Accessing a project

Tip

Please give some thought to the organization of your files and folders before you proceed with the steps below. We provide some tips here.

Accessing a new project

There are two ways you may access a project for the first time, depending on whether it is an online project (or team project) or an offline project.

• If you must work on an offline project, you will receive a new OmegaT project package (aka an OMT package, or a file with .omt extension). Go to the section Unpacking an offline project below to see what you must do to unpack a project package.

• If you must work on an online project (or team project), you will receive the URL to the repository where the OmegaT project is hosted. Go to the section Downloading a team project below to see what you must to do download a team project from a repository.

If you're not sure whether your project is online or offline, it's very easy: if you receive an OMT package, the project is offline, and if you receive a URL to a git repository, the project is online.

You receive	Project is
OMT file	offline/package
URL to git repo	online/team

Caution

Unpacking or downloading an OmegaT project (depending on the distribution mode) needs to be done only once for each project. After you have unpacked or downloaded a project, you can simply re-open it from the list of recent projects.

Unpacking an offline project

If you receive an OMT package, you must unpack the project (from the OMT package) to access the project for the first time.

To unpack a project, follow these steps:

1. Store the OMT package in the folder where you would like to create the OmegaT project.

2. To unpack the project from the OMT package:

   • Launch OmegaT.

   • Go to Project > Unpack project from OMT file:

     

   • Navigate to the location where you stored the OMT package. Select the OMT package and click on Open:

     

   • A pop up opens. Click Yes.

     

3. You can now perform your task in the project.

Downloading a team project

If you receive a URL to a git repository, you must download the team project from that repository to access the project for the first time.

Info

The URL should look a bit like this: https://domain.com/path/to/repo-name.git.

Authentication

Most likely, OmegaT will ask you to authenticate, and for that you should have received your credentials. That might be a username and a password, or a repositories.properties file (possibly with a slightly different name) that you need to import.

Importing a credentials file

If you have received a credentials file, save it to a folder in your computer. Then, go to Tools > Manage Credentials to open the Manage Credentials dialog.

There, press Import to access your file system and browse to the location where you have saved the credentials file. Select it and press Open. That will import the credentials required for all the projects and resources you'll have to download in OmegaT.

Entering credentials manually

If you have received a username and a password, OmegaT will ask you to enter them the first time you try to download the project. So just copy the username and paste it in the username field, and then copy the password and paste it in the password file. Then press OK.

OmegaT might ask you to authenticate one or more times (depending on the project settings), please just enter the same credentials as many time as requested.

How to download the project from the repository

To download the team project, follow these steps:

1. Define a location in your machine where you would like to create the OmegaT project. We recommend a Work folder (or whatever you prefer to call it) in your user's home directory. Let's assume path C:\Users\USER\Work\ (for user USER).

   Danger ❗❗❗

   💀 Make sure that location is NOT inside a sync'ed folder such as Dropbox, OneDrive, Nextcloud, Google Drive, Syncthing or the like, or in a server or a network drive.

2. Copy the URL of the project repository to your clipboard (select it and press Ctrl+C or right-click it and select Copy).

   

3. In OmegaT, go to Project > Download Team Project.

4. In the Download Team Project dialog, click in the Repository URL field and then press Ctrl+V to paste the URL from your clipboard.

5. Click in the New Local Project Folder field. OmegaT will propose a path to the location where it will create the project folder. Please wait until you see that path.

   Failure

   DO NOT click on the ... button.

   See the three steps above in the following animation:

   

6. You might want to modify that path to create the folder in the location that you have defined in the first step above. For example:

   • By default, it's likely that OmegaT proposes to create the project inside your home directory, e.g. C:\Users\USER\repo-name.
   • Modify that path so that it points ot the actual location you prefer, e.g. if you follow our recommendation above, that would be C:\Users\USER\Work\repo-name.

   For example:

   

   Caution

   Make sure there's a slash between every two folders in your path.

Closing the project

When you are done working for the day, quit OmegaT (Ctrl+Q).

Re-opening an existing project

After you have received and opened a project for the first time, the project exists in your machine and OmegaT will remember it.

The next times you want to access the project in OmegaT, go to Project > Open Recent Project. The project you were working on will appear in the list:

Note

Make sure the disctinction between opening a recent project and downloading or unpacking a new project (depending on the distribution mode) is clear. You can open a project that already exists only after you have already unpacked it or downloaded it. In turn, you only need to download or unpack (once) a project that doesn't exist yet in your machine.