The Browser Workbench user interface

A screen shot of the Browser Workbench user interface, along with a detailed presentation of its main areas and features.

Assets are presented in Browser Workbench as follows:A screen shot of the Browser Workbench user interface.

The callout numbers refer to the following:

1. There are several kinds of saving in Browser Workbench, if you are not in Live TM mode1:
  • Manual save – When you select Save, Browser Workbench saves the in-progress translation and might generate a new copy of the target document, depending on the settings configured by your administrator.
  • Internal autosave – Browser Workbench periodically saves your work in an internal cache. Every time you do something that refreshes the page (for example, moving to the next set of segments in a list of pages), WorldServer automatically saves your work to this internal cache.
  • Configurable autosave – If you did not do anything to cause the page to refresh, but you modified a segment, Browser Workbench will still refresh the page, saving your changes. By default, this happens within 5 minutes if you do not refresh the page manually. In your personal preferences, you can configure the following option to control the autosave interval: How often to auto save changes (in minutes). If you want the page to be refreshed less frequently, enter a higher value. You cannot turn off auto save completely; 0 is not a valid value.

2. When you select Save and Update TM2, Browser Workbench saves the asset and updates the translation memory with new matches. As soon as you update the TM, any user who is using that same TM can leverage the work you just added. Generally, you should only save and update the TM when you are sure that your translations are correct or if you are working with a project TM that can contain unreviewed content.

3. The Tools menu has several options:
OptionDescription
Concordance Search ToolReturns all TM entries which contain the string for which you are searching.
Terminology Database SearchUse this option to search the terminology database associated with the asset you are working on. The search only returns active terms. It does not return new terms that require validation.
Reapply TMReapplies new matches from the translation memory. This is useful in several ways:
  1. If you translate a repeated segment and then save and update the TM, you can select Reapply TM to automatically translate all the repetitions.
  2. You can also take advantage of work you have already done during the course of a project—if you save and update the TM, and then reapply the TM, the work that you did earlier in the project may result in fuzzy matches (or better) later in the project.
  3. You can also take advantage of work that someone else has done. For example, if a colleague just uploaded a translation into WorldServer and updated the TM, select Reapply TM to leverage all that work.
PretranslatePopulates empty segments with the top translation memory match. It takes the best choice from the TM and puts it in the target.
Paste from SourcePastes the source text into the target segment.
Translation StatusUse this option to assign a translation status to the selected segments in the segment view you selected.
Restore Last VersionReverts the selected segments to their previous version in the segment history.
Report ErrorUse this option to report an error. It is only available if the step type is None or Review—therefore, translators cannot report errors.

4. By selecting the Show markup check box, you can view the segments that consist only of markup in addition to the other segments. These segments have no text to translate and are not displayed by default. Use this option to find out some context about the text that surrounds the segment you are about to translate.

5. By selecting the Show segment details check box, you can view the segment comments and the most recent history under each segment. The last history entry can also display highlighted differences between the current version and the previous one. To see the differences, select Last Version. Typically, this mode is used in conjunction with the segment filter. For example, you could select the Rejected segments filter and see all rejected segments with their comments in one view.

6. The asset viewer and the Freeform Editor are opened in a new window. You can use the asset viewer to get an in-context preview of your content as you work on it. By using the Freeform Editor, however, you can edit a task or an asset without saving your content to the translation memory. The Freeform Editor is well-suited to indirect translations where a segment-to-segment translation, such as the one in Browser Workbench, is not ideal.

7. The TM filter and TD filter icons indicate if that filter is active. If you select one of them, the Attribute Filter Configuration dialog box is displayed, where you can add, modify, or delete TM and TD filters.

8. Select which types of segments you want to view in the workbench. For example, it is common to start with the All except ICE and 100% filter, because this effectively shows you the work to be done. You can constantly use the filters to zoom into subsets of the data that are relevant to you.

10. The six icons to the right of each entry show the following:
IconLabelDescription (if necessary)
The Translation memory matches button in Browser Workbench.Translation memory matchesTM entries for the segment, including default columns for source entry, target entry, and score. You can also include columns for created by, created on, import job ID, modified by, modified on, and SID.
The Term database entries button in Browser Workbench.Term database entriesTD entries for the segment.
The Show placeholders button in Browser Workbench.Show placeholdersView placeholder markup.
The View segment comments button in Browser Workbench.View segment commentsAdd or view segment comments.
The Split segment button in Browser Workbench.Split segment-
The Merge segment button in Browser Workbench.Merge segment-
The colored vertical bars between the source and target columns indicate the translation match status of the segment.
1 If you are in Live TM mode, the Save and Update TM button is unavailable. The system add entries to the TM constantly throughout the translation process and tracks the system to distinguish different types of entries.
2 If your administrator has not given you permission to update the translation memory, this button might not be available. Similarly, the Save and Update TM button might be available, but the Save button might not be.