Tag Archives: WeSay

Setting up the SILCAWL to elicit in a non-English language in WeSay

IT, Language Development, , ,

I blogged before (a decade ago!) about adding new tasks to WeSay,  and just today was setting up someone, and realized I’d missed documenting something.

Typically we assume settings in <lift file base name>.WeSayConfig determine things, but not for the SIL Comparative African Wordlist (SILCAWL). That is, the ‘en’ value here doesn’t do anything:

<task
taskName="GatherWordList"
visible="false">
<wordListFileName>SILCAWL</wordListFileName>
<wordListWritingSystemId>en</wordListWritingSystemId>
</task>

In the config tool under the SIL-CALW wordlist Task, it says:

WeSay will use the top-most input system of the definition field to choose the prompting language (only English and French are available at this time).

This “top-most”, critically, is the topmost language in the settings for the definition field, here:

If you don’t have a language selected that is actually in your lift database (the wordlist you are trying to fill out), you will get this errorː

So to elicit in a language other then English or French, make sure that is in the lexeme-unit/form field in your lift database.

If you have other gloss languages (like Hausa) in your LIFT database, you can elicit from those, too —so long as a lexeme-unit/form language isn’t also selected in the definition input languages. But note that the interface isn’t as pretty (pay attention to the red circled area, not the long list of ?NoGlossOrDef? values…

languagedepot.org interface improved in WeSay 1.5

I’ve been very happy lately, being able to use WeSay on my Ubuntu Linux (Precise) computer for the first time in about two years. Among many other improvements (not the least are speed and stability, at least since 1.1) are the improvement of the way languagedepot.org synchronization is set up. If you aren’t using languagedepot.org to store your mercurial repositories of language data, you should check it out; especially in our potentially unstable environment, more copies (and some at a distance) is better for data survivability. You can get an account here. Once you have your account and the language data account set up (instructions on the site), you click on the lower right corner of the send/receive dialog box in WeSay (this is 1.5.x):

set up ld.org
And you’ll get this dialog, where you can input the project name, your name and your password (leave languagedepot.org there, but there are other options, too):

ld.org_settings
That’s it. Once that’s set up, you can send/receive with this button, which should no longer be gray:

call_ld.org
One note: the errors didn’t seem to be particularly informative to me, when I had my wrong username. So if you get an error, check your username and password to ld.org.

WeSay and BALSA: Thanks!

IT, Language Development, Workshops, ,

I just finished a trip to Bunia and Nia-Nia, DRC, where I helped the Ndaka [ndk] and Mbo [zmw] communities develop draft alphabet charts and transition primers, the material for each language including all nine vowels (with ATR harmony) and the egressive/implosive stops. The Mbo version also includes the [p]/[ɸ] contrast, as /p/ is normally [ɸ] there. Each booklet includes a short story in the new draft orthography.

I’ve written before about using WeSay to collect language data in highly illiterate language communities, which was a major part of this work.  And since I don’t want to do IT work full time (or rather I have other things to do with my time), I’m using WeSay in BALSA. So since much of this work would not have been possible without the work of many people, especially those working on BALSA and WeSay, I wanted to take a minute to thank them. Without a budget to do so materially, I’ll do that through describing the work here, and explicitly saying that if you work on WeSay and/or BALSA, please feel free to take and use this story and/or pictures in your own publications; this is your story, too.

We met for this workshop in Nia-Nia, DRC, about an hour into the rainforest (by MAF) from Bunia, which is about an hour (again by MAF) from Entebbe, Uganda. We met in a church, with the Ndaka covering most of the workshop logistics, since this is their home turf.  The Mbo are also a bit on the run these days from a militia conflict that hasn’t seemed to end yet. And they’re a smaller and more illiterate people group. So much so that one of the guys on the Mbo team didn’t participate in a dictation exercise, as we were practicing new letters. And yet, here they are, around a BALSA machine, using WeSay:
WeSay̠Ung'inMbo_IMG_4222_sm
Admittedly, the guy touching the computer isn’t Mbo, but he’s helping them deal with the interface, and they’re choosing pictures through the Art of Reading interface in WeSay, which would seem to be even more popular with less literate communities.

This one is of the Ndaka team, using WeSay in BALSA independently:
WeSay_ndk_IMG_4220_sm
They’re also picking images to go with dictionary entries we put there earlier, though some people started modifying entries by the end of the workshop. Lest this seem trite, let me point out that this was the first time that ANY of them had used a computer of any kind.  For some, it was the first time they had seen one. You can see in the background the current stabilizer, which is plugged into the generator we used to have electricity. Without the stabilizer, I wouldn’t plug in a computer, because of the risk of unstable current. After the stabilizer, we put a fridge guard. when I can, I put a second stabilizer in series, to even out what current irregularities the first one doesn’t catch. Which is all to say that this is not the most computer friendly place, even after the alternating dust and humidity, and the heat. But these guys took to the tasks, and were able to work somewhat independently on computers for the first time.  Having tried this in similar contexts with other software, I attribute this success entirely to WeSay and BALSA.  Thanks, guys, for making that possible.
Here is the same team from another angle:

WeSay_ndk_II_IMG_4223_sm
And here is one with other people hanging around, showing that this is truly a community affair:

WeSay_ndk_kids_IMG_4224_sm
So this workshop was a success in part because people who had never used computers before (including the elementary school principal, shown in the background of this last pic), were able to get up and running in very little time, with very few frustrations.  They even enjoyed the work so much, I had to kick them out several evenings, after it was already too dark to walk home. So thanks to everyone involved, for your part in making this happen.

Creating Tone fields in Fieldworks 7.0.6~beta7 (not useful for WeSay 0.9.28.0+)

IT, Language Development, , , , ,

Creating Tone Fields by the Method Native to FLEx –The Better Way

(N.B.: this entry started with FW7.05~b5 and WS0.9.28, though I’m finishing it on FW7.06~b7 and WS1.1.11. Some of the screenshots may look different between these versions, but I haven’t noticed any difference in functionality with regard to these fields.)
After creating custom fields in this way for tone and plural forms, I found that tone fields are already accounted for in FLEx, though not particularly transparently. There is a set of pronunciation fields, which can be inserted here:

This option puts the set of pronunciation fields in the record you’re editing, not the whole database. It gives tone, as well as a couple other fields. It looks like this in FLEx:

What’s nice about this is that you can do this a number of times, for the same entry. This gives you the chance to have a number of pronunciations, in different contexts –which is important in phonology, especially with regard to tone. The “Location” field is an empty, customizable field, so I presume we could put things like “Before a High Tone” or “phrase finally” or whatever there, then know that that pronunciation is valid for that context. Filling in some bogus data, we see the following in FLExː

Under the Hood

The above results in the following in the appropriate entry of the LIFT file:

<pronunciation>
<form lang=”gey”><text>ba</text></form>
<field type=”cv-pattern”><form lang=”en”><text>CV</text></form>
</field>
<field type=”tone”><form lang=”en”><text>?H</text></form>
</field>
</pronunciation>
<pronunciation>
<form lang=”gey”><text>bad</text></form>
<field type=”cv-pattern”><form lang=”en”><text>CVC</text></form>
</field>
<field type=”tone”><form lang=”en”><text>?HF</text></form>
</field>
</pronunciation>

So each pronunciation has a form/text set of nodes, and fields with type attributes for each of the visible fields with data in FLEx. Note that these fields are formatted exactly the same as the fields we created earlier here and here, that is

<field type=”NameofFieldinFLEx”>
<form lang=”LanguageCode”>
<text>Field Contents</text>
</form>
</field>

The only difference here is that the fields are under a <pronunciation> node, and not directly under the entry itself. But the fact that these fields are grouped together under repeatable pronunciation nodes should mean that we can organize contextually dependent pronunciation (tone or segmental) fields.

Sorting on Pronunciation Fields

I tried sorting on individual pronunciation nodes in FLEx, but wasn’t immediately impressed. I tried sorting the above fields for those with CVC in the cv-pattern, and this is what I got:

One can see that the entry is filtered, not the set of pronunciation fields. When working with Toolbox, it was possible to filter on either of a repeated field within an entry. Recalling that this was only when sorting on that field (therefore producing a record for each of the multiple fields), I tried that in FLEx, and it worked:

Note that there is only one pronunciation field listed, and the pronunciation form and tone fields listed are those that correspond to the CV field that was selected in the filter.
This data structure would also allow one to select only particular tone patterns, such as with an XPath expression like pronunciation[/field[@type=’cv-pattern’]/form/text = ‘CVC’]/field[@type=’tone’]/form/text to get the information in the tone field under only those pronunciation nodes that also have CV fields with ‘CVC’ in them.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to see these fields in WeSay (yet, I hope: see this bug report). Which is sad, because this is otherwise the best way to indicate tone in FLEx.

===Poetic Interlude===
I wrote most of the above several months ago, and had forgotten that I had worked this much out, until I ran into the problem of bulk editing on these fields. A quick Email to <Flex_Errors at sil.org>, and a fairly rapid response later, and I was back in business. When I went to write it up, I found the above in my drafts folder…
===End of Interlude===

So I’ve been doing a lot of data collection in the last couple months using the above paradigm, keeping different tone fields separate by their sibling location fields. I have XSL transforms to add this data to a LIFT file, and some reports to pull it out later, but how to mess with it in the mean time, should I need to? To get bulk editing on these fields to work, I needed two things:

  1. to sort on ‘pronunciation’ or one of it’s children (this I had apparently already figured out, but forgotten)
  2. to select the right columns for viewing in the bulk edit view.

Selecting the right columns for viewing in the bulk edit view

In case it isn’t obvious, the visible columns in the bulk edit view determine what fields you can act on. If “Lexeme” isn’t visible, you can’t copy to or from it, or modify it with a regular expression. So first, you need to make the fields you’re looking for visible, which is done through a dialog you can access by clicking in the upper right corner, with tooltip “Configure which columns to display”:

When you click on this, you get a menu of a number of (recently selected?) fields. To access other fields, to change column ordering, or to select language options, select “More column choices…” at the bottom:

This gives you access to the following dialog, where you can find fields not on the above list, select which of a number of writing systems you want to see (and therefore Bulk Edit). The Arrows on the right allow you to move the fields up and down (moving columns left and right on the Bulk Edit screen):

One trick that may not be obvious is that the ‘Tone’ field under ‘Pronunciation’ is available here as ‘Tones’. I presume this is because there are potentially a number of different Tone fields (as in my case). This is the same for ‘Location’ > ‘Locations’ and ‘CV Pattern’ > ‘CV Patterns’.

Sorting on Pronunciation Columns

Once all the fields you’re interested in are in the “current columns” (right) side of that dialog, you can select a column to sort on (showing light blue triangle). Selecting ‘Pronunciations’ gives three lines for this entry, and proclaims “Pronunciation” at the top of the page for slower ones like me.

If you’re in a context where you want to sort on two of these fields (if one doesn’t uniquely sort them, as the screenshot above), you can select one, then shift-select another, which will give a secondary sort (and a smaller triangle) as in the following:

Here the location is the first sort, then the tone. Note that the pronunciation form isn’t sorted (a…z…k…a), though the duplicate HAfter-sg field for titi is (correctly) showing up as another pronunciation/tone field (with pronunciation/form atíti nɛ) –showing that sorting by any of the pronunciation fields gives this layout.

Bulk Editing Pronunciation Fields

Getting back to the point of it all (for me, anyway), with this configuration it is now possible to bulk copy to/from these fields:

Locations didn’t show up for me under “Bulk Replace”; I’m not sure why, though that sounds familiar –perhaps I didn’t configure it right, or maybe that’s a bug.

Summary

Though tone fields created under pronunciation fields is not currently helpful for WeSay collaboration, it seems a much more principled way of treating tone data in FLEx, since it natively allows for varied contexts, CV patterns, segmental morphophonemics impacting the frame (since each pronunciation field has a form field, which can include the lexeme, frame, and any segmental interactions between them). In addition these fields are accessible to FLEx filtering and sorting, including bulk edit operations.
Given the complexity of this configuration, I would not recommend what I have described to the computer non-savvy (e.g., users more comfortable in WeSay). But for those comfortable manipulating these configurations, FLEx can be a powerful tool for manipulating tone data.

Round-tripping LIFT data through XLingpaper

IT, Language Development, , , ,

Rationale

The LIFT specification allows for interchange between lexical databases we use, such as in FLEx and WeSay. As an XML specification, it is also subject to XSL transformation, and can be converted to XML documents that conform to other specifications, such as XLingPaper, an XML specification for writing linguistics papers. I described before a means to get data out of FLEx into XlingPaper, but that required a script generating regular expressions which were then put into a FLEx filter by hand (metaphorically speaking). Computers should be able to automate this, and so (following my “If computers can do a particular task, they should” motto) I developed a script to take that regular expression generator, and feed those expressions to an XSL stylesheet to produce XlingPaper XML from the LIFT XML automatically.
The other half of the rationale is that I hate exporting data from a database to a paper or report, seeing and error, and not being able to fix it once. Either I fix it in the paper and the database, or else in the database, then re-export to the paper. So a way to get data from LIFT to XlingPaper and back seemed helpful for drafting linguistics papers, even if one wasn’t dealing with the volume of reports I’m looking at generating.

Tools

One major caveat for this work is that these tools (FLEx, WeSay, and XLingpaper) are in active development, so functionality may vary over time. The tests in this post were run with the following:

  1. FLEx 7.0.6.40863 (for Linux)
  2. WeSay 1.1.9 (for Linux) –This doesn’t enter directly into these tests, but the LIFT files used often sync back and forth between these two programs.
  3. xsltproc from a standard Ubuntu Linux install (i.e., compiled against libxml 20706, libxslt 10126 and libexslt 815)
  4. GNU bash, also from standard Ubuntu Linux (i.e., version 4.1.5)
  5. GNU diffutils, also from standard Ubuntu Linux (i.e., version 2.8.1)
  6. XMLMind Xml Editor, version 5.1.0
  7. XLingPaper, version 2.18.0_3

All of these tools are free (or have a free version) and available online from their respective sources, and most are open source.
The scripts I’ve written (to generate reports and call the XSL transforms) are not yet publicly available; I hope to have them cleaned up and more broadly tested before long.

Test Goals

I want to see if I can

  1. Get data from LIFT to XLingPaper format,
  2. Modify the XLingPaper document in XXE (which keeps it in conformity to the XLingPaper DTD),
  3. Get it back into LIFT and imported to FLEx,
  4. Show that the FLEx import made all and only the changes made by modifying the XLingPaper document (i.e., no other data loss)

To do this I will be using an output of diff between two versions of the XLingPaper document (original and modified), and another diff between two versions of the LIFT file (originally exported, and exported after input). To achieve #4, I will show that the two diffs show all and only the same changes to data entries (the modifications to the XLingPaper doc are the same as the changes to the FLEx database, as evidenced by its export to LIFT). Fyi, this LIFT file has 2033 entries, and takes up almost 2MB (plain text), so we’re not talking about a trivial amount of data.

Test procedure

  1. Backup Wesay folder (this is real [gey] data I’m working with, after all…)
  2. Export “Full Lexicon” from FLEx, and copy it to gey.ori.lift
  3. Run report (vowel inventory) on exported gey.lift (This creates Report_VowelInventory.gey.xml)
  4. Open created report in XXE
  5. Modify and save (because XXE changes format –this helps diff see real changes, not those irrelevant to xml)
  6. Save as Report_VowelInventory.gey.mod.xml, and modify one example of each field we’re interested in, including @root (at this point both files have been saved by XXE, for easier comparison).
  7. Run `diff Report_VowelInventory.gey.{,mod.}xml` (results below)
  8. Run `xlp-extract2lift Report_VowelInventory.gey.mod.xml .` (This creates Report_VowelInventory.gey.mod.compiledfromXLP.lift)
  9. Backup FLEx project (just in case, as there’s real data here, too)
  10. Import Report_VowelInventory.gey.mod.compiledfromXLP.lift to FLEx project, selecting “import the conflicting data and overwrite the current data (importing data overrules my work).” and unticking “Trust entry modification times” (This is important because if that box is selected entries won’t import unless you have also changed the ‘dateModified’ attribute on an entry –which I generally don’t).
  11. Export again, producing a second LIFT file exported by FLEx (one before, and one after the import)
  12. Run `diff gey{,.ori}.lift`
  13. Compare diffs to see fidelity of the process.

Test results

Here is the diff showing the changes between the original report and the modifications:

$ diff Report_VowelInventory.gey.{,mod.}xml
11c11
< >Rapport de l’Inventaire des Voyelles de [gey]</title
—
> >Rapport de l’Inventaire des Voyelles de [gey]MOD</title
23c23
< >Kent Rasmussen</author
—
> >Kent RasmussenMOD</author
42c42
< >Voyelles</secTitle
—
> >VoyellesMOD</secTitle
65c65
< >mbata</langData
—
> >mbataMOD</langData
89c89
< >pl: mabata</langData
—
> >pl: mabataMOD</langData
113c113
< >fissure, fente</gloss
—
> >fissure, fenteMOD</gloss
137c137
< >mke / wake</gloss
—
> >mke / wakeMOD</gloss
155c155
< externalID=”ps=’Noun’|senseid=’hand_0d9c81ef-b052-4f61-bc6a-02840db4a49e’|senseorder=”|definition-swh=’mkono

/ mikono'”
—
> externalID=”ps=’Noun’|senseid=’hand_0d9c81ef-b052-4f61-bc6a-02840db4a49e’|senseorder=”|definition-swh=’mkono

/ mikonoMOD'”
171c171
< externalID=”ps=’Noun’|senseid=’orange_2924ca57-f722-44e1-b444-2a30d8674126’|senseorder=”|definition-fr=’orange'”
—
> externalID=”ps=’Noun’|senseid=’orange_2924ca57-f722-44e1-b444-2a30d8674126’|senseorder=”|definition-fr=’orangeMOD'”
180c180
< externalID=”root=’paka’|entrydateCreated=’2011-08-05T10:57:05Z’|entrydateModified=’2011-09-27T11:24:32Z’|entryguid=’44dcf55e-9cd7-47a9-ac66-1713a3769708’|entryid=’mopaka_44dcf55e-9cd7-47a9-ac66-1713a3769708′”
—
> externalID=”root=’pakaMOD’|entrydateCreated=’2011-08-05T10:57:05Z’|entrydateModified=’2011-09-27T11:24:32Z’|entryguid=’44dcf55e-9cd7-47a9-ac66-1713a3769708’|entryid=’mopaka_44dcf55e-9cd7-47a9-ac66-1713a3769708′”

As you can see from this diff output, I changed data in a number of different types of fields, including the report title, author, sectionTitle, langData (from citation), langData (from Plural), glosses in each of French and Swahili, and the last three are root and definitions, which are not visible in the printed report, but stored in an ExternalID attribute (recently added to XLingPaper to be able to store this kind of info, without having to put it elsewhere in the structure of the doc).

And here is the diff showing the changes between the original LIFT export and the one exported after importing the LIFT file with modifications:

$ diff gey{,.ori}.lift
2601c2601
< <form lang=”swh”><text>mkono / mikonoMOD</text></form>
—
> <form lang=”swh”><text>mkono / mikono</text></form>
10776c10776
< <gloss lang=”swh”><text>mke / wakeMOD</text></gloss>
—
> <gloss lang=”swh”><text>mke / wake</text></gloss>
15871c15871
< <form lang=”gey”><text>pakaMOD</text></form>
—
> <form lang=”gey”><text>paka</text></form>
23529c23529
< <form lang=”gey”><text>mbataMOD</text></form>
—
> <form lang=”gey”><text>mbata</text></form>
27587c27587
< <field type=”Plural”><form lang=”gey”><text>mabataMOD</text></form>
—
> <field type=”Plural”><form lang=”gey”><text>mabata</text></form>
31657c31657
< <form lang=”fr”><text>orangeMOD</text></form>
—
> <form lang=”fr”><text>orange</text></form>
32416c32416
< <gloss lang=”fr”><text>fissure, fenteMOD</text></gloss>
—
> <gloss lang=”fr”><text>fissure, fente</text></gloss>

Summary

  1. The first several MOD’s to the paper (to titles, etc.) are not in the second diff, since only example data is extracted into the LIFT file to import (this is what we want, right?).
  2. The other mods –root, citation, plural, gloss-swahili, gloss-french, definition-french and definition-swahili– all survived.
  3. No other changes existed between the exported LIFT files.

Discussion

Because FLEx exported essentially the same LIFT file (of 2033 entries and almost 2MB, remember), with all and only the changes made in XXE, I presume that there were no destructive changes to the underlying FLEx database, and this procedure is safe for further testing. I did not go so far as to diff the underlying fwdata file, as I probably wouldn’t understand its format anyway, and I wouldn’t know how to distinguish between differences in formatting and content (while it is also XML, I don’t understand its specification or how it is used in the program –which is not a bad thing).
Speaking of what I don’t know, I should be clear that my formal training is in Linguistics (M.A. Oregon 2002), not in IT. I’m doing this because there is a massive amount of linguistic data to collect, organize, analyze and verify, and I want to do that efficiently (the fact that this is fun is just a nice byproduct). In any case, I have certainly not followed best practices in my bash or XSL scripting. So if you read the attachments and think “this guy doesn’t know how to code efficiently or elegantly,” then we’re already in agreement on that. And you’d also be welcome to contribute on improvements. 🙂

Acknowledgements

I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere on this project without the work of many others, particularly including those that are giving of their own time and resources (which surely could have been spent elsewhere) on FLEx, WeSay, and the LIFT specification itself. Of particular note is Andy Black, who encouraged me to take another stab at XSLT (after telling him I’d tried and given up a few years ago), and who has provided invaluable and innumerable helps, both in the development of the XLingPaper specification, and in particular issues related to these transforms. Most of what is good here has roots in his work, though I hope no one holds him responsible for my errors and inelegance.

Problem adding custom fields in WeSay 0.9.28.0 for import to Fieldworks 7.0.5~beta5

IT, ,

I thought I had a system for making fields in WeSay, which would then be automatically imported into FLEx, as described here. But just today, I noted that the inability to configure those fields in FLEx is more serious than I had thought. Looking in the FLEx help, one sees:

You cannot change the location or writing system after the custom field is created.

Since custom fields created first in WeSay then imported into FLEx are created in FLEx on import, there is no way to set these options once imported. Complicating this situation, apparently FLEx isn’t taking that (at least writing system) info from WeSay during import. I noticed this when I was moving some data around, and had plural data in an English language field (and this is not an English dictionary…) I went back to WeSay to check the config there; here is the WeSay config for the plural field, above the plural field display in FLEx:

So even though I told WeSay that I just want [nlj] data in this field, on import FLEx set the field as “all analysis, then all vernacular” (which doesn’t seem to match this screenshot, but the point is that I have five language to choose from when inputing data, when I should have just one).
The reason the data is in the ‘en’ field is my fault — I bulk copied to the plural field without checking which writing system I was copying into. But I made this error because I presumed that there was only one language field (this is data, not analysis!) for it to go to. So it is reasonable to imagine others might do so as well, with a bunch of junk language fields that can’t be easily gotten rid of.

Summary

  1. This isn’t the end of the world. One can always create the fields again in FLEx, with the right options, then move all the data over with bulk edit. Needing to do so just negates the value of creating the custom fields on import, unless you don’t care what languages will be available to that field.
  2. Since WeSay clearly has the correct info, hopefully the FLEx team will see this as a bug, and correct the import to take language choice from WeSay (assuming it can understand that [nlj], in this case, is a vernacular writing system, and the systems for categorizing writing systems in WeSay (which selects on a per system basis) and FLEx (which groups languages in categories of first/all vernacular/analysis only/then the other) can be harmonized and/or made to understand one another.
  3. In the mean time, I would advise against importing custom fields from WeSay. We’ll need to take the extra steps to create the fields in each program, and hopefully get it documented clearly enough that each will see the other’s fields the first time around.

Creating a Custom Field II: in Fieldworks 7.0.5~beta5 for WeSay 0.9.28.0

IT, , ,

Today I’m going to walk through creating a custom field in Fieldworks, and see how it looks in LIFT and in WeSay.

Fieldworks’ ‘Custom Fields’ Dialog

Creating custom fields in fieldworks is easy, if you know where to look. I created a Tone field via Tools/Configure/Custom fields:

Clicking there produces the Custom Fields dialog box, where one can set up the new field:

Here I have already added Tone and Plural fields. As far as I can tell, there are pros and cons to this method:

  1. Fields added to every record in the database (though I don’t think they take up space, at least in LIFT, until there is data in the field).
  2. Only one of these can appear in a record. I didn’t even notice this until I tried another kind of field (to come), but this may or may not be important to what you’re doing. If you want a couple tone fields for different environments (syntactic, tonal, or whatever), you would need to make them each here, or use another method (description to come).

This is what they look like in FLEx before they have been filled in (Note that I selected different options for the language of these fields):

These fields from the entry in the above screenshot didn’t show up in the LIFT file, since they were empty, but another took the following form (between lexical-unit and senses):

<field type=”Plural”>
<form lang=”gey”>
<text>baadisi</text>
</form>
</field>

And here it is in WeSay:

I saw it immediately on opening WeSay this time, since I had the field already configured earlier, like this:

Note that “Name in file” and “Name for display” are both “Plural”. This makes it a bit easier on the config, since you don’t have to keep track of a different name for the WeSay user to see as in the LIFT file (which is what you see in FLEx).
In the WeSayConfig file, you see this:

<field>
<className>LexEntry</className>
<dataType>MultiText</dataType>
<displayName>Plural</displayName>
<enabled>True</enabled>
<fieldName>Plural</fieldName>
<multiParagraph>False</multiParagraph>
<spellCheckingEnabled>False</spellCheckingEnabled>
<multiplicity>ZeroOr1</multiplicity>
<optionsListFile></optionsListFile>
<visibility>Visible</visibility>
<writingSystems>
<id>gey</id>
</writingSystems>
</field>

Note the fieldName and diplayName values each as ‘Plural.’
When adding (and therefore and naming) a new field in FLEx, that name would show in the same place as Plural in <field type=”Plural”> (the ‘type’ attribute of the field node) for that field in the LIFT file. That would be what you would need to put in the “Name in file” field of the Configuration Tool/Fields dialog above (or in the fieldName field of the WeSayConfig file), in order to see it in WeSay.
A couple caveats for creating custom fields for collaboration between FLEx and WeSay in this manner:

  1. You can’t use spaces. One of the first custom fields I made in FLEx was “Noun Class of Plural.” When I tried to create the corresponding field in WeSay, I got something like this:

    I recall FLEx being perfectly happy writing the field ‘type’ attribute with spaces into the LIFT file, but there was no way to get such a WeSay field, either through the config tool, or through editing the config file by hand. Not that I could find, anyway; perhaps a developer can contradict me here if there is.
  2. A related point is that when creating the field in FLEx first, one is obligated to then create the field in WeSay, or you won’t see it there (the data should still be preserved, but that’s not the kind of collaboration I’m looking for).

But when creating a custom field in WeSay first (As I described here), FLEx creates the field that you created in WeSay automatically. There was a limitation on the options (relative to creating a custom field in FLEx), but going in that direction removes one configuration step for each custom field. So that would depend on the kind of flexibility you need (I haven’t needed those options, yet).
Probably the first issue where I would want those grayed out options would be for fields with option lists. Even in FLEx, the instructions say to set up the options (or at least the list) first, then the field that references them. When trying to collaborate with such a field in WeSay, that would all need to be done first. But I haven’t figured out yet how to get such a field into WeSay, or if the option list fields from WeSay (e.g., POS and SemDom) can go into FLEx, or if they are incompatible data types. If someone figures that one out, please let us all know; if I get time to work on it, I’ll post here.

Notes for creating fields in FLEx’s ‘Custom Fields’ dialog to be used in WeSay

  1. Don’t use spaces in the field name.
  2. Plan on also creating the custom field name in WeSay, with the FLEx field name in the WeSay Configuration Tool’s “Name in file” field.
  3. Don’t use this method for fields that might need to appear more than once per sense/entry, or else make one for each possible iteration you need.
  4. Use this method if you need broader configuration of FLEx custom fields.

Creating Custom Fields in WeSay 0.9.28.0 for Fieldworks 7.0.5~beta5

IT, , ,

I’ve been working with custom fields in FLEx and WeSay enough to feel the need to figure out what is really going on. The goal is to be able to straightforwardly create custom fields in one or the the other that are editable and round-trip-able in the other. To do this, I’m going to look into the interface of each program, and see what impact adding fields has on the LIFT (and config, for WeSay) file. Today I’m making a field in WeSay, and seeing what it looks like there, and then in FLEx.

The WeSay Configuration Tool

The WeSay config tool looks like this (once you click on ‘Fields’ then ‘New Field’):

Once you save and exit, you get a section under the <fields> node in the WeSayConfig file that looks like this:

<field>
<className>LexEntry</className>
<dataType>MultiText</dataType>
<displayName>*newField</displayName>
<enabled>True</enabled>
<fieldName>newField</fieldName>
<multiParagraph>False</multiParagraph>
<spellCheckingEnabled>False</spellCheckingEnabled>
<multiplicity>ZeroOr1</multiplicity>
<optionsListFile></optionsListFile>
<visibility>Visible</visibility>
<writingSystems>
<id>en</id>
<id>fr</id>
<id>hav</id>
</writingSystems>
</field>

Adding Data in WeSay

Returning to WeSay, one can add some bogus info to this field in one of the records:

Closing out WeSay and looking at the LIFT file, we see the following under this entry (between <lexical-unit> and the first <sense>):

<field type=”newField”>
<form lang=”fr”>
<text>BogusNewfield</text>
</form>
</field>

What this Means

Putting this all together, we see that

  1. The ‘Name in file’ from the WeSay Config Tool corresponds to the field/fieldName node in the WeSayConfig file.
  2. Both of the above correspond to the LIFT entry/field ‘type’ attribute (once data is entered):
    ‘Name in file’ = (xyz.WeSayConfig)/configuration/components/viewTemplate/fields/field/fieldName = (xyz.lift)/lift/entry/field/@type
  3. ‘Name for display’ from the WeSay Config Tool is the label the WeSay user sees on the field, which corresponds to the contents of the field/displayName node, i.e., (.WeSayConfig)/configuration/components/viewTemplate/fields/field/displayName
  4. Therefore, the name a WeSay user sees for a field will not necessarily relate to anything in FLEx. This is because the WeSay label is related to the proper LIFT field in the WeSayConfig file (which FLEx doesn’t see), and not in the LIFT file, which is what FLEx imports. So in setting up custom fields, we need to pay attention to what the config tool says for the ‘Name in file’, not the ‘Name for display’ (Note that it is ‘*newField,’ and not ‘newField,’ in the WeSay user interface. The asterisk, which is visible in WeSay, is only present in displayName in the WeSayConfig, not in either of fieldName from the WeSayConfig or field/@type from the LIFT file.)

Importing to FLEx

I was happy to see that the field created in WeSay shows up under FLEx custom fields (after importing the WeSay LIFT file):

Note that Location, Type, and Writing System(s) are all grayed out. There may be some way of modifying these settings in FLEx once they have been set in WeSay, but isn’t obvious at first glance. Here is the field in the lexicon editor:

I had to select ‘Show Hidden Fields’ to be able to see it the first time for some reason. But then I deselected it, and the field remained visible.
Note that the label in FLEx is ‘newField,’ without the asterisk, which comes from the type attribute of the field in the LIFT file. As far as I can see, there is no Distinction between file and display names in FLEx. This is appropriate for at least the following two reasons:

  1. FLEx seems to deal fine with spaces in field names (I’ve had problems with this in WeSay).
  2. FLEx users should be able to handle whatever complexity the field names throw at them. WeSay, on the other hand, needs to control carefully what the user sees, and it’s relationship to the LIFT field in question. For instance, the form in lexical-unit in a lift file is displayed as “Word” by default in WeSay, since people are putting words into it. But when I analyze those words into roots, it is nice to be able to change that field’s display name to “Root” in WeSay, without having to change the underlying LIFT structure. This flexibility of the display name can help keep the WeSay user from getting confused without unnecessarily complicating the database.

Notes for Creating fields in WeSay to be imported to FLEx

  1. Pay attention to ‘Name in file’ in the WeSay Config Tool, since that will be what the field will be called in the LIFT file, and in FLEx (and presumably in other programs that would use LIFT).
  2. You may need to click on ‘Show Hidden Fields’ to see the field in FLEx.
  3. There doesn’t seem to be a way to put fields anywhere than in the ‘Custom Fields’ section of FLEx, so I hope that’s where you want it (if not, stay tuned for the next installment, going the other way).

Wesay instructions

IT,

When I started working with WeSay in BALSA, it became clear that the people I’m working with were still going to need either a lot of hand-holding, or some instructions. So I wrote these down, and have massaged them a little (not everything was as clear as it could have been), and hope I have something highly (but not completely) fool-proof. But your mileage may vary. I’m submitting them in case someone finds them useful.

Instructions.pdf
Instructions_fr-FR.pdf