Creo illustrate localization bug

[TomM]

Creo Illustrate 7.1

*There's actually multitude of issues with localization. Apparently no one has ever used it until recently...

How localization should work:

- Choose source language (default = english)

- Choose or create another language and add it as a "target language"

Creo creates an xlf file containing <source>*current callout text*</source> tags for each callout

- User opens the c3di archive and finds the xlf file created.

*By the way...the fact that we can't add "target" text in the UI but need to go to the archive, open the notepad and add <targer></target> tags with translation is so atrocious that no wonder nobody played with this. Why on earth would you keep it in this state for so many years is beyond ones comprehension! Even though it's an easy fix.

- User finds the text he wants to translate, adds the <target>*translated text*</target> tags

- User updates the file in archive and restarts Creo Illustrate

- Now you can change between translations

*Point 1*

- User switches to source language (or not, depends)

- User edits the callout text and saves the c3di file

- Edited callout text changes when target language changes

The bug appears when you try to edit the **bleep** original text.

Here's how it works (how to reproduce the bug - I'd post a short film but I work on proprietary IP):

*Everything remains the same until Point 1*

- User switches to source language (or not, depends)

- User edits the callout text and saves the c3di file

- New (updated) callout text gets pushed to every single xlf translation file as a new source and deletes <target></target> tags associated with the callout.

This basically means we literally can't use localization unless it's the final set of illustrations we're never going to touch again....

And yeah, there's much more to localization. It's awful, it's useless, it's not user friendly, it's bugged in pretty much every way possible. It's not even being mentioned in trainings. Though it would've been a cool

thing for worldwide corporations.

P.S.

I forgot to mention it just the way the programmer had forgotten to include page caption in the localization 😉

[VladimirN]

By the way, you can contribute all your new ideas here: https://community.ptc.com/t5/Creo-View-Illustrate-Schematics/idb-p/creogeneralideas 

[TomM]

I know, thank you.

However, this is just plain bug and in the case of Post Scriptum sloppiness. There's also an open idea concerning utilization of UI as far as translation is concerned.

[VladimirN]

Ok.

[agarland]

Hi,

This is how the localization feature in Creo Illustrate is designed to work.

First you have to set up the languages you want to localise to in your standard (Illustration>General>Localization) here you can also set which text strings get included when exporting your xlif file notes, step description etc.

The target languages you have set can be seen in the Localization tab of the lower data panel.

Once you have all your figures complete with notes etc for translation, you can use the 'Export Text' button in the Tools ribbon to export a zip file containing all the xlif files for localization.

The xlif files will need to be opened in a professional translation tool where all the localized strings can be added.

Note: The exported xlif files shave been designed to be consumed by a professional translation application and are not intended to be manually edited in a text editor.

Once you have the updated zip file with the xlif files that contain the localised strings you can use the 'Import Text' button in the Tools ribbon to import the localised strings.

Once you have imported the localised strings switching between languages in the localization tab of the lower data panel will preview the localised content in the figure.

In the case that you need to update a source string the localised string will be replaced by the source string (in the figures) until an updated localised strings is available. This is done using the export option again and then getting the resulting xlif files translated using a suitable localization application before reimporting the updated file(s).

Hope this clarifies how the localization functionality in Illustrate is designed to work.

[TomM]

Thank you for your answer. 

Allright, I wasn't familiar with XLIFF editors until now.

However, apart from several minor tools improving productivity they do exactly the same thing as I can do editing the file in notepad. 

Don't get me wrong, I understand how localization may be utilized in Windchill and Creo Illustrate, but since it is all based on read-write operation of plain text within tags here's what is incomprehensible:

1. The fact, that you can't edit xfl files within UI context. Whenever you edit a callout and save, it is being updated in the figure file and all localization xlf files. So why are we forced to use a 3rd party software or edit plain text in archive to translate stuff? 

2. Usually callouts need to be aligned properly to look nice. Guess what, different languages convey the same information with different string lengths. When you just translate stuff in notepad or XLIFF editor you don't see how it's going to fit in the callout. And in order for localization to work well the line breaks need to be at very similar string lengths. Otherwise callouts differ wildly in placement and you can't just move them around unless you want to do it for each illustration before you publish it for each language. It defeats the purpose of localization.

3. The fact, that when you edit a callout it replaces all of the target language translations. Why on earth would it?! Sometimes you just find a small grammar or spelling error, or you want to replace a word for a better suited one on the fly. And voila' - you've got to do ungodly amount of work to update all translations...and you can't do it in the UI....and if something ends up misaligned you need to export-import again, and again...

4. Since any time you switch language inside Creo Illustrate the software basically reads and populates all of the notes with target language from the XLF file, why is source language exclusive editing forced on the user? It's nonsense. When you switch localization option you should be able to edit exactly the text you see. Exporting-importing each time you find a mistake in translation and stuff when the software reads-writes text strings anyway in the UI is an extremely weird and hard to comprehend choice of implementation. Even if you run localization through Windchill setup you need to edit localization files outside Creo Illustrate for whatever reason even though they can be updated either way - Windchill->Illustrate or Illustrate->Windchill.

5. Weird disconnection between notes/callouts text in figure files and XLF files. Each figure file contains all of the notes text. Also each XLF file contains each notes text, at least as a <source> text. You can edit the XLF source language text and it gets pushed to callouts and I'm not 100% sure at the moment but I think it also gets pushed to the figure notes text. You can edit the callout within Illustrate UI and it gets pushed to the figure file, source language file and (stupidly) all localization files. However, when you delete source XLF file you're cooked - from now on your XLF files will be empty no matter how you juggle the source and target language settings inside the program. 

I honestly can't see why would anyone consider this to work "by design". It really doesn't matter whether you use XLIFF editor or notepad, the route to get localization to work and not kill yourself in the process of updating text is inhumane.

[TomM]

I forgot - There's also an issue pertaining to the organisation of data in XLF files.

Notes are scattered around the file. They're not sorted in any way corresponding to their location in figures, so for example two notes created in 14th figure may be located one near the beginning of the file and the other near the end. The only thing which lets you determine to which figure they belong is the last digits of their associated identification number. However it appears those correspond with the figure number, not the name of the figure, which all makes updating and maintaining of localization text a hell on earth.

As I said - I'm not a pro when it comes to XLIFF format, but it appears those editors read the data "as is" and do not sort it in any way, though I may be wrong...