I am new to DAB and this is an exploratory question - I donꞌt need all the details yet, just wondering about what is and isnꞌt possible, and what is the best way to go.
I have an extensive trilingual dictionary in Toolbox (vernacular - Spanish - English), including example sentences, numbered senses (often with custom numbering 1 1a 1b 2 3 3a etc.), etymology, semantic domains and subentries. As a test, I exported this from Lexique Pro to LIFT and created a dictionary app. It turned out that various fields are not included in the app:
- semantic domains (\sd)
- example references (\rf)
- vernacular words marking in definitions (fv:) was ignored.
All of these are present in the LIFT file, so I am wondering why there are not included and if there is a way to include them.
Two more elements are missing in the app, but I found that they are missing in the LIFT file as well:
- Etymology (\et) - for some reason this field is not included in the LIFT file, though it is in the Lexique Pro version. (A workaround would be to change these to encyclopedic note fields (\en), which can be included.)
- custom sense numbering was ignored: senses were numbered in one sequence, including different parts of speech. So instead of “noun - sense 1 2; verb - sense 1 2", they were numbered "noun 1, noun 2, verb 3, verb 4. I see that the LIFT file does not retain the custom sense numbers either, but identifies each sense by a sense ID.
So I am wondering how much of this is due to the LIFT format: will these fields be included when the lexicon is taken from an XHTML file instead of LIFT? That would mean we would need to convert it to Flex first - or is there a direct way to export an SFM file to XHTML? Toolbox can export to XML, but I have no idea if that would be any use.
I am aware that Flex is the recommended format, and has been so for some years. The dictionary in question was made before 2010 and is not likely to be developed much further in the near future.
Paulus