Author Assistant and Framemaker database questions

[ohmy_goodness]

We are thinking of upgrading to Frame 9 so that the Author Assistant will be available and integrated into the process. I have searched the Web extensively to try to find out more about the databases Assistant will use to check foreign language compatibility with previously written (and translated) sentences.

There seem to be a lot of web discussions and much information praising this addition to Frame, but absolutely nothing on how the existing databases can be integrated into the process. I would hope that users can add standard TMX files to the process so that it is globally useable, but as it is SDL that have provided the plugin, I am concerned that it has been developed to use only proprietary SDL files (TMW) which would limit the usefulness to Trados users/databases only.

Does anyone have any information on this, please? Even the Webinar did not provide any information on this subject and as we have databases provided by several different enterprises who all supply us with TMX files due to working with different translator tools, it is a consideration we have to take into account before making the decision whether or not to upgrade.

[Arnis Gubins]

Have you contacted RJ Jacquez, Adobe's evangelist and one of the webinar presenters, on this? You can send him a private message via the Forums. See http://forums.adobe.com/people/RJ%20Jacquez?view=profile

[ohmy_goodness]

What a good idea, thank you for that. I will send a message and hopefully he will be able to enlighten me

[Arnis Gubins]

Please do let us know if other databases can be hooked in or not. I suspect a number of users are curious about this.

[ohmy_goodness]

I sure will if I get a reply. I have been surprised that I haven't seen anything else on the subject yet though the web is vast and I maybe just missed related posts.

[ohmy_goodness]

I have just resent the question to RJ Jacques as he/she may have missed it. Does anyone else know about the question I've asked?

[AxialInfo]

You might want to check with Bluestream and their XDocs database, http://www.bluestream.com

They have a very solid connection between FM and their DITA database, and they recently mentioned in a webinar that they could be expanding it to accommodate translation usage too.  I don't know how that might work with TMX files from various vendors, but it's well worth a shot to ask.

Nenad Furtula is the best person to get hold of:

Nenad Furtula
VP Sales and Marketing
Bluestream Database Software Corp.
office:   604 669-4469 x. 102

or if you're on the east coast you could also try

Bernard Aschwanden

Publishing Smarter

Toronto

905.833.8448

www.publishingsmarter.com