Forum: SDL Trados support
Topic: SDL Trados Studio 2021 is coming soon!
Poster: Robert Rietvelt
Post title: Tool Box Journal
For who doesn't have a subscription, here the latest news from Jost Zetzsche about Studio 2021.
SDL is just about to reach its two-year release cycle of new versions (not counting the service packs it releases on an interim basis) and I met with Daniel Brockmann to talk about the new version.
Aside from some new enhancement-type features (see below) the emphasis of this release really is on the increasingly seamless switch between the online and desktop versions of the tool. This matches the results of a recent survey that SDL did, where 75% of their customers said that they wanted the ability to work in both environments (which also corresponds to the wishes of SDL's most precious customer, the EU).
With Studio 2021 (this name shall be the one that I'll settle on for now) you can start a project on the desktop version, switch to the online environment, because you might be sitting on a library computer without Studio installed, and then pick it up where you left off later, at home on your desktop. You can access it wherever you need to. You don't have to start the project on the desktop. You can just start it online too. It gives you access to all the necessary options, including things like minimum match values, TU penalties, updating custom fields, all file types or segmentation rules.
This doesn't mean that the online editor has "feature parity," i.e. offers all features of the desktop environment in all aspects. In some cases, this might mean there might be more advanced abilities than in the desktop tool (Daniel pointed out that the find/replace feature "is easier and more powerful online"), it's more likely to be the desktop app with more features, though. At this point, this includes the many ways that you can customize your work experience via the apps on the SDL AppStore on the desktop, which are not available for the online version -- yet. The idea is that there will be a new Online Editor-specific app store with relevant apps soon.
And there's of course one feature that's available in the Online Editor that can't be found on the desktop tool: it can run on any platform. (Remember those times when we had all those discussions about what operating systems to use and why technology vendors didn't support Linux and Mac versions of their tools -- silly us!)
To quote Daniel again, the difference between the Online Editor and the desktop tool is similar to "Word Online vs. Word Desktop, though I would argue that perhaps Online Editor is more feature rich."
The way this is packaged is with a free edition of Trados Live Essential -- that's the name of the product -- for any desktop user for 12 months. After this there will be a "small" but as of yet unnamed subscription price. (I have expressed unease about the additional fees that some tool vendors, including SDL, have started to introduce for different aspects of their technology, even for their freelance translator offerings. But I shall remain silent here, since I thought that the essentially free access that SDL has provided to their MT offering during the crisis was rather generous.)
The idea is that you can then also upgrade the Essentials product to workgroup products for three or more users (Trados Live Team Starter or Trados Live Team respectively).
Other new things include a mobile app to accept projects etc., support for YAML files (so far only available through a third-party app), better support for FrameMaker files, additional XML filtering capabilities by using elements and attributes (rather than the highly technical XPath language) and, maybe most importantly, an "advanced filter" feature that will allow you to define to the n-th degree which parts of your project should be displayed and how. Unfortunately for the less technically inclined, this will be available through regular expressions only.
When I spoke to Daniel, the release date wasn't firm yet, but the plan was mid or late July. And as you've probably seen in your inbox or elsewhere, the special sales are already going strong.
