Total Nightmare!

We all fear it... We pray to prevent it from happening... But this time, it happened to me... Total and absolute nightmare:

There is a bug in appTranslator 2.0 released a couple of days ago :-(

Not a major bug. I mean not one that crashes the app or corrupts user data. Still a non-negligeable one: When one exports a file to Translator Edition, appTranslator 2.0 happily (!) ignores your choice for 'Allow translators to use the Dialog Layout Mode'.

appTranslator 2.0.1 fixes the bug

I just published version 2.0.1 that fixes this bug. Boy, it hurts! Because it's a stupid trivial coding bug introduced when refactoring a function for the new XLIFF support. Unfortunately, none of the testers found the problem. Of course, I can't blame them. I can only blame _me_ because when you touch a piece of code, you know it must be thoroughly re-tested. I should have brought it to their attention:

I reworked the code that manages the export to Translator Edition. So please don't test the XLIFF export only. Please thoroughly test the TE export as well.

Of course, I should have checked myself as well.

The day I decided to start automated testing

Obviously, this is the kind of thing that should be automated. I've always wanted to start automated testing. In my previous job, I eventually gave up because the tester was not smart enough to manage this kind of tool. And when I started up my company, I never found time enough and decided to rely on manual testing. Up to today.

I remember Eric Sink praises TestComplete. So I'll start by giving a look at that one (The price looks very reasonable. Added to Eric's recommendation, it gives a good start ;-) )

Searchable Windows Settings

Earlier today, Michael Kaplan shared his experience trying to find a setting in Windows Vista. The point was that it's difficult to find a setting it is no longer in the same place as in XP.

We've reached a point where organization is no longer enough

I'm wondering: Why do we have to go up and down through a whole tree of applets, dialogs, tabs and pages? I agree that it's good to have settings listed and arranged that way (since it allows to find stuff you wouldn't have thought of, as Michael pointed).

But let's admit it: With the amount of settings continuously growing, it becomes impossible to find anything that is not among the most basic and obvious ones.

Index and Find, anyone?

Why don't we have what Help has has for more than 10 years: Index and Find ? Isn't it obvious that the best solution to help people find what they are searching is... a Search button!
I don't mean searching the Help to find where things are hidden. I mean a real 'Search setting' feature that would list settings matching your full-text criterias and allow you to modify them.

Michael's search for the menu behaviour regarding underlined shortcuts (Alt or no Alt) would be easy:

[menu alt underlined] [Search]

would lead to:

[x] Underline keyboard shortcuts and access keys (explain)
[Apply]

Boy, this would be cool!

Update: BTW, in addition to the explain link, a locate link would be cool too.

Update2: Er... Looks like the Microsofties didn't wait for me and my wonderful ideas ;-) Go to Control Panel. There's a search field (it gets the focus automatically). Type Underline and there you go! Thanks to martni (in MichKap comments).

appTranslator 2.0 is released

Haaa... Releases... It's always good when you're done!

What's new in appTranslator 2.0 ?

I think I wrote about most of the main new features before:

• XLIFF Support: Makes collaboration with professional translators easier. More details in this post.
• Format Specifiers Checks: Translation errors in %s, %1 et al no longer remain undetected. Details here.
• Global Analysis: Checks (such as CRLF and format specifiers consistency) that were performed only when one types a translation can now be run globally on demand. Very helpful for localization engineers to double-check translators' work.
• Support for right-to-left languages (Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew...): appTranslator now provides automatic support for right-to-left dialog layouts and (optionally) mirroring.
• Improved command line support. Helpful to improve continuous integration of appTranslator in your development process.
• and more...

If you are a registered user with a valid support contract, you received news from me yesterday or earlier today.

If not, feel free to download the demo version.

And of course, don't hesitate to spread the word ;-)

wired or wireless laptop : What's the IP?

My 2 main machines at home are my development desktop and my laptop. The laptop is usually connected using its wireless interface.
However, I occasionally plug the ethernet cable, especially when I need to perform a large file transfer. The problem then is that the laptop's IP changes (it uses DHCP for both interfaces)... Which leads to my desktop not finding it by name anymore... Which is frustrating because I have to type IPCONFIG in the laptop and then type the IP in Windows Explorer on the other computer... And I'll have to do the same again when I switch back to wireless...

If only I could erase the name cache in the other computer to force it find the laptop's new address!

Well, you can:

C:\windows\system32>nbtstat -R

Note that the -R must be capital.

Pay attention to bold and italic fonts

Interesting post by Raymond Chen regarding the use of font attributes (such as bold and italics) in UI and their disastrous effects in CJK languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) : Bold and italics ideograms are just plain unreadable.

OK, but how do we emphasis items in our UIs then? Raymond's answer:

You should let the localizers choose how they want the emphasis to be performed by allowing them to specify the font face, size and attributes.