Autopropagating Segment Status in Review Mode in SDL Trados Studio

Aug. 2017 Update: This issue has been resolved in Studio 2017 SR1.

The problem: When in Review mode in Studio, segment status for repetitions is not propagated when Track Changes is on and no edits are made to the segment.

The workaround: An AutoHotkey script that disables track changes right before confirming the segment, then enables track changes again after the segment has been confirmed.

Until a change is made to Studio to allow segment status to propagate in all instances, the following workaround can be used to achieve the desired effect.

Step 1: AutoHotkey should be installed (if needed, you can download it here)

Step 2: Download my Review Macro AutoHotkey script, and load it by double-clicking on the file.

Script breakdown

$^Enter::  ;This is the hotkey (Ctrl+Enter, adapt if your Confirm and Move to Next Segment shortcut is different)
Sleep 300  ;a short delay before the script execution starts, for better reliability
Send, ^!{F10}  ;Toggle track changes off
Send, ^{Enter} ;Confirm segment (Ctrl+Enter, adapt if your Confirm and Move to Next Segment shortcut is different)
Send, ^!{F10} ;Toggle track changes on
Send, {Esc}
Return

#s::  ;Hotkey toggle to suspend/resume the macro (Windows Key+S)
Suspend
if (A_IsSuspended)
MsgBox, Review Macro suspended
else
MsgBox, Review Macro active
Return

Explanation
Once the script is loaded, to use it you would simply confirm your segments as you usually do (assuming that you use Ctrl+Enter as your shortcut; if not, adapt the script as needed). When the Confirm and Move to Next Unconfirmed Segment shortcut is used, the script will toggle Track Changes off, confirm the segment, then toggle Track Changes back on. What this means is that segment status will be correctly propagated, as Track Changes will be disabled right before confirming the segment, regardless of whether changes were made or not.

Warning notes:
1. If the script is loaded while in translation mode, there may be some undesired effects when the shortcut is used, as track changes is toggled on and off every time a segment is confirmed. Due to this, it's best to only load the script when in review mode and unload it once the review is done. To learn how to load and unload AutoHotkey scripts, watch the short video below.

2. For the script to work, track changes needs to be on before starting the review, otherwise, the first thing the script will do is enable track changes, which defeats the purpose of the script.

3. A limitation of the script is that if a change is made to a segment that had been previously confirmed and contained tracked changes, when confirming the segment again, the new edits won't propagate to repeated segments and won't be committed to the TM because Track Changes is off prior to confirming the segment. An error message will be displayed saying that reviewed content cannot be edited when review mode is off. To solve this, the script can be suspended while the segment in question is confirmed, then activated again by using the Windows Key+S shortcut as a toggle.

I hope you will find this useful!

Note: Edited 01-11-2017 to add warning #3 and update the script accordingly.