Hello Amara users,

11/13/2019 Update

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback on the new features in the Amara subtitle editor, your voice is so important to help us find the best solutions!

Based on our users’ feedback, our engineering team has provided the temporary option to continue to use the Legacy Syncing behavior while we continue to improve.

To use the Legacy Syncing behavior option:

With the Amara Editor open and the project in the REVIEW STAGE:
You can update your preference on any project you have worked on that is in the Review stage.

Click  "Using up/down to adjust timings" link on the left  to open the dialog box.

Then click the “Use Legacy Syncing Behavior” button in the lower left.

This will set the Legacy Syncing Behavior as your default setting  so that any new projects you begin will have this setting.

You can revert to the New Syncing behavior again by opening any video project in Review

 -> Use Up/Down to adjust timings

 -> Use New Syncing Behavior

The setting you select will remain the default for your editor view until you change it.  

Thank you for being a part of our amazing community!

November 2019 Update

We are happy to share that the new features will be merging into the default Amara Editor next week. Thank you for all your feedback and great suggestions to help make creating captions and translations on Amara even more intuitive and efficient than ever! Keep sharing any ideas here or send them to us directly at support@amara.org.

You may have noticed the new "Beta Editor" button on the Amara platform. That's because we are officially retiring our Legacy subtitle editor, and replacing it with some new features we hope will help you subtitle easier! We listened to feedback from our users and built some improvements into a beta version of the new editor, which will soon be incorporated into the main platform. We’ll incorporate all the new beta features into the editor soon. 

Until then, you can switch to the beta editor for any of your subtitling work by clicking the “Beta Editor” button in the upper right of the editor screen, and switch back using the “Default Editor” button in the same spot. 

Important: Please be sure to save your work each time before switching.

Let’s take a look at some of our new Beta Editor features!

Switch up your workflow

The workflow steps in the upper right of the editor are now text links, which you can use to switch between typing, syncing, or reviewing your subtitles.

Colorful warning for character and line limits

If a subtitle does not comply with the line and character limits listed in the info tray, the subtitle handles are highlighted in orange in the timeline. This warning can help you catch mistakes while you are syncing your subtitles.

Subtitles in the video player

The video player always shows synced subtitles at the current time in the video. 

If you click an unsynced subtitle to start an edit, you will see the subtitle show up on the video player while you are editing. This gives you an extra point of reference within the context of the video.

Syncing improvements

The beta editor has larger subtitle endpoint “handles” that can be selected one at a time or together. With these handles, you can move two adjacent subtitle endpoints at the same time. If you hover over or select a subtitle handle, the handle will highlight light blue.

Note: To select two subtitle endpoints at the same time, the endpoints have to be exactly next to each other.

You can also nudge subtitle beginning and end points by selecting a handle and using your left and right arrow keys to adjust by small increments. We’ve also removed the “start now” and “end now” indicators that we used to show when syncing subtitles.

Help us continue to improve the new features by sharing your thoughts on this forum or emailing us at support@amara.org.

Happy Subtitling!

Thank you, Rieann,

The new editor sounds  very interesting, and I'm looking forward to trying it - but presently I still see the old editing options:

Also for videos added to the Captions Requested team (an old team). Could it be that the new beta editor is only available in the new teams?

Best

Claude

Hi Claude,

In the excitement to share the news, the Forum post was just a bit early. The New Beta editor has just gone live this morning and should be available on any video opened in the editor, for all teams as well. 

Looking forward to hearing what you and Amara users think of the new improvements!

Best,

Rieann

Amara Support Team

Thank you, Rieann: I've now tried the editor too. Nice except the arrow up arrow down shortcuts no longer work, at least for me (OS Linux Ubuntu, browser Firefox)

And thank you for your suggestion, Theresa. Rieann, do you think such a speed control could be implemented?

Best,

Claude

Big thanks to Sonia Ordóñez who authorized me to copy here the feedback she initially gave in a ticket:

"...The arrow down/up option no longer works for in/out times, as it  does in the default editor. There are many shortcuts but none of them  covers this extremely simple and convenient feature. (Please guys, bring  it back.)

 The nudge still works and the larger "handles" are definitely  easier to use. However, that's not really a shortcut and the new option  of selecting the handle and using left/right arrow keys (I was wrong, it  does work!) does not allow for really accurate  syncing.
 The new Alt+S keyboard shortcut works to move the start/end of the subtitle, but if the "handles" are touching it also drags the adjacent subtitle,  not leaving a gap in between, which very often might be necessary for  accurate syncing. And again, this would replace a one key shortcut with  two.

Colour warning ─ I really like that the handles are highlighted  in orange in the timeline if there's a compliance issue. This is  definitely an improvement and will help spot mistakes...."

Dear Rieann,

Thank you for launching this testing.  It's really important to let users give their feedback, because  the more try an update, the easier it is to find and remedy glitches.  Or sometimes something looks like a glitch but is just a different simpler way that needs some explaining.

Best

Claude

Hi Kenzie,

I am neutral about the page scrolling, but thank you for the video illustrating the arrow syncing issue.

Now using arrows to sync subtitles as the video is playing is mainly meant for first syncing, "on the fly". But when  reviewing already synced subtitles, if you need to modify the time-codes for one, it is safer to search for the exact point where you want the start or end time code, stop the video and only then use the relevant time-coding arrow.

So the up and down arrows are extremely useful for the first syncing on the fly. Disabling them from the reviewing stage onward? Not sure it would be feasible and anyway, some people with extremely good reflexes might wish to do resyncing on the fly while reviewing, notwithstanding the risk of messups described in the video (should they sneeze or if the arrow command gets sluggish). So please keep the arrow commands, and maybe explain in the tut about the risk of using them for reviewing while the video is playing.

This being said, if there were a majority in favor of disabling these arrows, there are workarounds: they weren't working on my Mac with the old legacy editor, so I'd team with someone who could use them: I would do the transcript, then my team mate would do the syncing and we'd both do the reviewing. Hardly feasible with videos in teams with strict one person / one task workflows, though.

Best,

Claude