Categories not showing in app

I have created a free Polish-English dictionary for AFS students staying in Poland for a year with Lexique Pro (version 3.2.8). In Lexique Pro there is the possibility to use categories and when printed or when exporting the dictionary as a webpage, these categories also appear as a way to search the dictionary. Maybe I am doing something wrong, but after building the app from the LIFT XML no categories are visibile in the UI. Is this option not available or do I need to do something extra?

1 Like

DAB does not display categories that are in the LIFT file. If your data is in Fieldworks you can export an XHTML that can contain that data. So importing your data into Fieldworks is an option.

It is possible to manipulate a LIFT file to show the categories and to add a categories tab on the top too. Let me know if you want to pursue that.

Ian

2 Likes

Dear Ian,
thank you very much for your reply. I would opt for manipulating the LIFT file. Would you be able and willing to guide me through that? Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.
Kind regards,
Erik-Jan

Can you give me a sample of one entry with the category in it? As it is not coming out of Flex it may be a little different so I may need to adjust the XSLT transformation.

Flex encodes it like this:
<trait name=“semantic-domain-ddp4” value=“1.1.1 Matahari”/>

The important bit is what is in the @name attribute and what is the form of the @value attribute. That is, is the form numbers then a description or is it just a word or just a number?

So the above line gets reworked into:
<note type=“category”>
<form lang=“sdm”>
<text> 1.1.1 Matahari</text>
</form>
</note>
<reversal type=“sdm”>
<form lang=“sdm”>
<text>matahari</text>
</form>
</reversal>
<trait name=“semantic-domain-ddp4” value=“1.1.1 Matahari”/>

The note element is the part that puts an entry into the body of the dictionary with the label Classification.
The reversal element is to create a tab for the Semantic categories. The number is removed. A second tab can be created with the numbers if desired.

Are you on Windows? If not then the setup is not as straightforward.

Ian

Dear Ian,

thank you for your quick answer.

Here is a sample entry (edit view):

\lx Co to jest?

\ge What is that?

\xv Co to jest?
\sf audio/cotojest.mp3

\sd Nhowtosayit

And this is what the user sees:

Co to jest?

  • What is that?

Co to jest?

Category: How to say it?

I’m working on Windows. As you can see I used only a word to classify the category. I will be only using words for categories, because there is no need for such a hierarchy in the semantic domains.

Thanks again for your help.

Warm regards,
Erik-Jan

I meant I want to see an entry out of the LIFT file that was used in DAB. I have not seen LIFT generated by LexiquePro.

What is your setup to convert your \sd Nhowtosayit to How to say it?, it there some kind of table?

Ian

Here is one entry from the LIFT file used in DAB. In the header there is more information about semantic domains - I can copy that if you want.

<entry id="Co to jest?_0c31ae88-aa8c-4b3d-b040-a0364739a270" guid="22c45d45-4783-452b-9bee-ac9e5d3d2558">
  <lexical-unit>
   <form lang="pl"><text>Co to jest?</text></form>
  </lexical-unit>

  <sense id="What is that?_f46e371f-b2e0-4cf4-bc49-413f0747faa1">
   <gloss lang="en"><text>What is that?</text></gloss>
   <example>
    <form lang="pl"><text>Co to jest?</text></form>
    <translation>
    </translation>
   </example>
   <trait name="semantic-domain" value="Nhowtosayit"/>
  </sense>
 </entry>

Yes, there is a table within Lexique Pro for the different gloss languages, i.e. a translation can be added for each gloss language. The "N’ in “Nhowtosayit” I used in accordance to the example in Lexique Pro (they used Nfood, Nclothing etc. - it is propably short for ‘noun’).

I have the dictionary ready in Word (some time ago I prepared a paper version without any dictionary program) and want to put the entries into Lexique Pro. And because of the usefulness of searching within categories I made a small example to see, what happens in DAB and how the app looks like later on.

If you download and install this https://github.com/SILAsiaPub/xrunner/releases/tag/4

You will be able to modify your LIFT file. It will have a link under All Programs/Publishing/Xrunner. It will add the coded form into the dictionary body and add a category tab. But the XSLT needs to be modified to translate your codes into full phrases. So fo you it is not there yet. Works for Lift files from Flex.

Thanks, I still haven’t had the time lately. This weekend I will give it a try.

Tried to find out how to work with X-runner, but nothing seems to happen. I am also not sure what file to add to X-runner as it is without any kind of instruction.
You mentioned a possibility to work with Flex to let the categories appear in DAB. I have not yet worked with Flex, but I am willing to learn it.

If you download and install Fieldworks (Flex = Fieldworks Language Explorer) then import your SFM file. That is not trivial as there are choices to be made. But your example is not complex. There are other places you can get help on that. I have not done that a lot.

Once the data is in Flex and in good shape then you can configure the output to look like you want. That is another learning curve, though the default configuration is good.

To get the other one working I’d have to skype with you. ian_mcquay

Ian

What day and what time would suit you best?

I’m in time zone +7 Bangkok. Monday 31 July 9am- 2pm, 8pm-10pm Or Tuesday 1st Aug 9am-10pm. Sort of depends on what times we overlap.

Dear Ian, is it still possible for you to help me out with this issue? I have had no time at all lately, but now I would really like to get started with my project. Kind regards, Erik-Jan

Dear Ian,
It is very much informative tool. Anyone may pursue it or not, but I want to.
Please inform me, I’ll do that to my advanced dictionary.

@Raja DAB is a tool anyone can download and use to build their own apps with your own data.

Dear Ian, let’s meet in January. I have no deadline. I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Greetings from Krakow, EJ

Dear Ian, let me please know what day & time suit you. It is about the work-around concerning categories in DAB. Thank you in advance - my skype is: erikjankuipers