CatsCradle 2.8 launched Thread poster: Doru Voin
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Doru Voin 
Romania
Local time: 11:26
English to Romanian
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A new version of CatsCradle (2.8) has been launched in Nov 2003 by its producer. For people new to WebSite localization, this is a free useful tool allowing you to extract all the text that requires translating from a web page, including hidden text, image alt-text etc.
Minimum requirements
Windows XP/2000/98/95/ME/NT
Internet Explorer 5 or later, Pentium II or faster
You can download the product from the Stormdance webser... See more A new version of CatsCradle (2.8) has been launched in Nov 2003 by its producer. For people new to WebSite localization, this is a free useful tool allowing you to extract all the text that requires translating from a web page, including hidden text, image alt-text etc.
Minimum requirements
Windows XP/2000/98/95/ME/NT
Internet Explorer 5 or later, Pentium II or faster
You can download the product from the Stormdance webserver (http://www.stormdance.freeserve.co.uk/dx/catscradle/download.htm) or from other software databases such as Tucows or Simtel.
Regards from Bucharest,
Doru Voin ▲ Collapse
| | | | mishima (X)
Local time: 17:26
Italian to Japanese
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| It is very good indeed and fast... | Nov 17, 2003 |
...but, for what I have seen, it does not allow to save translated files under a different name or in different folders. If it is really so, it would be necessary to change all file names manually or arranging all files in a separate folder before translating. It would not be such a big annoyance, though.
Mishima
| | | | Anita Karlson
Local time: 10:26
Member (2005)
English to Norwegian
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| Don't work on the original files - create a copy | Nov 18, 2003 |
I find CatsCradle to be a very good program. When you are working with html pages you should not mess around with the file names - or you will have a major job fixing all the lost links. What makes sense is to create a copy of the files to be translated in a separate directory - and not work on the original files.
Anita Karlson Henssler
www.polartext.com
| | | | Nikita Kobrin
Lithuania
Local time: 11:26
Member (2010)
English to Russian
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| Thanx for the info, Doru! | Nov 18, 2003 |
I like this app.
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sylver
Local time: 16:26
English to French
| I don't get it | Nov 18, 2003 |
Do you folks review your documents afterwards?
Am I the only one shocked by the way Catscraddle handles segmentation?
Try this sentence in Cat's cradle. (I mean, copy it into an HTML file, apply the same formating, and translate)
XXX's increased reliability and performance combined with an easy-to-use digital display make it a tool of choice for all Windows applications.
Don't you think this is insane?
... See more Do you folks review your documents afterwards?
Am I the only one shocked by the way Catscraddle handles segmentation?
Try this sentence in Cat's cradle. (I mean, copy it into an HTML file, apply the same formating, and translate)
XXX's increased reliability and performance combined with an easy-to-use digital display make it a tool of choice for all Windows applications.
Don't you think this is insane?
Catscradle is OK when you want to correct some stuff in the same language, but to translate???????
Like I said in the title, I don't get it. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Doru Voin
Romania
Local time: 11:26
English to Romanian
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TOPIC STARTER
Hi Sylvain!
sylver wrote:
Catscradle is OK when you want to correct some stuff in the same language, but to translate???????
I find Catscradle to be a decent tool for its purpose (read my first posting in this thread). As a matter of fact, this tool is a requirement from one of my clients. And yes, I did review my documents afterwards. With another tool, as spellchecking is indeed beyond the scope of Catscradle.
I've posted this announcement as info for other people that are aware/use this tool for translation purposes, like I sometimes do. That is why I do not understand why there are so many question marks in your reply.
Regards,
Doru Voin
| | | | sylver
Local time: 16:26
English to French
| How do you translate? | Nov 20, 2003 |
Doru Voin wrote: Hi Sylvain! sylver wrote:
Catscradle is OK when you want to correct some stuff in the same language, but to translate???????
I find Catscradle to be a decent tool for its purpose (read my first posting in this thread). As a matter of fact, this tool is a requirement from one of my clients. And yes, I did review my documents afterwards. With another tool, as spellchecking is indeed beyond the scope of Catscradle. I've posted this announcement as info for other people that are aware/use this tool for translation purposes, like I sometimes do. That is why I do not understand why there are so many question marks in your reply. Regards, Doru Voin
Have you even tried the phrase I posted, with the same formatting? Nothing unusual about it, but Catscraddle will cut it into 8 differents sections, and in a language like French, the sequence is not the same as in source, most of the time. The result is an happy mess. Of Course, you see it and you will try to change the words order to dodge the problem, except that the attributes are assigned to *position* in the sentence and not to the meaning.
What it also means is that you can't edit hyperlinks while translation, as you sometimes should. Take any page using bold or italics in sentences and you will see why it is not a professional tool. Same problems also appear with other attributes, which are even trickier, because you do not see them on the display, like named anchors, for instance.
It's very nasty because it gives people the feeling they can translate web pages without knowing HTML, but doesn't perform completely.
If you have a web page without formating, no problems, but the minute some formating come into play you have had it, because you are not able to change it in Catscraddle, and beside, if you use cat's craddle, you thought you didn't need to know, and now you are stuck with a real customer, a real deadline and a real problem.
That's why I say it's a joke. It's not a proper way to translate a web page yet and should not be on the market as a translation tool for now. As long as it doesn't sort out this segmentation problem, it is a huge liability for the translator.
To help you see what I mean I uploaded the sentence I gave before on my server:
www.your-translations.com/test.html
Save it to your disk and translate it with Catscraddle. Now, look at your file. Do you understand what "my problem" is?
| | | | sylver
Local time: 16:26
English to French
| Positive side too | Nov 20, 2003 |
There are things however for which catscraddle is good:
Wordcount. Probably one of the fastest way to get a decent wordcount of an HTML file. You open it and instantly have a good wordcount displayed.
Monolingual editing. When you don't have to change the positions of the words in the sentence, it can be very convenient to use Catscraddle.
But for translation, I rest my case. As long as segmentation is not handled, forget it.
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Doru Voin
Romania
Local time: 11:26
English to Romanian
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TOPIC STARTER | Why website localizers shour know at least HTML | Nov 20, 2003 |
Hi Sylvain!
sylver wrote:
Have you even tried the phrase I posted, with the same formatting? Nothing unusual about it, but Catscraddle will cut it into 8 differents sections, and in a language like French, the sequence is not the same as in source, most of the time. The result is an happy mess.
You're of course right. CatsCradle divides texts containing bold, italic tags into different segments.
The project I've used CatsCradle for contained a moderated number of tags and lots of plainf text. I've eliminated bold, italic tags, translated the plain text and re-instated the corresponding bold and italic characters in the translated file. Maybe not the most straighforward way to work, but, like I said, it was my client's specific request.
Now I never said CatsCradle will make a good website localizer from any beginner not having even the most basic HTML knowledge. In my opinion, HTML is a pre-requisite for all website localizers. And I can only hope there is nobody pretending to be good at localizing websites, while not being familiar with , at least.
Regards from Bucharest,
Doru Voin
| | | | sylver
Local time: 16:26
English to French
| Then we agree, but... | Nov 21, 2003 |
Doru Voin wrote: Hi Sylvain! sylver wrote:
Have you even tried the phrase I posted, with the same formatting? Nothing unusual about it, but Catscraddle will cut it into 8 differents sections, and in a language like French, the sequence is not the same as in source, most of the time. The result is an happy mess. You're of course right. CatsCradle divides texts containing bold, italic tags into different segments. The project I've used CatsCradle for contained a moderated number of tags and lots of plainf text. I've eliminated bold, italic tags, translated the plain text and re-instated the corresponding bold and italic characters in the translated file. Maybe not the most straighforward way to work, but, like I said, it was my client's specific request. Now I never said CatsCradle will make a good website localizer from any beginner not having even the most basic HTML knowledge. In my opinion, HTML is a pre-requisite for all website localizers. And I can only hope there is nobody pretending to be good at localizing websites, while not being familiar with , at least. Regards from Bucharest, Doru Voin
Looking back at your original post :
A new version of CatsCradle (2. has been launched in Nov 2003 by its producer. For people new to WebSite localization, this is a free useful tool allowing you to extract all the text that requires translating from a web page, including hidden text, image alt-text etc.
What does one understand from that? "People new to..." The guy says "great. Never did it before, that's for me". He gets the software and follow the instructions, and at no point does it tell you that you have to remove the formating and replace it manually. At no point Catscraddle tells him that he has to edit the code afterwards and check for potential sources of problems, not only the obvious formating, but the less obvious, like anchors, like script values, like... At no point does it tells him that what he is translating is a comment in the page, or an header, a title or a description meta tag or anything else.
Catscraddle is oversimplified to the point of being useless to the bona fides pro and remove incentive for would-be localizers to learn the right way to do it.
For those interested to do web site localization correctly, it is not difficult at all, but takes a bit of knowledge and preparation.
When you know HTML basics, here is the correct sequence:
0. create a copy of the document and open it in your web browser for reference
1. Prepare the document (process called tagging)
2. Translate and move the tags to their correct position. Use the tags to tell you where the text will be and how it will look. If in doubt, check the copy in your web browser.
3. House keeping: If needed, change the character encoding, and stuff like that
4. Save as text or unicode depending on your needs, and open in a web browser. Right on time for review.
To tag the documents, you have several free tools, my personal favorite being Rainbow. The best once your files are tagged is to use a CAT like Wordfast to translate it (demo edition is quite enough for that)
Alternatively you can translate directly in a non-wysiwyg HTML editor, preferably one that offers tag coloring, like aceHTML and a zillion others - I used to be quite fond of Hotdog - but that's far from being as convenient as using Wordfast.
But in any case, that require some understanding of what tagged languages are and how they work. Sorry, there is no way around that if one wants to do a professional job.
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