I recently received a message from a user transitioning from  
using CA Mode in an older version of CLAN to the newer CHAT/CA mode.  
I realize that some of you may also be going through this transition.  
So, here are my suggestions to her:

Yes, the new mode includes asterisks in the front of lines and a few  
other things that are not very CA-friendly.  These changes allow  
people to use the CLAN programs with CA data.  Of course, if you are  
like many CA people, you just want to look closely at the data and you  
don't care about searches, so the asterisk is, in this case,  
admittedly a nuisance.  However, there is a nice program called  
CHAT2CA which will take your CHAT/CA file and output "pure" CA with  
the .ca extension.  But, CLAN itself is going to work best if you edit  
in the CHAT/CA format (.cha) and only use the CHAT2CA program when you  
want to see your results in a more traditional form.

I should explain one more thing.  In order to avoid having to deal  
with the requirements of CHAT codes, you should probably put this line  
into the beginning of each file.

@Languages:     en, CA, Heritage

The en is for English,  the CA is for CA, and the word Heritage tells  
CLAN that you are not going to worry about strict CHAT checking within  
individual lines.  If you add "Heritage" you can then run the CHECK  
program without too many problems.  You run CHECK with escape-L.  With  
the word "Heritage" included in that line, CHECK makes sure that the  
initial parts of lines and the @Begin and @End are okay, but it stops  
at that and doesn't bother you about the form of pauses and other  
things inside turns.  Of course, you don't have to run CHECK at all,  
so these decisions are left very much up to you.

Many thanks for your helpful feedback,

--Brian MacWhinney