is, there are only 3 big Hungarian-English dictionaries. One is age-old and pretty bad, the other is a giant term list that is basically a bootleg copy of the first (the old dictionary) with a lot of extra terms inserted, and the third is a pretty good newish corpus-based dictionary.
It's really really unlikely that they bought the rights to use no. 3 so my guess is that Fluency includes one of the somewhat updated but still pretty awful versions of no. 1, or no 2., which is freely available to everyone anyway, or some free term list from whatever online source... pretty unappetizing.

Of course, the situation is even worse for Hungarian-Spanish (a combination I need) or, say, Finnish-Basque.

Maybe they used the freely available data from Wiktionary and Wikipedia, which would be a smart move as it covers a huge range of language combinations - but it's quality is somewhat uneven.
In any case, I'd strongly urge the people behind Fluency to disclose the sources of their dictionary data for each language combination. Just saying "We have a dictionary and we promise it's big" is saying nothing, or maybe a bit worse than saying nothing.

New Fluency CAT tool | Dictionary

carl11 — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 04:10:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: carl11
Post title: Dictionary

[quote]FarkasAndras wrote:

[quote]Samuel Murray wrote:

I get the impression that this tool's main selling point is the fact that is comes bundled with a complete dictionary, and that the dictionary feature in Fluency is as powerful as the glossary features in other CAT tools. [/quote]
If that's the company's thinking, I pity them. That's a hugely mistaken idea. I mean, can they offer a really good dictionary in my mother tongue (Hungarian) or yours (Afrikaans)? Of course not. And even if they could, good translators don't have much use for a general dictionary anyway. It's just hopeless.

The program itself may be excellent for all I know, but built-in dictionaries have never been and will never become a selling point of CATs. People who know what they are doing have zero interest in them.
Also, if the tool lacks the ability to create and import glossaries (from tab delimited txt/xls and/or from TBX) then it goes straight to the rubbish heap where it belongs. [/quote]

I looked on their site. They do actually offer a Hungarian/English dictionary, though not Afrikaans. Don't know how good it is, though they claim that it's big. Their site also clarifies the terminology import.

" Fluency™ allows the translator to import their personal terminology, automatically discover terminology pre-translation, add terminology while translating, and enforce terminology rules."

That's also mentioned in Jost's article. Jost's article did seem to indicate that an up side of this tool/company is their responsiveness to suggesstions so I'll be interested to see what it becomes.

New Fluency CAT tool | New Fluency CAT tool

Pablo Bouvier — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 20:03:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: Pablo Bouvier
Post title: New Fluency CAT tool

[quote]Richard Tregaskis wrote:

Since Fluency is new in the marketplace, I will try and clarify some of the features and capabilities that are built into Fluency. The easiest way may first be to respond to some of the questions already posted, but I would like to say that we are very interested in feedback and in answering any other questions.

First in response to the statements/questions of Tomas:

“1. On the technical side:
- Too centered on the source document. Apparently the preview (which occupies a big part of the screen) does not get updated with your translations. Given that today I only occassionally deal with Word documents, this preview is not very useful.
”
Fluency provides a view of the source document and a live preview of the target document (where applicable). This allows the translator to see the source text in greater context as well as see the target document as each segment is completed (source is not modified). For some fileformats, a preview button is available to see a rendered view of the output (HTML, PPT, etc.).

“- Too much clicking: To see your resources (dictionary, TM matches, etc.) you have to click on tabs. We don't have the time for that!”

The interface has been changed since the old demo video was created (about 1 month ago and a new demo video will be posted in the next day or so). The new interface displays the Glossary, Translation Memories, and any one of the additional resources at all times. Changing settings in the preferences allows the selection of which additional tab is primary.

“- File-based: This is a problem in the old environments that I can now forget about (in MemoQ for instance). You have to save files, so apparently you can always lose work if you forget to save or your computer or programme crashes. Database-driven CAT tools are much more handy, since you can forget about saving. At the beginning I put a little post-it on the "Save" icon in MemoQ as my colleagues were too prone to click on it after a decade using Trados.”

Fluency uses an auto-save feature similar to Word which creates a backup, by default, every 120 seconds. This can be customized in Tools > Preferences to as often as every 60 seconds and with patch 1.1.21 which would be released by the end of the week, every 20 seconds.

“- No review/proofreading features? I did not see how to act as a reviewer/proofreader on the projects.”

What kinds of Proofreading/Review features would you like? We could probably add them in a couple of weeks. Currently, a translator may share project files with other translators allowing them to review and edit the translation and even see any notes that the translator may have provided.

“2. On the price/company side:
- Even in its current promotional price and the simplest version, this tool is more expensive (US$ 250) than MemoQ Standard (US$ 179). I am not really sure US$ 250 pays for the features I have seen in the video, especially compared with database-driven applications.”

The $179 for MemoQ is only for a one-year subscription. Fluency is a perpetual license. Fluency is also highly database driven. It was originally developed such that it could not function at all without a central database server that housed all of the terminology, TMs, and project files.

“- It would be great if the company (Western Standard) shared more information about themselves in this forum (I have told them about the existence of the forum so that they can join). Choosing a CAT tool can be a strategic decision and choosing the right partner can be critical long-term.”

Western Standard has been a member of ProZ since 2008, but we do need to update or profile (and keep it up to date :) ).

“- It would also be very interesting if the company hared some more information with us about filters, compatibility, XLIFF and TMX support, etc. Freedom of choice calls for compatibility with the standards.”

Fluency supports many of the major TM exchange formats, especially TMX. See: [url removed] Although our site is already outdated because we add formats almost every week (sometimes a couple a week), it does state most of the core formats we support for both TMs and source file formats. We do not currently support XLIFF, although we’ll look into adding that as well.

” This topic also raises a general question: how many CAT tools can the market sustain? The choice of tools is breathtaking today, and that is good, but I wonder how many users are necessary to sustain continuous development and improvement.

In my opinion, very few companies are proving that they are financially capable of sustaining a continuous development and agile support, and the list in my head does not include some very important brands after what we hear and see in the fora. What are Western Standard's plans of on this area?”

Fluency was originally designed to fill a need in providing timely and accurate translations for the U.S. military. The military needed something to aid in providing translations within hours instead of days. There are currently several U.S. Federal agencies reviewing Fluency for use within their own translation divisions.

From Samuel Murray:

“The new version has a smaller dotnetfx file (24 MB) and no instructional video.”

Tutorial videos are now posted on Youtube and Fluency links directly to those videos from within the program. Video links are now updated with patches or new downloads. This minimizes the amount of data that the user needs to download. Although the download is relatively large, the download also contains large amounts of terminology that can be used with or without an active internet connection (designed for portability).

[Edited at 2010-06-23 18:24 GMT] [/quote]

@Richard: Thanks a lot for your prompt feedback! I will try the CAT in a few days and come back with more comments.

[Editado a las 2010-06-23 20:05 GMT]

New Fluency CAT tool | Miserable

FarkasAndras — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 19:31:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: FarkasAndras
Post title: Miserable

[quote]Samuel Murray wrote:

I get the impression that this tool's main selling point is the fact that is comes bundled with a complete dictionary, and that the dictionary feature in Fluency is as powerful as the glossary features in other CAT tools. [/quote]
If that's the company's thinking, I pity them. That's a hugely mistaken idea. I mean, can they offer a really good dictionary in my mother tongue (Hungarian) or yours (Afrikaans)? Of course not. And even if they could, good translators don't have much use for a general dictionary anyway. It's just hopeless.

The program itself may be excellent for all I know, but built-in dictionaries have never been and will never become a selling point of CATs. People who know what they are doing have zero interest in them.
Also, if the tool lacks the ability to create and import glossaries (from tab delimited txt/xls and/or from TBX) then it goes straight to the rubbish heap where it belongs.

New Fluency CAT tool | Thank you very much!

Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 19:23:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Post title: Thank you very much!

[quote]Richard Tregaskis wrote:
Since Fluency is new in the marketplace, I will try and clarify some of the features and capabilities that are built into Fluency. The easiest way may first be to respond to some of the questions already posted, but I would like to say that we are very interested in feedback and in answering any other questions.[/quote]
Thank you very much Richard! This is very interesting insight. It's very busy indeed over here these days to test the product in depth, but I will look for the videos in Youtube to have a look, before commenting more on the tool.

As you might imagine from my comments I am very fond of our MemoQ, but knowing how the CAT tool market is evolving is always very interesting.

New Fluency CAT tool | New Fluency CAT tool

Pablo Bouvier — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:32:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: Pablo Bouvier
Post title: New Fluency CAT tool

[quote]Samuel Murray wrote:

[quote]Pablo Bouvier wrote:
A few days ago, I received the always interesting Dr. Jost Zetsche's newsletter. There he refers to a new translation environment called Fluency.[/quote]

I get the impression that this tool's main selling point is the fact that is comes bundled with a complete dictionary, and that the dictionary feature in Fluency is as powerful as the glossary features in other CAT tools. If you remove the fact that Fluency comes with a built-in dictionary, then the feature set in Fluency is not much better than those of the bottom feeding bunch of CAT programs out there.

The previous version was a 670 MB download, and this latest version is a 450 MB download. The old version contained these files in the download:

1. an English SDF file (270 MB) (this is the dictionary)
2. an SDF file for your language (170 MB or more)
3. an instructional video (130 MB)
4. dotnetfx, in case you don't have it yet (130 MB)

The new version has a smaller dotnetfx file (24 MB) and no instructional video.

[/quote]

Hi Samuel. Thanks for share your impressions about this tool. I downloaded it this afternoon for the Spanish version, but I do not have much time to check it.

New Fluency CAT tool | Reply from Western Standard

Richard Tregaskis — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:21:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: Richard Tregaskis
Post title: Reply from Western Standard

Since Fluency is new in the marketplace, I will try and clarify some of the features and capabilities that are built into Fluency. The easiest way may first be to respond to some of the questions already posted, but I would like to say that we are very interested in feedback and in answering any other questions.

First in response to the statements/questions of Tomas:

“1. On the technical side:
- Too centered on the source document. Apparently the preview (which occupies a big part of the screen) does not get updated with your translations. Given that today I only occassionally deal with Word documents, this preview is not very useful.
”
Fluency provides a view of the source document and a live preview of the target document (where applicable). This allows the translator to see the source text in greater context as well as see the target document as each segment is completed (source is not modified). For some fileformats, a preview button is available to see a rendered view of the output (HTML, PPT, etc.).

“- Too much clicking: To see your resources (dictionary, TM matches, etc.) you have to click on tabs. We don't have the time for that!”

The interface has been changed since the old demo video was created (about 1 month ago and a new demo video will be posted in the next day or so). The new interface displays the Glossary, Translation Memories, and any one of the additional resources at all times. Changing settings in the preferences allows the selection of which additional tab is primary.

“- File-based: This is a problem in the old environments that I can now forget about (in MemoQ for instance). You have to save files, so apparently you can always lose work if you forget to save or your computer or programme crashes. Database-driven CAT tools are much more handy, since you can forget about saving. At the beginning I put a little post-it on the "Save" icon in MemoQ as my colleagues were too prone to click on it after a decade using Trados.”

Fluency uses an auto-save feature similar to Word which creates a backup, by default, every 120 seconds. This can be customized in Tools > Preferences to as often as every 60 seconds and with patch 1.1.21 which would be released by the end of the week, every 20 seconds.

“- No review/proofreading features? I did not see how to act as a reviewer/proofreader on the projects.”

What kinds of Proofreading/Review features would you like? We could probably add them in a couple of weeks. Currently, a translator may share project files with other translators allowing them to review and edit the translation and even see any notes that the translator may have provided.

“2. On the price/company side:
- Even in its current promotional price and the simplest version, this tool is more expensive (US$ 250) than MemoQ Standard (US$ 179). I am not really sure US$ 250 pays for the features I have seen in the video, especially compared with database-driven applications.”

The $179 for MemoQ is only for a one-year subscription. Fluency is a perpetual license. Fluency is also highly database driven. It was originally developed such that it could not function at all without a central database server that housed all of the terminology, TMs, and project files.

“- It would be great if the company (Western Standard) shared more information about themselves in this forum (I have told them about the existence of the forum so that they can join). Choosing a CAT tool can be a strategic decision and choosing the right partner can be critical long-term.”

Western Standard has been a member of ProZ since 2008, but we do need to update or profile (and keep it up to date :) ).

“- It would also be very interesting if the company hared some more information with us about filters, compatibility, XLIFF and TMX support, etc. Freedom of choice calls for compatibility with the standards.”

Fluency supports many of the major TM exchange formats, especially TMX. See: [url removed] Although our site is already outdated because we add formats almost every week (sometimes a couple a week), it does state most of the core formats we support for both TMs and source file formats. We do not currently support XLIFF, although we’ll look into adding that as well.

” This topic also raises a general question: how many CAT tools can the market sustain? The choice of tools is breathtaking today, and that is good, but I wonder how many users are necessary to sustain continuous development and improvement.

In my opinion, very few companies are proving that they are financially capable of sustaining a continuous development and agile support, and the list in my head does not include some very important brands after what we hear and see in the fora. What are Western Standard's plans of on this area?”

Fluency was originally designed to fill a need in providing timely and accurate translations for the U.S. military. The military needed something to aid in providing translations within hours instead of days. There are currently several U.S. Federal agencies reviewing Fluency for use within their own translation divisions.

From Samuel Murray:

“The new version has a smaller dotnetfx file (24 MB) and no instructional video.”

Tutorial videos are now posted on Youtube and Fluency links directly to those videos from within the program. Video links are now updated with patches or new downloads. This minimizes the amount of data that the user needs to download. Although the download is relatively large, the download also contains large amounts of terminology that can be used with or without an active internet connection (designed for portability).

[Edited at 2010-06-23 18:24 GMT]

New Fluency CAT tool | More points about Fluency

Samuel Murray — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 10:25:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: Samuel Murray
Post title: More points about Fluency

[quote]Pablo Bouvier wrote:
A few days ago, I received the always interesting Dr. Jost Zetsche's newsletter. There he refers to a new translation environment called Fluency.[/quote]

I get the impression that this tool's main selling point is the fact that is comes bundled with a complete dictionary, and that the dictionary feature in Fluency is as powerful as the glossary features in other CAT tools. If you remove the fact that Fluency comes with a built-in dictionary, then the feature set in Fluency is not much better than those of the bottom feeding bunch of CAT programs out there.

The previous version was a 670 MB download, and this latest version is a 450 MB download. The old version contained these files in the download:

1. an English SDF file (270 MB) (this is the dictionary)
2. an SDF file for your language (170 MB or more)
3. an instructional video (130 MB)
4. dotnetfx, in case you don't have it yet (130 MB)

The new version has a smaller dotnetfx file (24 MB) and no instructional video.

New Fluency CAT tool | New Fluency, old demo video

Samuel Murray — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 08:06:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: Samuel Murray
Post title: New Fluency, old demo video

[quote]Pablo Bouvier wrote:
A few days ago, I received the always interesting Dr. Jost Zetsche's newsletter. There he refers to a new translation environment called Fluency.[/quote]

I downloaded Fluency a few weeks ago, and also the demonstration video. Jost says in his newsletter that the Fluency company had implemented all of his suggestions, but... their demo video is still the old one, so I'm not sure what those changes were.

New Fluency CAT tool | New Fluency CAT tool

Pablo Bouvier — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 07:05:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: Pablo Bouvier
Post title: New Fluency CAT tool

[quote]Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:

I have only viewed the video the company have published with a quick demo.../...

.../... This topic also raises a general question: how many CAT tools can the market sustain? The choice of tools is breathtaking today, and that is good, but I wonder how many users are necessary to sustain continuous development and improvement.

In my opinion, very few companies are proving that they are financially capable of sustaining a continuous development and agile support, and the list in my head does not include some very important brands after what we hear and see in the fora. What are Western Standard's plans of on this area? [/quote]

@Tomás: Thanks a lot for share your thoughts about the new tool and to inform the creators about the forum's existence. I also share your concerns about to choose the right partner in a long term run and on how many CAT tools may the market sustain in a restrictive economy, as like that certain heavy weighted brands suffer from obesity to be nimble enough. Let 's wait what the creators have to say about the possible technical weaknesses you mentioned before.

[Editado a las 2010-06-23 07:10 GMT]

New Fluency CAT tool | My first impressions

Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 06:07:00 +0000

Forum: Fluency support
Topic: New Fluency CAT tool
Poster: Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Post title: My first impressions

I have only viewed the video the company have published with a quick demo.

I have not downloaded the product, but my first impressions are:
1. On the technical side:
- Too centered on the source document. Apparently the preview (which occupies a big part of the screen) does not get updated with your translations. Given that today I only occassionally deal with Word documents, this preview is not very useful.

- Too much clicking: To see your resources (dictionary, TM matches, etc.) you have to click on tabs. We don't have the time for that!

- File-based: This is a problem in the old environments that I can now forget about (in MemoQ for instance). You have to save files, so apparently you can always lose work if you forget to save or your computer or programme crashes. Database-driven CAT tools are much more handy, since you can forget about saving. At the beginning I put a little post-it on the "Save" icon in MemoQ as my colleagues were too prone to click on it after a decade using Trados.

- No review/proofreading features? I did not see how to act as a reviewer/proofreader on the projects.

2. On the price/company side:
- Even in its current promotional price and the simplest version, this tool is more expensive (US$ 250) than MemoQ Standard (US$ 179). I am not really sure US$ 250 pays for the features I have seen in the video, especially compared with database-driven applications.

- It would be great if the company (Western Standard) shared more information about themselves in this forum (I have told them about the existence of the forum so that they can join). Choosing a CAT tool can be a strategic decision and choosing the right partner can be critical long-term.

- It would also be very interesting if the company hared some more information with us about filters, compatibility, XLIFF and TMX support, etc. Freedom of choice calls for compatibility with the standards.

This topic also raises a general question: how many CAT tools can the market sustain? The choice of tools is breathtaking today, and that is good, but I wonder how many users are necessary to sustain continuous development and improvement.

In my opinion, very few companies are proving that they are financially capable of sustaining a continuous development and agile support, and the list in my head does not include some very important brands after what we hear and see in the fora. What are Western Standard's plans of on this area?