Ordering affixes within a slot in the affix templates

[jonathan...@gmail.com]

Is there a way to order the affixes in the templates? 

[kevin_...@sil.org]

This feature has been implemented, starting with FW 9.3.0, I believe. That version is still labeled “Alpha,” but I have had good experiences working with it. As a precaution, you may want to do Send/Receive (for a project shared on Lexbox) or make backups (for independent projects) more frequently than you typically do, if you decide to give FW 9.3 a try at this moment.

 

FW 9.3 is available via https://software.sil.org/fieldworks/download/.

 

Best wishes,

Kevin Warfel

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[Mike Maxwell]

Kevin (off-line), I was tempted to ask the OP why he wanted to do this.
The slots are of course ordered, as are listed allomorphs of a single
affix, while the affixes in a given are by definition things that don't
mutually occur, so ordering them seems to me pointless. But apparently
some people have found a reason for doing this. What is it?

Mike Maxwell

On 10/29/25 19:41, kevin_warfel via FLEx list wrote:
> This feature has been implemented, starting with FW 9.3.0, I believe.
> That version is still labeled “Alpha,” but I have had good experiences
> working with it. As a precaution, you may want to do Send/Receive (for a
> project shared on Lexbox) or make backups (for independent projects)
> more frequently than you typically do, if you decide to give FW 9.3 a
> try at this moment.
>
> FW 9.3 is available via https://software.sil.org/fieldworks/download/.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Kevin Warfel
>

> *From:* flex...@googlegroups.com <flex...@googlegroups.com> *On
> Behalf Of *jonathan...@gmail.com
> *Sent:* Wednesday, October 29, 2025 5:10 PM
> *To:* FLEx list <flex...@googlegroups.com>
> *Subject:* [FLEx] Ordering affixes within a slot in the affix templates

>
> Is there a way to order the affixes in the templates?
>
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Mike Maxwell

[Kevin Warfel]

Mike,

I'm sure I don't know all the reasons, but here are a couple:

- I want to be sure that I've included all of the affixes that need to be there. When they appear in a disorganized way, and if there are a lot of them, it may be hard to determine if I've gotten all of them.

- I'm bugged by the fact that I can't get the Person-Number affixes to appear in a particular order that makes sense to me (e.g., 1s, 2s, 3s, 1p, 2p, 3p).

Kevin

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[Andreas_Joswig]

Mike,
Of course the slots are ordered inside a template, but below the
templates is a list of all the available affix slots for that category.
This is arranged by the order of entry, the latest entry being at the
bottom of the list. If you have many of these slots, you may want to
order them in a more useful or intuitive way, and I suspect that this is
what the OP is asking about.
And no, as far as I know, you cannot do that easily in the new alpha
version. The thing that is new there is that you can duplicate a slot
and then move it to a different category, which can be very useful for
example in Bantu languages, where you have similar slots with very
similar affixes for nouns, adjectives, pronouns etc. But I don't think
you can change the relative order of the slots within a category.
Andreas

[Beth-docs Bryson]

As Kevin noted, you can indeed order the affixes within a slot.  It is new in 9.3.x.  I recommend getting the latest Alpha version (9.3.3), since there were a number of bug fixes between 9.3.0 and 9.3.3.  Do read the Release Notes for the Alpha version, to see what other things were added compared to 9.2.11.

You right-click on an affix in a slot, and then choose "Move Up" or "Move Down".  It can be tedious because you have to do that once for each position that you want to move it, but it is satisfying when they finally appear in a logical order.

For me, the reasons include: listing them in an order that makes sense (e.g., Sg before Pl), and listing them in an order that enables me to verify that "everything that should be there, is there".  When there are a lot of affixes in one slot (e.g., for Bantu noun class markers), it is hard to tell if they are all there if they are in random order.

In terms of moving the whole slot, yes, you can also move the slots around.  If you right-click on the name of the slot, you can "Move <slotname> forward one slot".  But the OP was asking about affixes within a slot, not slots within a template.

-Beth

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[Jonathan Dailey]

I am teaching a course mostly on using FLEx and a student wanted to be able to export the list for a paper in another class and not have to rearrange the order after exporting. I think the class also expressed interest in the Grammar Sketch having the order be a logical expression. I encourage them to not use the alphas due to needing things to work consistently for the semester.

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