Changing the "Based on" and "Typical File Name:" fields during migration or the Convert Project procedure

Question

During migration from Pt7.5 to Pt8, or in Convert Project, is there any way that I can change the “Based on:” field on the General tab of Project Properties and Settings, and the “Typical File Name:” field on the Advanced tab?

Background:
I recently migrated our front translation project (Mpur) and two back translation projects (English, Indonesian) from Pt7.5 to Pt8. I had hoped that I could change the project short names of two of them to more informative names, but I could not. I then found that I could use Convert Project in the Tools > Advanced menu to create new projects with new short names, but the converted back translation project was still based on the original front translation project, not the converted one; and the Typical File Names (which include the short names) were unchangeable. (In Pt7.5, I could change Type of Project and Based on.)

I wondered if deleting the front translation project in Pt8 would force the back translation projects to ask me for another project to be based on, but that did not happen. One Delete Project option said that it would also delete the back translation projects based on the front translation; another deleted the front translation, but left the back translation projects with nothing to be Based on, and no way to change that.

So what can I do?

Our front translation is named “Draft”, a very uninformative name that does not include the language name, nor does the project include just first or intermediate drafts, but final products as well. Our English back translation is named “BkTrn”, which again doesn’t include the language name nor which language (English or Indonesian) the text was back-translated into. I thought the migration would be a good time to take care of these things, but ran into the problems described above.

Answer 1

Paratext 7.6.54.126 and later should automatically rename the Typical File Name setting to use the new short name of the project during a Convert Project.

In any non-alpha version of Paratext 8.0 (8.0.100.1 or later), you should be able to edit the Type and Based On fields for any project that isn’t directly registered (which includes all Back Translations).

Comments

Mark+P:

is there any way at all to (i) keep project history AND (ii) rename the files?

No, there is not, sorry. There is an existing feature request for it, but so far, it has been relatively low-priority.

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How do you change extensions? Do you just rename the book names to a new extension and then update the .ssf file? Is there still an .ssf file in PT8? If so, where is it?

Can you not rename the extension to .sfm, convert to rename the files, and then change the extension back to whatever you want?

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mnjames:

Is there still an .ssf file in PT8? If so, where is it?

The .SSF file is now the Settings.xml file inside the project directory.

mnjames:

Can you not rename the extension to .sfm, convert to rename the files, and then change the extension back to whatever you want?

Even if you change the settings to make Paratext recognize the new names, changing the file names in any way will disconnect them from the rest of the project history. Meaning you would lose all of this history for your scripture text. Convert project wouldn’t even recognize the files in the history either, so it wouldn’t work to go that route.

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What about if you renamed the files using the hg rename a b command? Then wouldn’t the history be connected to the new names?

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Admittedly I’ve never tried it, but, knowing the Paratext code and how it works, I expect that it would still not recognize the files in the revision history and, thus, would not show the files as changes in the Project History dialog.

Answer 2

Where is “Help > Report a Problem”? I don’t see a link in this site anywhere.

Comments

Inside of Paratext 8

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Ok, thanks. Just sent a problem report.

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Just for the record, in case anyone else looks up this topic, the Convert Project tool did not rename the Typical File Names automatically in either Pt 7.6.54.126 or Pt 8.0 using my new short names. And the program does not allow for renaming them manually, so I am just stuck with the old ones.

I ended up following anon716631 ’s procedure above so that I could at least change the Based On field for our back translations.

Answer 3

And I also have a complaint from a project with the file names unchanged after a conversion.

Original name was SwaWB 41MAT.SFM
(I don’t know if that is an actual space in the name)

I’d be de happy for a workaround if there are any.

Comments

On Sep 7 Steve White wrote me that, in Paratext 8.0.100.25, changing the project short name in Convert Project would also change the file names and typical file name. He tested it, with that result. I was using 8.0.100.24 at the time. I’ve since received the upgrade, but haven’t taken the time to try it myself yet.