ANNOUNCE: JavaScript runtime and syntax editor compatible with GF 3.1

[Krasimir Angelov]

Hi,

Here:

http://code.google.com/p/grammatical-framework/downloads/list

you could find implementation of the GF interpreter in JavaScript that
is compatible with GF 3.1. For a long time the JavaScript
implementation was using representation of the grammar that is
different from the one used in the Haskell implementation. Now they
are in synchronized again.

The package is bundled with the Foods grammar compiled to JavaScript.
If you want to use another grammar then you have to compile the
grammar with option -output-format=js and then you need to modify the
page editor.html to point to the new grammar.

Since now the JavaScript implementation uses the same parsing
algorithm as the GF shell it is possible to parse even with the
resource grammar. For most languages the speed is reasonable. For
Finnish the browser will probably give you a warning that the page is
too slow and you have to click on "Continue" once or twice.

Best Wishes,
Krasimir

[Aarne]

This seems to work very well! I tested it with a set of four Attempto
grammars, and got a smoothly working editor. The exact steps to do are
the following:

- make a copy of runtime system (from Krasimir's link)
- compile js by 'gf -make -output-format=js grammar1 grammar2 ...'
- replace grammar.js in the runtime system by the resulting file
- in editor.html, line 13, replace the abstract syntax name Food by
TestAttempto

Then just open editor.html in a web browser!

A couple of questions:

- I expected to find the runtime system in the directory GF/src/
runtime/javascript/, but this is not exactly the same as the files
behind the link now
- it would be nice to have incremental parsing of course. Would it be
an easy solution to call an external parser server from the editor?

Regards

Aarne.

[Krasimir Angelov]

I made wiki page with the instructions:

http://code.google.com/p/grammatical-framework/wiki/SetupSyntaxEditor

On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 4:08 PM, Aarne <aarne...@gmail.com> wrote:
> A couple of questions:
>
> - I expected to find the runtime system in the directory GF/src/
> runtime/javascript/, but this is not exactly the same as the files
> behind the link now

What is different? I pushed all local changes to darcs.

> - it would be nice to have incremental parsing of course. Would it be
> an easy solution to call an external parser server from the editor?

It is trivial to add completion in the JavaScript runtime. What
requires more work is to update the user interface. For example the
dialog that currently pops up when the user selects "Parse a string"
cannot be altered from the JavaScript code. We need to replace it with
something else. It would be nice if the user could alter the text in
the right-up panel directly rather than in a popup dialog.

About an external server I think that it makes sense to use the
JavaScript parser for the syntax but keep the lexicon on the server if
it is too long.

The editor still doesn't work in the Android's Web Browser and it is
hard to debug there. There also some problems with the rendering on
old versions of IE.

[Muhammad Humayoun]

Yes it works well! Thanks. but there is a minor issue:
The file EditorGrammar.js is named "editorGrammar.js" in editor.html
which may create some inconvenience.

Secondly, the function sym2js of src/GF/Compile/GFCCtoJS.hs, is
underspecified. e.g. for my grammar, I encounter the following error
while compiling to js:

Writing Unif.pgf...
Writing Unif.js...gf: src/GF/Compile/GFCCtoJS.hs:(130,0)-(132,48):
Non-exhaustive patterns in function sym2js

All the best
Humayoun

On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 4:08 PM, Aarne <aarne...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Krasimir Angelov]

On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 4:54 PM, Muhammad Humayoun <huma...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes it works well! Thanks. but there is a minor issue:
> The file EditorGrammar.js is named "editorGrammar.js" in editor.html
> which may create some inconvenience.

Actually the original name was editorGrammar.js. This is also the name
in darcs. I change the name on my computer by mistake and since
Windows doesn't make case distinction I didn't notice. I will update
the Zip package.

> Secondly, the function sym2js of src/GF/Compile/GFCCtoJS.hs, is
> underspecified. e.g. for my grammar, I encounter the following error
> while compiling to js:
>
> Writing Unif.pgf...
> Writing Unif.js...gf: src/GF/Compile/GFCCtoJS.hs:(130,0)-(132,48):
> Non-exhaustive patterns in function sym2js

This shows that you have old version of GF. The syntax editor works
with GF 3.1 and there GFCCtoJS is renamed to PGFtoJS.

Best,
Krasimir

[Aarne Ranta]

On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 4:45 PM, Krasimir Angelov <kr.an...@gmail.com> wrote:

I made wiki page with the instructions:

http://code.google.com/p/grammatical-framework/wiki/SetupSyntaxEditor

Perfect! 

On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 4:08 PM, Aarne <aarne...@gmail.com> wrote:
> A couple of questions:
>
> - I expected to find the runtime system in the directory GF/src/
> runtime/javascript/, but this is not exactly the same as the files
> behind the link now

What is different? I pushed all local changes to darcs.

The names of some files (as mentioned by Humayoun) and the absence of some files, such as the translator interface. But it's good to know the most relevant files are the same.

 

> - it would be nice to have incremental parsing of course. Would it be
> an easy solution to call an external parser server from the editor?

It is trivial to add completion in the JavaScript runtime. What
requires more work is to update the user interface. For example the
dialog that currently pops up when the user selects "Parse a string"
cannot be altered from the JavaScript code. We need to replace it with
something else. It would be nice if the user could alter the text in
the right-up panel directly rather than in a popup dialog.

Yes, indeed.

 

About an external server I think that it makes sense to use the
JavaScript parser for the syntax but keep the lexicon on the server if
it is too long.

As soon as the JS parser has completion, perhaps.

 

The editor still doesn't work in the Android's Web Browser and it is
hard to debug there. There also some problems with the rendering on
old versions of IE.

Maybe it's easy to make the translator app work on the Android - as it was on the iPhone: just set the size of the screen so that no scrolling is needed. Also the editor must of course have a more compact layout on a small screen, and this needs some design and experiments.

Regards

  Aarne.

[Krasimir Angelov]

I updated the download package with one with correct file names.