Better Studio SDK experience

Hi,

We recently started to look at various options on how we can improve the Studio SDK learning experience. One of the first things we want to do is to move all the code samples and project templates to github which will allow you to browse the code without Visual Studio installed, contribute to an existing sample or create a new one and of course better explain what the sample is doing. This will happen in the next couple of weeks.

In parallel we have also started an internal discussion about ways to improve the current SDK documentation. Since the OpenExchange community is the main consumer of the SDK documentation I think is really important to have your view on this. Please share your view by answering the following questions:

1. Name some features that you would like most  and are not in the platform now?

2. Would you be interested to be able to contribute to the documentation ?

I'm looking forward for your replies.

  • Great initiative:

    1. Features I would like to have

    - Offline access to the documentation. Whem I am on the road with no internet access, it would be great to be able to keep working. :)

    - Documentation for the Workbench API (I would find it useful for converting batches of TMW and TXT files to Studio TMs, for instance).

    - Adding comments  and questions (personal and public) directly to the documentation. For instace, if am reading a part of the documentation, it would be great to be able to highlight it and add a comment to it. Then I could decide if I want to make this comment public or personal or visible perhaps to colleagues in the same organisation.

    - Samples in VB.NET I am getting used to C# but it would be great have samples in VB.NET.

    - Code snippets: if other users created code snippets that might be useful for other users, it would be good to have the possiblity of sharing them (like the comments above).

    - COM interface: this is not part of the documentation but I would find it extremely useful if it was possible to have COM interface for Studio (like we have for MultiTErm) which would allow us to use a light development environment like VBA.

    - Not having to run executables from the Studio installation folder. This is an annoying constraint for us.

    2. Would be interested on contributing to the documentation?

    If it was implemented in a light way (wiki or adding comments or samples to the documentation) maybe more people could help a bit.

    I hope this is useful.

    Daniel

    • Features I am interested in:
      • Make it more intuitive to execute some of the actions found on the Home > Segment Actions ribbon group through the API.  For example, something like ActiveDocument.CopySourceToTarget(ISegment sourceSegment, ISegment targetSegment) or ActiveDocument.MergeSegments(ISegment firstSegment, ISegment secondSegment) would be really straight forward.
        • Copy Source to Target
        • Merge Segments
        • etc.
      • Give me an interface where I can pass a Sdl.LanguagePlatform.TranslationMemory.SearchResults object (from doing a concordance search) and have it be rendered in the existing ConcordanceSearch UI.  Currently, I had to create my own WebBrowser control and duplicate the look of the ConcordanceSearch window.  It would be nice to just use the existing UI to do that for me.
    • I would be willing to contribute to the documentation.

  • I think it would help to remove the firewalls and let Google index the SDK and all the forums.

  • +1 on the Google indexing.

    I'd also like to see more support for the Powershell SDK, or generally support for non-Studio applications using the SDL libs. In our company we'd profit the most if we could automate simple processes without opening studio, e.g. like creating packages or projects.

    Certainly we'd be willing to contribute.

  • I would find vb.net samples really useful - I can read and understand the C# samples but sometimes it is a lot of try and error until you get things going in vb.net.

    I would also with for an offline version of the SDK, like stated by some fellow coders below. That would be really helpful.

    From a features perspective, currently, I am missing editing of project templates via the API. You can create and configure a project, but then, if you want to store it as a template ... to no avail. So that would be really nice to have from a features perspective.

    Also, it would be very helpful, if there was a quick way to log on to the SDK via the web. Currently, you have to click yourself through a myriad of pages until you are there. That is cumbersome.

    Speaking of "cumbersome things" - have you ever tried publishing a new app using the upload page for OX? It seems to take forever until everything is filled out. At least the page is not crashing anymore as was the case earlier and you would lose everything you already entered. But still - the upload area has a lot of room for improvement if you ask me.

    Another one that has room for improvement is the browser support both of the upload page (not working on Safari for example and only working with some versions of IE and Firefox, I haven't tried Chrome, though) and the SDK itself. Please add support for more browsers.

    Apart from that - keep on with the good work! The APIs and SDKs are great and it is fun working with them (most of time;-)).

    Cheers

    Tom

  • Although everything has already been said, I would like to point out some of the features I would like to see with the next version:

    - Add further description and usage examples for some namespaces and functionality.

    - Offline access to the documentation of the SDK.

    - Not having to run executables from the Studio installation folder. This is really a constraint.

    Yes, we'd be willing to contribute to the documentation.

    Keep on with the good work!

    Cheers,

    Radivoj

  • I agree with everything said above:

    - Offline documentation

    - Logging in is cumbersome and it seems to time you out if you are not active on the page (I have to log back in again)?

    - Google indexing or something better than the search function we have now.

    I'm assuming some of the documentation is unfinished? For example:

    >see: StudioContext

    >Operations on DocumentView

    I cannot find this information.

    EDIT:

    Following up on my previous post, it seems there is no way to extend/control the built-in controls in Trados.

    For example, I would like to extend/control the display filter control to make custom display filters, but

    there seems no way to do this with the current public API. Also, looking at the "Document" class,

    you can "read" information from it, i.e. each property provides a "getter", but there are no "setter"s, so no way to manipulate it.
    Please let me know if there is something that I am missing.

  • Hi,

    my wishes are related to the MultiTerm SDK: it would be cool if the MT server would have a webservice-based API in addition to the COM one, and the MT API would provide access to all the features that are also available in MT desktop (e.g. manipulating multimedia objects: adding images to entries, reading them etc).

    Regards,

    Tamas

  • I give my humble +1 on these:

    - Offline documentation: It would allow also to import the documentation in DASH (macosx) or VELOCITY (windows) - having to deal with multiple languages those utilities are a must have for any programmer, also it renders google indexing completely unnecessary.

    - Easier Login procedures (less click to reach the documentation, I think forums also would benefit from a reworked login procedure)

    - Powershell:, as i dug on on the helper files provided i found the SDK documentation useful without any need to adapt it. Of course the files provided in a forum post can'be considered a complete documentation ;-) I would write some documentation page on calling the sdk methods form the powershell, attaching the example files.

    - Overall the documentation is complete and clear, although a little schematic. I think having comments and some more examples would sometimes be an appreciated plus.

    Thanks for asking!

    Enrico