Hello, and I want to start out with thanking everyone involved in the development of this fantastic ELAN software.
I’ve been using ELAN for a number of years as a research assistant and I have come up with a fairly niche problem related to the use of lexicon services in files.
The lab I am in is using a live ECV (connected to a SignBank), set up as a lexicon service. I use an etf file to set up new files, normally. I would be happy to privately provide a sample file if it would be helpful in replicating my situation.
In some cases, we have old transcriptions that have been done while not using the ECV, on differently named tiers. I want to create files that contain both 1-these old transcriptions and tiers and 2-the current tiers, complete with working ECV, as in the etf that I normally use to set up new files.
Here’s what I tried first:
-Create a blank .eaf from the template .etf and the movie
-Check that the resulting .eaf looks and works as expected (yes)
-“Merge transcriptions”, using the file of old tiers as the second source and selecting no overwriting allowed.
-Check on this resulting combined eaf, which doesn’t have pop-up videos working and “Get Lexical Entries” is greyed out. (in other words, the lexicon service is not working now)
Then I tried the opposite:
-Open the file of old tiers
-Go to “Tier”, “Import tiers” and select the template .etf as the tiers to import (these imported tiers will be blank, of course)
-Check on the resulting tiers and see that the SignBank link is completely gone; creating an annotation on a connected tier results in an empty, un-type-able box. (in other words, the lexicon service is not working now)
So neither of those ways work. Right now I plan to go directly into the code of the files using a text editor, and solve the problem this way. But I want to report the bug/issue with the Merge File function not playing well with lexicon services in the hopes that this can be fixed in a future update. Either that, or perhaps you have another possible solution?
Thank you!
Yes, it seems the lexicon services are not copied when merging two files or importing tiers. We’ll have to fix that. Although I probably have some example files with such services, you’re welcome to send me one file that we can use for testing (han.sloetjes AT mpi.nl).
PS: did you try in ELAN 5.2 too? I almost forgot, but some improvements to merging files and importing tiers were recently made. Including preservation of lexicon links (but I’m not sure if that fully covers your situation).
Han, thanks! Yes, I did try in ELAN 5.2 as well. The result is the same for Merge Files, or seemingly the same anyhow.
I will send you my template (etf) at the address you specified; thanks.
One of the key things is that we are directly linked (on ASL right hand and ASL left hand tiers) to the ASL SignBank lexicon, and we make heavy use of the feature where small videos of the SignBank glosses appear in-line in ELAN when hovering over it in the ECV suggestion box. I hope that description makes sense.
Also: I have at least 1 case where there is existing transcription on both the old file AND the new file. I am at a loss for what to do with this case. My method of merging the code of the old file and new template will not work here, because of the way that gloss timings are stored, I believe. You don’t have any ideas on the best way to get a merged file from 2 transcripts and to retain the desired lexical services etc, do you? Should I merge the 2 files and then treat that file as my “old” file and add the code lines about lexical services all over again?
Yes, you’re right; when merging two files the links to the lexicon and the lexicon services are lost. We simply have to fix that in our code. When this function was developed the focus was on tiers, types and CV’s, but it’s clear that other elements need to be preserved and combined too.
In the latest release of ELAN lexicon links are copied when you import e.g. tier types from a template or an .eaf into a transcription (although some improvements are still needed), but this doesn’t work for types that are already there. In other words: if a tier type is already present in a merged file, importing that type from e.g. a template doesn’t update it by adding the lexicon link.
This probably sounds complicated; but the point is that I believe there is currently no way to add or import the lexicon services to a merged file with existing ELAN functions. So, you either have to manually define those services again and link the correct tier types to the lexicon fields again in the merged file, or add those services and links again by editing the XML of the merged .eaf file.
This is only doable as long it concerns only a few cases. (If this is only about a few files, I can do the XML editing for you, if you like.)
