TrackPanel (linked secondary files) not visible when (re-)opening .eaf

ELAN
1

When opening an ELAN file that already has linked secondary files that were visible as TrackPanels the last time the file was open, the tracks are not visible automatically, but only appear after right-clicking the TrackPanel window and selecting “Add TrackPanel For Each Track”.

It’s only a small inconvenience with the easy fix described above. But it would be even nicer if the visibility of the TrackPanels was maintained when reopening the ELAN file.

Maybe I have done something wrong, but otherwise maybe this is a little bug. I’d be happy to send a example .pfsx and/or .eaf if that would help.

This happens with ELAN 6.8-Intel on my 2019 Mac-Mini running macOS 15.1, but also on other devices and older versions of macOS.

Best wishes,

Josh

2

Hi Josh,

Thank you for the detailed explanation.

When we tried to replicate the scenario, we see tracks not being visible in the file, but inconsistently.

When we open the file for the first time, the tracks are visible and if the tracks are altered and file closed, open the file next time, they are not visible. We will have to debug to see what is happening.

Thank you for reporting. We will look into this.

Thanks
Divya

3

Hi Josh,

We had a look at this and found out that in the recent ELAN versions the code is altered to add the config file as well in the Linked Secondary File when linking the track files. So the above described issue doesn’t occur in the files which are created with this new code.

For the files that were used before these changes what you can try is:

Go to Linked Files → Linked Secondary Files, remove the files one by one.
Click Apply
Save the eaf file.
Close ELAN completely
Open ELAN
Go to inked Files → Linked Secondary Files and now add those files again
Click Apply

If still some tracks are missing, add them ( Add TrackPanel For Each Track”) and save.
From next time you close and open the file the issue will not occur.
You can also check in the Linked Files → Linked Secondary Files if the config file is also listed.

4

Thanks for looking into this and finding a solution!
In the project I’m working on, we have a lot of ELAN files, and so I was wondering if there is some way to change this directly in the .eaf and/or .pfsx file? Then I might be able to write a script and save myself a lot of mouse clicks.
Best
Josh

5

Hi Josh,

If you have a proper back up of these files, then you may try this one:

In .eaf files the corresponding config file needs to be added as a linked file.

In the .eaf file, under header element your config file should be placed at the end of linked files.

<LINKED_FILE_DESCRIPTOR
            LINK_URL=“file:///xyz/abc/abcdf/config.xml”
            MIME_TYPE="text/xml" RELATIVE_LINK_URL=“./config.xml”/>

LINK_URL is the absolute path of the config file and RELATIVE_LINK_URL is the relative path of the config file.
I am assuming that you have all the xml config files ?

But please make sure you taken the proper backup of the files before carrying out this operation.

Best,
Divya