Locks

Locks prevent editing at the segment level.  Apply locks by double clicking the Lock cell in the string list, or by choosing the segment and pressing the Lock button in the Translator Toolbar.

Locked segments appear with the pad-lock symbol in the workspace and cannot be edited in anyway.  Locked segments are excluded from analysis and all editing processes such as translation, Leverage and Pseudo-Translate. The total word count includes protected words such as locks and keywords, but the Translatable count does not.

Locked strings can be unlocked by clicking the Lock button in the Translator Toolbar. This means a Translator has the ability to unlock a string which a localisation engineer has mark as locked. If the ability to unlock string needs to be prevented, the option is available at the project level.

Right click on the Project title in the Navigator Window and select Properties...

In the project properties, under Protected Properties, select the Prevent modifying locked status tick box. With this option selected, attempts to Lock or Unlock a string in the project will be denied with the following warning.

This is ideal to prevent translators from accidentally removing locks and causing over translation.

Similarly, modifying coordinates of Dialog resources (in Visual View) can be prevented in the Protected Properties window above selecting the Lock Coordinates tickbox.

Setting a password will show the protected properties greyed out, indicating that a password must be entered before the settings can be changed.

Keywords

Keywords are used to prevent words or phrases within a segment from being translated.  Keywords are also excluded from translatable word count.

When a word or phrase is defined as a Keyword it is displayed as a placeable tag (highlighted in blue)  in the string list and Translator Toolbar.

Keywords can be validated using the Validate Expert to ensure that they are not modified or deleted during the translation process.

Protecting Individual Keywords

Select the word/phrase you wish to protect in the Translator Toolbar, right click and choose Lock/Unlock Keyword.  You can also choose to lock the word/phrase and have that word/phrase added to the keyword definition file.  

Protecting using the Keyword Definition File

Use the Locks & Keywords menu in the Preparation group on the Experts tab.  This iterates the segments in your project applying locks & keywords according to your keyword definition file.

Automating Locks & Keywords

Alchemy CATALYST facilitates automated locking of words or phrases as well as entire segments.  The Keywords.txt is where keywords and segment locking  can be defined.

Access the file via the EXPERTS > Locks and Keywords > Settings.

The default location for this file is the Alchemy Public Folder: "C:\Users\Public\Alchemy Software\Catalyst 12.0\Keywords.txt". This file is a text file which can be edited in any text editor such as Notepad. In includes comprehensive details on the syntax to Lock Keywords.

(Example of Keyword File)

Defining Keywords

Keywords are prefixed by the syntax KEYWORDS: and defined using regular expressions. They are saved in the Locks & Keywords file.

In the example above a single keyword in defined on each line using a regular expression,

Defining Locks

Locks can be defined in two ways, with the following syntax in each case

• by text match with syntax LOCK-SEGMENTS: (note regular expressions can be used)

• by ID match with syntax LOCK-SEGMENTS-ID:

Along with keywords, locks are defined and stored in the Locks and Keywords file (FILE > Options > Locks & Keywords File).

When defining segments to lock by content, the definition must match the entire segment.  The definition can be by regular expression, or by exact text match.

Similarly, when defining segments to lock by ID, the ID is case sensitive and must match the whole id.

In the example above a locking entry is defined on each line

Applying Locks and Keywords to a Project file

To protect segments and keywords in a Project TTK, use EXPERTS > Apply Locks and Keywords, or use shortcut CTRL+1.  This screen-shot is from the resulting dialog-box. Choose to protect with locks only, keywords only or both at the same time.

The most powerful way to use this feature is with Apply on Insertion selected. This means that locks and keywords will be applied to all files when they are inserted into a project.

Removing Locks and Keywords from a Project file

Use EXPERTS > Remove Locks and Keywords from the Alchemy main menu to permanently remove all locks and keywords from a Project file, or use shortcut CTRL+2.