Creating actions

SDL Trados Studio Integration API provides support for third-party developers to implement actions inside the SDL Trados Studio desktop applications.

An action is a piece of code which can have a UI representation and is usually executed over a UI controller. Most of the time, it is used to allow users to execute an application-specific functionality.

About actions

There are two kind of actions that can be created inside SDL Trados Studio applications:

• Actions which have a global purpose beeing executed in the application context (see: StudioContext).
• Actions which are executed over a view or viewpart controller (see: Creating views, Creating viewparts).

For a sample on how to create a global context actions integrated into a custom ribbon group, see: Integrating actions

Creating an action

In order to create an action, a third-party developer will require the following steps:

• Create a class inherited based on the scope from: AbstractAction if the action requires to be available in a SDL Trados Studio global context and its execution is not specific to a view or viewpart, but to the application. AbstractViewControllerAction if the action requires to be available in any context, but it is specific to one of the view or viewpart controller.
• Decorate the newly created class using the ActionAttribute attribute to define the action.
• Decorate single or multiple times the newly created class using the ActionLayoutAttribute attribute to define the action layout settings. The location specified in the action layout settings can be either a custom ribbon group (see: Integrating ribbon groups), or one of the following default locations:
  • StudioDefaultRibbonTabs.AddinsRibbonTabLocation
  • StudioDefaultRibbonTabs.HelpRibbonTabLocation
  • StudioDefaultRibbonTabs.ViewRibbonTabLocation
  • TranslationStudioDefaultRibbonTabs.EditorAdvancedRibbonTabLocation
  • TranslationStudioDefaultRibbonTabs.EditorReviewRibbonTabLocation
  • TranslationStudioDefaultRibbonTabs.HomeRibbonTabLocation
  • TranslationStudioDefaultContextMenus.EditorDocumentContextMenuLocation
  • TranslationStudioDefaultContextMenus.FilesContextMenuLocation
  • TranslationStudioDefaultContextMenus.ProjectsContextMenuLocation

For a sample on how to create actions, see: Integrating actions

Note

On how to obtain an already created action, see: GetAction< TAction>

Creating a keyboard shortcut for an action

The SDL Trados Studio Integration API provides support for third-party developers to add keyboard shortcuts to the actions they implement.

In order to create a shortcut action, a third-party developer will require to decorate the action class with the ShortcutAttribute and specify the combination of keyboard keys on which the action should be triggered and executed.

You can see in the sample below how ALT+F8 is added as a shortcut key for the action.

Note

The shortcut keys that are in conflict with shortcuts will have a lower priority and will be ignored.