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SIL FieldWorks Language Explorer

Last corporate release: version 3.0, released October 2009.

What Was New

Here is the list of features added to each release of FieldWorks Language Explorer.

In Version 3.0

• Merger of Bulk Edit Entries and Bulk Edit Senses (now one view)
  • Bulk Edit now available for most Example and Allomorph fields
  • Settings in Bulk Edit views are remembered.
• Enhanced support of variants, including adding them within 'regular' entries and while interlinearizing. You can now:
  • Select more than one Variant Type for a variant.
  • Specify that an entry is a variant and a complex form.
  • Specify that an entry is a variant of another variant.
• Enhanced support of complex forms. You can now:
  • Select a complex form type while creating a new entry.
  • Select which component to show a subentry under.
  • Reduce the number of complex forms displayed with a highly productive component such as a derivational affix.
  • Optionally display complex forms with minor subentries in a stem-based view.
• Phonological Rules (and parsing)
  • It is now possible to specify an affix process rules in the lexicon, instead of having to add allomorphs to many entries, to express a phonological change.
  • It is now possible to specify phonological features and rules in the Grammar area, including metathesis rules.
  • There is a new parser available which makes use of these rules ("Hermit Crab").
• Importing standard format texts (relies on a separate utility and setting-up control files)
• Syntactic tagging (very basic feature implemented)
• Add custom fields to allomorphs and examples
• Improved support of adding pictures and other media; you can now control where the files are stored
• You can now approve an analysis of a word throughout the current text.
• Word glosses can be optionally copied to the free translation line with one keystroke.
• You can now copy a sentence from an interlinear view, and paste it in tab-delimited format.
• You can now specify which characters form part of words and which are strictly punctuation, for each writing system.
• Reversal Indexes can now be configured, like Dictionary View, and by default more fields from the lexical entry are shown.
• If you add free translations to texts included from Translation Editor, these translations are shown as back translations in Translation Editor (FieldWorks BTE only.)
• Export of a 2-column dictionary to Open Office, using the SIL Publishing Solutions add-in.

In Version 2.4:

• Editing the baseline of a text in Concordance view.
• Combining of the Texts and Words areas.
• An additional interlinear view (tab) set up for word-level interlinearzing.
• An optional mode for adding words directly to the lexicon when adding word glosses.
• Display of reference numbers in the interlinear.
• Improvements and bug fixes in the Text Chart (discourse analysis), including allowing text to be marked as pre/post-posed from a different clause (row).
• Spelling checking (see below)
• Improved Change Spelling tool.
• Bulk Edit Words includes editing Spelling Status.
• Choices for merging data when importing a LIFT file.
• Improvements to options on the Parser menu, and parser performance.
• Changed Writing System Properties dialog, aimed at making it easier for you to add additional writing systems for a single language.
• Improvements to your control of the cursor - conventional tabbing and arrowing in browse panes.
• Export interlinear text to Word 2007.
• Export the Text Chart (discourse analysis) to MS Word.
  
• 2 column Dictionary view export to XHTML (use Firefox).
• More commands to "show in concordance", including from the Lexicon.

The spelling checking feature will make use of any Open Office dictionaries you have installed, or you can download a variety of spelling dictionaries from Open Office or other online spelling dictionary providers. This allows checking and correcting the spellings of e.g. definitions in English, French etc. Language Explorer will also support checking spelling in your vernacular texts. For this, you build the spelling dictionary by specifying the Spelling Status of words, which you will be able to do efficiently through Bulk Edit Words. You can also add words to the spelling dictionary through the context menu on words highlighted as misspelled (a red squiggle).

In Version 2.2:

• Speed improvements in Dictionary view, Interlinear text, Show in Lexicon jump.
• Import/Export lexical data in LIFT format
• Discourse charting
• More access to 'Find in dictionary' in Data Notebook
• Concord on specific morphemes, lexemes, analyses, etc. available in Lexicon Edit and other views.
• Choose the writing system(s) for each field in Lexicon Edit.
• Bulk Edit Wordforms

In Version 2.0

• Concord on morphemes, glosses, etc.
• Concordance results filters and sorts. " Genre and other text metadata.
• Filter texts.
• Root-based or stem-based dictionary view layout options.
• Interlinearize text from Translation Editor (see caution below under known issues).
• Corpus look-up tool in the lexicon, for finding candidate example sentences.
• Special filtering options for dates, numbers, and list reference fields.
• Additional export options.
• Most of the Language Explorer user interface can now be localized into other languages. (French is available if the French Language Pack was selected during the installation of FieldWorks.)
• Configurable columns in the Find dialog box.
• Better support for languages relying on a Graphite font, and which are right-to-left.
• Try a Word now has a parse-only option in addition to the trace option.
• Enhanced Custom Fields dialog box.
• Enhanced Encoding Converters dialog box, now with access to Python and Perl scripts.
• Enhanced Configure Dictionary dialog box and range of options.

In Version 1.2

• Support for interlinearizing phrases.
• New "example sentence finder" function in the lexicon, using the text corpus.
• Improved performance of the 'Find lexical entry' dialog.
• Stem Names, to control stem allomorphy that is dependant on the presence of certain inflection features.
• New filter options in the Lexicon for list reference fields.
• Correct sorting of Number fields and Date fields. Appropriate filter options.
• Find and Replace in the Baseline of Texts Edit.
• Etymology and Picture fields now available in browse views.
• Complex Forms and Variant fields in Lexicon Edit, which list linked complex form and variant entries.
• Improved support for languages relying on a Graphite font, and which are right-to-left.
• Windows Vista compatibility
• A new draft document on recommended lexicography practices using Language Explorer (by Ron Moe)
• Various bug fixes and minor improvements.

In Version 1.0.1

• New export format for root based dictionaries. This MDF standard export format will list subentries under the main entry rather than as separate entries with links to the main entry.
• Bug fixes:
• Program error when undoing very large Bulk Edit operations
• Problem with exporting interlinearized text: capitalized words are no longer dropped from the baseline text in the exported file.
• Problem with printing the dictionary view: the time to print a draft of a dictionary was reduced from hours to minutes.
• Problem with systems set to GMT time zone: file operations now work properly for systems set to any time zone including GMT.
• Diacritics and tone marks can now be configured as wordforming characters.
• Problem with sort and filter information being applied to the wrong lists has been fixed.
• The fundamental morph type for an entry can now be changed from any morph type to any other morph type in bulk edit.

In Version 1.0

• Export interlinear text (to XML, XLingPap, HTML, Microsoft Word, and Open Office).
• Configure dictionary view.
• Export configured dictionary (to Standard Format or XML).
• Bulk Edit enhancements (more bulk editable columns, and an indication of which columns can undergo bulk edit operations).
• Import LinguaLinks data.
• Jump links (right-click in Edit views).
• Reversal Index changes to support multiple writing systems per analysis language index).
• Bulk Edit Reversals.
• Drag and drop to reorganize lists (for example, imported grammatical categories).
• Tone and CV Pattern fields in the pronunciation group of fields.
• Audio file link in the pronunciation group of fields.
• Classified Dictionary view, which displays any senses that have been classified by semantic domains. (Essentially this only supports printouts in this version.)
• Import of Standard Format data has been made more flexible as regards field order. Various improvements to import.
• Support for longer texts.
• Multiple column sorting (Shift+click to add secondary and tertiary sorts)
• Context-sensitive Help for dialog boxes and fields in edit view.
• Redesigned Words Analyses view allows creation of new analyses, editing of analyses, and analysis usage control.
• Regular expression drop-down menu on the Filter dialog box.
• New icons.
• Parser now runs in the background without impacting performance.

In Beta 0.8

• Bulk Edit Entries and Bulk Edit Senses views (Lexicon area).
• Reversal Indexes view (Lexicon area).
• Inflection features and exception features (Lexicon and Grammar areas).
• Pronunciation fields (Lexicon area).
• Etymology fields (Lexicon area).
• Pictures (Lexicon area).
• Additional fields available in browse views. Enhanced configuration options (Lexicon area).
• Additional lexical fields supported in Standard Format import.
• Customizable interlinear view (Texts area).
• Regular expressions supported in filters.
• Insert Special Character.
• Turn off all filters button on the toolbar.
• Better handling of incorporation category in compound rules (use of overriding category - Grammar area).
• Improved performance.