ELAN-FLEx-ELAN

[Tim Gaved]

For anyone interested in using ELAN and FLEx together, I wrote up how to
do it and then a colleague at SOAS developed that into a teaching set
including example files.
I can send either the whole teaching set (15 MB zip) or just the
document describing the process (2MB pdf - it has pictures) to anyone
interested. Send me an email off-list.
Tim

[Andy Black]

Another possibility would be to add it as a tutorial on LingTranSoft's
wiki. There is a tutorial section. See
http://tiki.lingtransoft.info/LingTranSoft+Wiki. Doug Higby can give you
more details on how to do it.

--Andy

[Karl Rolfe]

I would second that Tim, if you were able to do that it would make it much more available. I don't need it right at this point but sometime in the future when I may need it I'm unlikely to remember that you sent your email.

Cheers,
Karl

Andy Black wrote the following on 26/09/13 00:46:

--


Karl Rolfe
Language Technology Trainer
IT Support

EQUIP Training
70 Graham Rd
Kangaroo Ground 3097
AUSTRALIA

[Tim Gaved]

At the moment I'd rather make contact by email, then I know who has it,
in case we want to update it or correct any errors.
Tim

[GregT]

I saw the post on the list. I wonder how other users of Flex or Elan will know such a write-up exists? It seems like it would be good to have references to it posted in some more permanent place even if people have to contact you for the write-up.

[Tim Gaved]

Information about this has also been posted on the ELAN forum, and the
RNLD mailing list, so that should reach most people who need it. It will
also be put on the TLA (ELAN) third-party materials page, when we are
happy that there are no significant changes needed to it as a result of
feedback. At the same moment I would be happy to put it on the
LingTransSoft site and/or the FLex site.
Tim

> --
> You are subscribed to the publicly accessible group "FLEx list".
> Only members can post but anyone can view messages on the website.
> ---
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "FLEx list" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
> an email to flex-list+...@googlegroups.com.
> To post to this group, send email to flex...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/flex-list/cd604ab4-4a79-45bf-b9b7-f04aa5b11ee1%40googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.

[Zalmai Zahir]

Hello,

I'm new to this group and do not know how to get your E-mail, so I'll post my request here:

I'm a graduate student in linguistics at the University of Oregon, and I am currently taking a field methods course where a number of us are using Elan and FLEx.  We are interested in your documentation on getting Elan data to transfer to FLEx.  I can get the transcription over, but have yet to be able to transfer the English gloss, as well.  Any documentation you have on this topic would be very helpful. 

Thank you!

zalma...@gmail.com

Zalmai

[Tim Gaved]

The complete teaching set, including the descriptive document has just been put up on the MPI website, at the bottom of this page here : http://tla.mpi.nl/tools/tla-tools/elan/thirdparty/
This is basically the same as the set I already distributed - the document has just received few corrections and a hint or two has been added.
Tim

--

You are subscribed to the publicly accessible group "FLEx list".
Only members can post but anyone can view messages on the website.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "FLEx list" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to flex-list+...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to flex...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/flex-list/445a79f1-52f8-4405-9219-e0fe8c55c39e%40googlegroups.com.

[Zalmai Zahir]

Tim,

Thank you very much!  I converted one of my Elan files (manually) to your template and exported and it worked great!  I will pass this on to other Elan FLEx users in the Field Methods class.  This makes life so much easier!

Zalmai

You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "FLEx list" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/flex-list/Kw1maHYW6RQ/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to flex-list+...@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to flex...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/flex-list/52DFACE8.7070402%40sil.org.

[Amanda Delgado]

Hi Tim, 

Hi all,

I'm PhD student from Leiden University. I used a previous version of your teaching set to import and export. It partially works to me. I could export my ELAN file to FLEx. Once imported my Flex file and I opened in Flex it only imported part of the file (not the whole text e.g. untill annotation 63 of 254). Do you have any idea what would the problem be? Comparing the previuos teaching material with the one uploaded in the mpi/thirdparty I discovered that I have the type  words with a different linguist type (Time Subdivision instead of Simbolic Subdivision). I tried to change the attribuites but is not possible anymore. Do you think that can actually be the problem when I'm trying to import from ELAN? Do you know any other way to change attributes? 

thanks for your help!

Amanda

[Tim Gaved]

Amanda,
It seems odd that it would only import part of the file. Send me the ELAN file and the FLExText file and I'll see whether I can figure it out.
Tim

[John Mansfield]

I've been through the Gaved instructions, and found them very useful. But I don't use the Gaved method, because it seems to presume that a set ELAN tier structure is required for successful Flex export, but this is not the case for the current versions of ELAN and Flex. I'm using ELAN 4.9.0 and Flex 8.

So I *don't* use the specific ELAN template provided by Gaved. Instead I'm using a range of ELAN files, many of which had already been created before we ever decided to use Flex. Some have just transcription and translation tiers, some have other tiers including morphological analysis. The ELAN => Flex export process accommodates this diversity, though there are potential complications with the more complex ELAN structures. But exporting a simple transcription/translation structure is quite straightforward.

I've attached some notes I made on my workflow. This is intended only as a set of notes to help me remember the steps I require for my own project, but it may have some useful points in it for other people trying to do similar.

j

[Tim Gaved]

The teaching set developed by Sophie Salffner (and she should have a lot of the credit) from my idea, was never intended to be *the* solution, but rather a starting point for people who weren't necessarily all that familiar with ELAN and/or FLEx.
It's great that you are using ELAN and FLEx with more complicated ELAN files. I like the idea of doing a merge afterwards. Could you send your merge-interlinear.xsl and rename-tiers.py to the list please? (or make accessible in some other way)
If there are problems or improvements you would like to see on FLEx import side, then it would be good to mention them here. The more people that ask for them, the more likely they are to get prioritised.
Tim

[Tim Gaved]

Hi Amanda,
I'm replying to the list in case anyone else comes across this problem.
The problem is that at 09:15 you have an annotation group "kone achen ni pelota", where there is a blank annotation in the B_words-txt-chf tier. Either delete the annotation in that tier, or make sure the tier has the tokenised version of B_transcription-txt-chf.
In fact, unless you really need them, you can delete both the A_words-txt-chf and B_words-txt-chf tiers for import into FLEx. (This is different to the instructions in the teaching set - it was something I realised later). Export from FLEx will create them anyway.
Lastly - the names of the Spanish gloss tiers need to finish with "es" not "sp", otherwise they won't appear properly in FLEx. You can always find out which language code FLEx needs by looking at the attributes of the writing system in FLEx (Tools\Configure\Setup Writing Systems..)

Tim

On 30/07/2015 16:52, Amanda Delgado wrote:

[John Mansfield]

Hi Tim,

I've attached my scripts merge-interlinear.xsl and rename-tiers.py. I hope these are fairly intuitive. The merge script for combining Flex interlinearisation with the original .flextext transcript may be useful to some other linguists, but since most won't be ready for running XSL transformations on the command line, what would be really ideal would be to provide this as a web service. But in any case, perhaps forthcoming development in Flex will obviate the need for this process. My main wishlist for Flex development is:

1. If a .flextext is imported, and it contains word/morpheme data that doesn't fit the the project lexicon, then Flex could report on the problems, rather than just failing to import.

2. It would be nice if .flextext imports could maintain custom tiers, as long as they fit into the overall hierarchical tier structure. Even though these would not have any particular function within Flex, it would be useful just to keep them, so that they are still part of the transcript file when it gets exported again.

3. Flex currently imports speaker identities from ELAN, encoded in a //phrase/@speaker attribute. But the speaker name does not appear in the Flex display. It should be displayed, at least optionally.

On Thursday, September 26, 2013 at 12:31:09 AM UTC+10, Tim Gaved wrote:

[John Mansfield]

oops... plus attachments

On Thursday, September 26, 2013 at 12:31:09 AM UTC+10, Tim Gaved wrote:

[Hugh Paterson]

Is there a way that GitHub can be used to post code bits like this, and then link to them there?

- Hugh

oops... plus attachments

--

You are subscribed to the publicly accessible group "FLEx list".
Only members can post but anyone can view messages on the website.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "FLEx list" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to flex-list+...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to flex...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/flex-list/a2138392-4df6-4df6-9060-e70ece0909b8%40googlegroups.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Ken K]

Wow, these are all great suggestions, John! I especially like the idea of having the option of displaying the speaker attribute in the interlinear pane. Ken

--

You are subscribed to the publicly accessible group "FLEx list".
Only members can post but anyone can view messages on the website.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "FLEx list" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to flex-list+...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to flex...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/flex-list/c7b7370a-6632-4291-b5b7-0136e2a19f37%40googlegroups.com.

[Michael Galant]

Hi, all.  I have looked at various reference files for exporting from ELAN to FLEx (I'm in the process of helping at student export his ELAN text into FLEx), but when I try to export a student's file into FLEx, it never seems to come out right.  For example, I have managed to import the transcribed text, but the free translation doesn't show up.. I am wondering if anyone can provide a list of certain fundamental requirements of an ELAN text for it to successfully be imported into FLEx.  For example....

1) Do I have to include a tier for the title of the text, or is it ok not to have such a tier?
2) Does there have to be a parent tier to which the transcription and the translation have to be daughters to?
3) If the transcribed text only involves one speaker, do I have to create a participant tier?
4) Is there any way to get a very minimal sample .flextext that contains no reference to any media files, no reference to participants, no title for the text, and no reference to word tiers, i.e, a .flextext that only has a transcription and a translation, that is in the correct format to be successfully imported into FLEx?
5) Is there anyone who would be willing to look at the .flextext that I created who could tell me why FLEx only shows the transcribed text and not the translation, even though I can see both in the .flextext file when I open it in emacs?  I have attached one attempt in case anyone has time to look at it and can give me feedback.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Best,
Mike Galant

[Michael Galant]

I apologize.  I forgot to attach the .flextext file.  I have attached it here.

[Andrew Cunningham]

Hi Tim,

Could you send me boyh the teaching set and the process document?

Thanks in advance.

Andrew

> --
> You are subscribed to the publicly accessible group "FLEx list".
> Only members can post but anyone can view messages on the website.
> --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "FLEx list" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to flex-list+...@googlegroups.com.
> To post to this group, send email to flex...@googlegroups.com.

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/flex-list/5242F3AD.9080605%40sil.org.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
>

--

Andrew Cunningham
lang.s...@gmail.com

[Tim Gaved]

Andrew,
I suggest you download them from the ELAN third party resources page here: http://tla.mpi.nl/tools/tla-tools/elan/thirdparty/
They were written a few years ago now, so I think some of the bugs mentioned have been fixed. I note that there is another workflow on that page apparently written because our original document was dated.
I haven't been using ELAN recently but feel free to ask for clarification of anything.
Tim

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/flex-list/CAGJ7U-Xn_5Mh%2BR0LS5jSReWN0K0wKcKuu17522JBJe-GDgK9zQ%40mail.gmail.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Tim Gaved]

Michael,
There were a couple of things wrong with the sample file you sent:
- The language identifier for the free translation ("spa") didn't match
FLEx's internal language identifier ("es"). You can check the internal
identifier by looking at the Configure Writing System dialogue in FLEx.
(I'm not certain of the logic of the choices for major languages - for
example it uses the 2 letter code for Spanish but the 3 letter code for
German).
- Also the transcription lines were labelled as "text" type, when they
should have been "txt".
As for your other questions:

1) Do I have to include a tier for the title of the text, or is it ok
not to have such a tier?

- No need. But why not have one so that you'll already have a title when
you've imported the file into FLEx?

2) Does there have to be a parent tier to which the transcription and
the translation have to be daughters to?

- No. The transcription just needs to be the parent of the translation.

3) If the transcribed text only involves one speaker, do I have to
create a participant tier?

- No.

4) Is there any way to get a very minimal sample .flextext that contains
no reference to any media files, no reference to participants, no title
for the text, and no reference to word tiers, i.e, a .flextext that only
has a transcription and a translation, that is in the correct format to
be successfully imported into FLEx?

- I don't know about media files, but you can choose not to generate an
intelinear-text tier in the first dialogue of the export and also just
to export the transcription and translation tiers. If you have not
specified a participant in the tier attributes then the speaker
attribute in the export file will just be set to nothing.
Hope that helps
Tim Gaved
SIL

[Michael Galant]

Hi, Tim.

Thank you so much for your reply.

I don't have access to the student's media files - that's why I left that part out.

I eliminated the title just to try to narrow down the problem but I can certainly leave it in.

FLEx didn't actually seem to mind the use of spa instead of es, but I will try this with es instead of spa.

Could I possibly send you the .eaf file instead of the .flextext file to get your feedback?

Thanks,
Mike

[Michael Galant]

Hi, Tim.

I am attaching the current .eaf and the corresponding .flextext

The import still doesn't show the translation.

I am wondering if there are other attributes within the .eaf file that are incorrect.

Thanks,
Mike

[Tim Gaved]

Michael,
That flextext file works fine for me.
I assume that you have set up Spanish as an Analysis language in your FLEx project. However if you have more than one Analysis language (e.g. English and Spanish) then may be the Interlinear is not correctly configured.
Check the configuration of the interlinear display in FLEx (Tools\Configure\Interlinear..) It should show something like this (for the Analyze tab):


In the .eaf files I would recommend these two tier names. It will just simplify the export process slightly.
transcription-txt-zoh
freetranslation-gls-es
Tim

[Michael Galant]

Thank you so much, Tim.

All I had to do was add Spanish as an analysis language and then
change the display of the translation to Spanish rather than English.

Best,
Mike

On 8/8/16, Tim Gaved <tim_...@sil.org> wrote:
> Michael,
> That flextext file works fine for me.
> I assume that you have set up Spanish as an Analysis language in your
> FLEx project. However if you have more than one Analysis language (e.g.
> English and Spanish) then may be the Interlinear is not correctly
> configured.
> Check the configuration of the interlinear display in FLEx
> (Tools\Configure\Interlinear..) It should show something like this (for
> the Analyze tab):
>
>

[Michael Galant]

Thank you so much, Tim.

All I had to do was add Spanish as an analysis language and then
change the display of the translation to Spanish rather than English.

Best,
Mike

On 8/8/16, Tim Gaved <tim_...@sil.org> wrote:

> Michael,
> That flextext file works fine for me.
> I assume that you have set up Spanish as an Analysis language in your
> FLEx project. However if you have more than one Analysis language (e.g.
> English and Spanish) then may be the Interlinear is not correctly
> configured.
> Check the configuration of the interlinear display in FLEx
> (Tools\Configure\Interlinear..) It should show something like this (for
> the Analyze tab):
>
>

[Beth-docs Bryson]

I'm glad you have gotten good help for this.

Two comments:

 - Setting up the writing system is the single most common factor in things not quite working right.  I'm glad it got sorted out for you.  That is always an important thing to look at.

 - If you want to see the format that FLEx uses for flextext, you could type in your own text in FLEx and add the free translation, and then export as .flextext.  Then you could see the format that FLEx creates.

In any case, I'm glad you are on your way!

-Beth

--

You are subscribed to the publicly accessible group "FLEx list".
Only members can post but anyone can view messages on the website.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "FLEx list" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to flex-list+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to flex...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/flex-list/2701bb93-495c-4065-a8ce-a2d4158f163f%40googlegroups.com.

[Michael Galant]

Dear Beth,

Thank you so much for your excellent suggestion.

Best,

Mike

You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "FLEx list" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/flex-list/Kw1maHYW6RQ/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to flex-list+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to flex...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/flex-list/CAEj%3DFHrTS%3DqFuqOEGXPTCvYb%3D71Om-bPZVKL7j7Hw7o%3DZ%2BUP6w%40mail.gmail.com.

[Josua Dahmen]

Hi everbody,

I am trying to re-import my interlinearised annotations from FLEx back into ELAN. Thanks to some fantastic teaching sets everything worked fine so far. The only problem is that my custom tiers and hierarchy are not retained when re-importing. Does anyone know of a solution to this?

I found the scripts merge-interlinear.xsl and rename-tiers.py in this thread but I don't know how I can make use of them. Do I need additional software to run those commands?

Cheers,

Josh

[Courtney Smith]

Welcome to Google!

Hi

thanks for join us!

Reg Google