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What is your opinion on XTM Cloud CAT tool?
Thread poster: WolfestoneGroup
XTM Intl
XTM Intl
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:19
Your queries on XTM Workbench Oct 26, 2020

Elsa Trigo wrote:

XTM people, could you address the following?



Hello Elsa,

Thank you for your questions.

1. When you receive a task in XTM
Workbench, the file has already been analyzed. You can access the Metrics (analysis) and progress from within Workbench under the File menu (if you are on the latest version 12.5) or from the Task view, in the context menu on the left side of your task name. Unless you are also a project manager, you cannot reanalyze the file/project.

2. If the segment doesn't show M or ICE/100%, you won't find any results in the Match tab of course, but you can still run a concordance search in the Concordance tab in the docked panel at the bottom. You can also select the text in source, right click and choose to run concordance from the context menu.

3. This is configurable in the Settings > Shortcuts menu, under Match, last two options.

4. This is configurable as well, click Filter on the top right hand side and search for the filters based on match type (with Exclude option). Our knowledge base on our website provides additional information on how to configure quick filters (saved as favorite).

5. If you only see M, it probably means that the segment has more than one match. If there is only one fuzzy or any other match type, the segment qualifier already shows the fuzzy percentage.

You can find additional information in our knowledge base and of course on our XTM manual.

Kind regards,
Sara Basile
Product Manager
XTM International Ltd
www.xtm.cloud


 
Elsa Trigo
Elsa Trigo  Identity Verified
Local time: 17:19
Member (2006)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
XTM features Oct 26, 2020

Hi Sara,

Thank you for your prompt answer.

I'm afraid your tool falls short for translators. It lacks basic features straightforward in other tools. There should be no time spent (wasted) trying to make XTM work in a standard/common setup for CAT tools.

Thank you and regards,
Elsa


Anton Konashenok
Miranda Drew
Catherine Skala
Sanja_FR
J. Goldman
 
Miranda Drew
Miranda Drew  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 18:19
Member (2009)
Italian to English
This is ridiculous Oct 27, 2020

"1. When you receive a task in XTM
Workbench, the file has already been analyzed. You can access the Metrics (analysis) and progress from within Workbench under the File menu (if you are on the latest version 12.5) or from the Task view, in the context menu on the left side of your task name. Unless you are also a project manager, you cannot reanalyze the file/project. "

This tool is clearly made for project managers, not translators. We NEED to reanalyse the project while it'
... See more
"1. When you receive a task in XTM
Workbench, the file has already been analyzed. You can access the Metrics (analysis) and progress from within Workbench under the File menu (if you are on the latest version 12.5) or from the Task view, in the context menu on the left side of your task name. Unless you are also a project manager, you cannot reanalyze the file/project. "

This tool is clearly made for project managers, not translators. We NEED to reanalyse the project while it's ongoing to figure out how much is left to do (fuzzy and no match). It is a very BASIC feature that all other CAT tools have. All XTM does seems to just make EVERYTHING harder for translators. This is insulting
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Felipe Lacerda
Catherine Skala
Sanja_FR
Marinus Vesseur
J. Goldman
 
XTM Intl
XTM Intl
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:19
Check progress in XTM Workbench Nov 1, 2020

Miranda Drew wrote:

"We NEED to reanalyse the project while it's ongoing to figure out how much is left to do (fuzzy and no match)."



Hello Miranda,

as I stated in my last comment, it IS possible to check the progress of your work by accessing the Metrics. While you may need to reanalyse the project in an offline CAT tool, in XTM, as in other online TMS tools, it is NOT necessary to reanalyse the project to check your progress, as the live TM is updated on the fly, and the same applies to the statistics related to your work.
If you have used XTM before, you may know that at the bottom of the Metrics you will find additional information about how much you have done and how much still needs to be done within that file.
Additionally, your client may want to give you access to the Statistics after you finish your task; this will result in an additional tab in your Tasks view, where you can find the information about the task, its status, date (finished) and the matches you have processed.

We at XTM don't want to make anyone's life hard. On the contrary, we are here to listen to your feedback and improve our product in line with our users' needs.
I appreciate your feedback and I can only encourage you to experiment with XTM more, read our knowledge base, watch our webinars and post here any suggestions for improvement you may have.

Kind regards,
Sara Basile
Product Manager
XTM International Ltd
www.xtm.cloud


 
Miranda Drew
Miranda Drew  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 18:19
Member (2009)
Italian to English
XTM does not seem to understand how either CAT tools or translators work Nov 3, 2020

As I tried to explain, knowing the overall percentage I've done of the job tells me NOTHING, unless I can re-analyse. If I know I have all no-match left to do, or 25% no match and 75% fuzzy left to do that way I can plan my work. the XTM analysis is completely and absolutely useless.

XTM is making my life much much more difficult, and may result in my refusing to work with clients that use it.


J. Goldman
 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 18:19
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@Sara Nov 3, 2020

XTM Intl wrote:
It IS possible to check the progress of your work by accessing the Metrics.


I assume you're referring to this:
https://xtm.cloud/knowledge-base/how-to-open-metrics-from-xtm-workbench/

I don't have XTM Workbench open right now, but please tell us: do you mean that the metrics always show the current state of the files and not the initial state of the files?


 
Felipe Lacerda
Felipe Lacerda  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 14:19
Member (2011)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
You just nailed it. Nov 3, 2020

Miranda Drew wrote:

This tool is clearly made for project managers, not translators.


This should be their tagline. It's also true for most of the Web-based CAT tools out there.


Miranda Drew
Kay-Viktor Stegemann
Anton Konashenok
Sanja_FR
J. Goldman
 
Juan Pagola
Juan Pagola  Identity Verified
Argentina
Local time: 12:19
English to Spanish
+ ...
Painfully slow Nov 3, 2020

XTM Workbench is probably the worst CAT tool I've ever used. Why using anything else than Trados???

[Edited at 2020-11-03 17:23 GMT]


Miranda Drew
Sanja_FR
Sonia Tirado Gómez
 
Ingvild Karlsen
Ingvild Karlsen
Local time: 18:19
English to Norwegian
+ ...
XTM Workbench: Cumbersome and inefficient. Discarded as a tool. Nov 12, 2020

Thank you, Sara, for actively addressing our concerns. I do notice, however, that many of the solutions seem to be "contact your PM", "change the configuration", or "watch this webinar". As a freelance translator I work with many different CAT tools and, sadly, don't get paid for training. That means the tools should work intuitively and out of the box, with my needs in mind, without my having to read a manual of 300 pages or watch a series of webinars to figure out how to d... See more
Thank you, Sara, for actively addressing our concerns. I do notice, however, that many of the solutions seem to be "contact your PM", "change the configuration", or "watch this webinar". As a freelance translator I work with many different CAT tools and, sadly, don't get paid for training. That means the tools should work intuitively and out of the box, with my needs in mind, without my having to read a manual of 300 pages or watch a series of webinars to figure out how to do the most basic things.

You've stated that XTM International has the translator in mind (you may also want to advertise that on your website, which is mostly about project management), and that you listen to feedback. This thread is full of great feedback from highly experienced localisation experts. XTM would do well to take to heart everything being said here, and seriously consider a rework of the entire tool so that it works for all kinds of users. A former manager of mine used to say "if one person speaks up, there are ten people nodding in the background", and linguists are typically a quiet bunch. In other words, please don't think for a moment that any of the issues mentioned is an isolated case. I understand that your customers mainly come from the management side of things, but the increasing frustration among their translators means that ultimately they will have no product to sell to their own clients and thus no need for your services.

Conversely, create a user-friendly tool which increases productivity, and you may even gain a new segment of paying customers.

It's lovely to see your working on improving your product, but for me it falls short in so many departments still that I no longer accept work done in XTM. I have started to hear murmuring from PMs as well, mostly due to missing features and critical bugs which are repeatedly reported but not fixed even many months later. A few have reverted to using their previous CAT tool for the most important projects. That says it all, really.

Please watch actual translators at work and consider our needs when designing your next platform. Good luck!
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Anton Konashenok
Miranda Drew
Catherine Skala
J. Goldman
 
Peter Motte
Peter Motte  Identity Verified
Belgium
Local time: 18:19
Member (2009)
English to Dutch
+ ...
Actually stopped working for a client because of XTM Cloud Nov 13, 2020

For one of my clients I translated quite a lot off line in SDL Light.
Then they switched to XTM Cloud online, and my goodness ... Did i struggle with that.

First of all: the screen handling is bad. It's one of those software tools which use grey letters instead of black letters. That's a very annoying fashion which entered IT some years ago, and which doesn't help a bit, especially as screens are increasingly more cramped. (and which is also used by Proz.com, actually. I wonde
... See more
For one of my clients I translated quite a lot off line in SDL Light.
Then they switched to XTM Cloud online, and my goodness ... Did i struggle with that.

First of all: the screen handling is bad. It's one of those software tools which use grey letters instead of black letters. That's a very annoying fashion which entered IT some years ago, and which doesn't help a bit, especially as screens are increasingly more cramped. (and which is also used by Proz.com, actually. I wonder who thought this up first, and why so many people are following it, when it's clearly not helpfull at all)
Secondly: the search window is splashed over the window with the source and target text. It's very difficult to switch from the search window to the actual translation windows, because of which search is slow and uncomfortable.
Third: looking for information in the tm or termdatabase has also become difficult.
Fourthly: for some or other reason the screen layout is bad when it comes to the position of the window panels in general.
Fifth: the settings sometimes doen't even seem to work.

Now it turns out it doesn't even work in Mozilla Firefox anymore, and I'm not going to install Google Chrome, as I don't trust it at all

Because of all that trouble I actually stopped working for that client.
It's really a pity. I liked the jobs they gave me.

Now I come to think of it: some years ago they also started to use another online tool, and I quit for the jobs in that tool too.

It looks as if there is a general problem with online translation tools.
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Katrin Braams
Katrin Braams  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 18:19
Member (2018)
English to German
+ ...
It is not that bad Nov 15, 2020

Peter Motte wrote:


First of all: the screen handling is bad. It's one of those software tools which use grey letters instead of black letters.


The letters are black, at least in my screen. Perhaps there is some way to adjust the settings.



The search window is splashed over the window with the source and target text. It's very difficult to switch from the search window to the actual translation windows, because of which search is slow and uncomfortable.



The search is slow indeed, but if the window is in the wrong place, you can easily move it around. Much worse is that the search feature often does not find all search words in the text, an absolute disaster.




For some or other reason the screen layout is bad when it comes to the position of the window panels in general.



These windows can be moved. One of the XTM support guys explained a little bit further up in this post how to do this. I moved my "Matches" window to the right hand side of the screen, underneath the target screen.


[quote]

Now it turns out it doesn't even work in Mozilla Firefox anymore, and I'm not going to install Google Chrome, as I don't trust it at all



It did not work in Firefox for about 2 days, but this problem has been fixed for some time now and it is working well in Firefox again.



I am no big fan of XTM, but I have been working with it on a regularly basis for the past 2.5 years, doing between 10k and 20k every month. Thus I have had to make my peace with it.

Other than that I agree that it is not the best CAT tool in the market. The worst is the constantly jumping screen, whenever you click into a segment the cursor mostly lands one or two lines up. When working very fast, trying to place the cursor into a segment and to mark and delete some words in one go, it often happens that the wrong words get deleted. Since there is no "undo" feature I have to right click, which opens a drop down menu, open the history feature, search for the correct version of the sentence in the history and insert it back into the segment.
Also drag and drop does not work very well. First it is difficult to mark the correct words and then drag and drop only works about 50% of the time. Often the dragged part jumps back into its original position or the text is copied instead of being moved.
These are such basic features and I really don't understand why these don't work properly.

The QA check is a joke, it neither finds different end punctuation, nor inconsistently translated sentences, nor nor...

With the new Workbench they also introduced a new spelling correction tool. Wrongly spelled words are highlighted in yellow, which is nice. But I cannot just put the cursor (which will end up one or two lines up anyway) into this word and correct it, but I either have to use the drop down list and search for the correct suggestion or discard this option by pressing "Esc". In 99% of all cases manually correcting the word would be so much faster. This feature is a complete waste of time.

Scrolling from "page" to "page" is another big waste of time. I don't see why this feature is necessary. Other tools are not segmented into pages either.

I think the developers don't understand that translation is also about speed, and a tool which slows me down is a nuisance.





[Edited at 2020-11-15 22:23 GMT]

[Edited at 2020-11-15 22:27 GMT]


 
Stepan Konev
Stepan Konev  Identity Verified
Russian Federation
Local time: 20:19
English to Russian
Incredible brand new piece of s...oftware Nov 25, 2020

This is day 2 of my struggle against the brand new XTM Editor. Even though source segments are already copied into the target section, XTM automatiaclly replaces them with previous fuzzy translation (which I DOOOOOOOON'T need). I have to press Alt+Insert several times because when I press the shortcut just once, XTM still insists on inserting the old translation and overrides my first pressing Alt+Insert!

[Edited at 2020-11-25 13:27 GMT]


 
Stepan Konev
Stepan Konev  Identity Verified
Russian Federation
Local time: 20:19
English to Russian
Word! Nov 25, 2020

Katrin Braams wrote:
But I cannot just put the cursor (which will end up one or two lines up anyway) into this word and correct it, but I either have to use the drop down list and search for the correct suggestion or discard this option by pressing "Esc".

And the same applies to terms. You cannot copy it unless you press Esc!!!


[Edited at 2020-11-25 13:39 GMT]


 
Vickie Dimitriadou
Vickie Dimitriadou
Local time: 19:19
English to Greek
Online CAT Tools Nov 28, 2020

A client of mine uses Smartling and Crowdin and I have found both tools very helpful and easy-to-use comparing to XTM Cloud.

Again, like XTM, their speed depends on the RAM, the Operating System, and the browser I use.

On a laptop with 4 GB RAM, Windows 10, and Firefox 69, both Smartling and Crowdin are fast, while on a laptop with 2 GB RAM, Windows XP, and Firefox 52, they are SLOW! Yet they DO work with the old Firefox 52.

Two other clients of mine use XT
... See more
A client of mine uses Smartling and Crowdin and I have found both tools very helpful and easy-to-use comparing to XTM Cloud.

Again, like XTM, their speed depends on the RAM, the Operating System, and the browser I use.

On a laptop with 4 GB RAM, Windows 10, and Firefox 69, both Smartling and Crowdin are fast, while on a laptop with 2 GB RAM, Windows XP, and Firefox 52, they are SLOW! Yet they DO work with the old Firefox 52.

Two other clients of mine use XTM (one uses an older version that works in Firefox 52 although slowly, the other client uses the latest version of XTM that DOES NOT work in Firefox 52 and prompts me to upgrade my browser).

I wish XTM was as easy and productive as Smartling is, for example.

I do appreciate the fact that XTM people are doing their best to improve their product, but there are still many things left to be desired, as I can see in the posts by fellow linguists on this topic.

What I find VERY annoying in XTM is the "jump to another segment" issue described earlier on this topic.

In general, I don't find XTM too bad. I would not consider ending my business relationship with a client because they use XTM.

As long as our clients do not ask us to pay for using their preferred CAT Tool, all is well. I'm sure you all know (or have heard/read) of the infamous "TWS". That was the only occasion when I stopped working for the company that demands linguists to pay for using it!














[Edited at 2020-11-28 20:24 GMT]

[Edited at 2020-11-28 20:27 GMT]
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Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 18:19
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Can't turn of fuzzy propagation in XTM Workbench? Nov 29, 2020

Stepan Konev wrote:
Even though source segments are already copied into the target section, XTM automatically replaces them with previous fuzzy translation (which I DON'T need).


The the user manual isn't exactly clear on how fuzzy propagation is supposed to work, and whether it can be turned off.

TM Propagation
If you translate a segment that is repeated later in the same document or in another document in the same project, XTM will automatically find the match in the TM according to your settings and insert the translation in the repeated segment. If it is a fuzzy match this will also be offered to the translator. This feature works for multiple translators working on the same document.


It is unclear if "will also be offered to the translator" means that it will appear in the fuzzy match pane or that it will automatically be inserted into the target field, though from your experience it seems to mean the latter.


 
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