[Lexicog] Dictionary Development Program

Tue Apr 20 20:22:00 UTC 2004

Wayne,

The reason you did not keep all the colors and other features was because
you created a new database type file for the semdom2.db database. Instead
you need to use the database type file semdom2.typ that I included with the
release. That file needs to be copied to the directory where you keep your
Shoebox settings files (usually C:/MyShSet or C:/Program
Files/Shoebox/Settings). All the project files (*.prj), type files (*.typ),
and language settings files (*.lng) should be in this folder. The Shoebox
installation procedure also sets up a data folder (C:\Shoedata) for your
database (*.db) and text (*.txt) files. If you already have a Shoebox
dictionary project, first copy semdom2.db to C:\Shoedata, and semdom2.typ to
your settings folder. Then simply open Shoebox with your existing project,
click on "Open file" button (or File--Open) and select semdom2.db. Shoebox
should automatically find the correct type file (semdom2.typ) when it loads
semdom2.db. If you use my semdom2.typ file, you will keep all the features.

There are a number of useful features that are built into semdom2.db and
semdom2.typ. You can right-click on the \ixu and \ix fields and move up and
down the hierarchy quickly. I color coded different fields to make the
presentation clearer. I also like to have two views of the database open at
the same time. To do this go to Window--Duplicate. This command doesn't
duplicate the database. It produces a second view of the database. The first
view is automatically sorted on the key field \is, which is a hierarchical
numbering system. I sort the second view on the \sd (semantic domain) field.
This makes it easier to find a particular domain. You can scroll through
hierarchy in the first view, or scroll through the alphabetized list in the
second view. You can switch between views by clicking on Window and then
selecting the view you want. If you want to find a particular English sample
word, you can use the Edit--Find feature to find a word in the \ex (example
word) field.

Ron Moe

-----Original Message-----
From: Wayne Leman [mailto:wayne_leman at sil.org]
Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2004 12:13 PM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Lexicog] Dictionary Development Program

A few days ago I decided to unzip the DDP files (available from our list
website) and see if I could get them working. After some stumbling around
(typical of how I begin using many programs), I was able to get DDP working
within Shoebox. DDP looks very nice within Shoebox and I can see that it
would definitely be a help to researching the lexicon of a language, just as
DDP's author, list member Ron Moe has stated.

Since my Cheyenne lexicon has such a large database already, managed by
Shoebox, I wanted some way to view DDP and my Cheyenne database at the same
time, within Shoebox. Again, stumbling around, I finally got it to work. I'm
not sure I remember all the steps I took, but for those of you who might
want to try having DDP in one Shoebox window and the vernacular language
database in another window, I recall that I had to create a new database
type, called Semdom2, and had to specify "is" as the record marker. Then I
opened the semdom.db database. The DDP Semantic Domains window that I have
now has lost the nice colors, and probably some other features which Ron
designed for DDP, but now I can continue working with Cheyenne speakers on
the Cheyenne lexicon and use the DDP resources as a guide for further
lexical research.

I tried various ways to get the standard DDP interface and my Cheyenne
lexicon to be on-screen at the same time, but was not able to get any of
those ways to work until I opened DDP in a separate window of the Shoebox
screen that already works for Cheyenne.

If any of you wish to try having DDP and your Shoebox lexicon on-screen at
the same time, you might want to consider this approach. And, in case I have
left out some of the steps I used as I stumbled around, I'm sure that the
Shoebox experts on this list can help out.

I'm off to do some more work on the Cheyenne lexicon now. Hurray!

Wayne
-----
Wayne Leman
Cheyenne website: http://www.geocities.com/cheyenne_language

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