memoQ warning: bug in versioning & tracked changes

Recently I described the use of versioning and tracked changes in memoQ 5 and the differences between the Translator Pro and PM editions. Builds since I published that article appeared to have enabled version tracking to be made the default setting. But appearances can be deceiving.

The first signs of trouble appeared a few days ago when a very frustrated colleague called me to complain that the "X-translate" function wasn't working and her project claimed that there was no version history for the document. My first response was to say that versioning obviously wasn't active. I was then informed that the checkbox had been marked to enable versioning (in build 5.0.64). For various reasons, it wasn't practical to ask for a backup file of the project to look at, so I requested a memoQ bilingual (MBD) with the version history included. This option was indeed offered, but when I imported the MBD in my own version of memoQ (PM edition), I saw "n/a" in the version column. Re-importing a file wiped the bilingual out totally and marked the "reimported" DOC file as Version 1.

In my previous life as a software developer, there were a number of times when I was inattentive and set the status of some visual element in a way that did not match the values of the program variables. It sounded to me like Kilgray's developers might have done something like this, and I suggested that "toggling" the checkbox on the first page of the project wizard might trigger an event in the software to reset the versioning status properly. (In plain English: unmark the checkbox, then re-mark it.)

It seems my guess was more or less right. Today, a problem with the tracked changes function was reported in the Yahoogroups forum, and Marek Pawelec, a Polish translator and technology consultant, described the current bug and workaround:

It seems that there's an odd bug in the recent versions of memoQ - currently the default setting for Track changes for new projects is "on", but if I create a project that way, changes are in fact *not* tracked. To make the function work I have to switch it off an on manually on the first wizard page.

My friend has been going through many hours of Hell on an urgent project with four or five versions of a file in the last few days and another one expected soon. Cases like this are another reason why it is very important that a future version of memoQ allow versioning to be activated in a project where it is not yet active.

In any case, I do hope this bug will be addressed ASAP despite the great efforts focused on the upcoming release of version 6. "Little" things like this in the tools we depend on can cause great pain.