[Lexicog] News and Offers from TshwaneDJe

[David Joffe]

> I still think Toolbox is an excellent software for a lexicographer and
> it has allowed me to do pretty much everything I wanted to with the
> dictionary. But it is also important to say that I would not be able
> to do some of those things without the excellent programmer that I
> have in my team. So, Toolbox offers flexibility to do things, but with
> that flexibility comes additional work. TshwaneLex probably automates
> a lot of the features that we do with various CCT’s and scripts

Indeed, and primarily, it basically does not allow you to create 
'incorrectly structured' data in the first place.

> but then maybe it isn’t flexible enough to allow us do other things. My
> main worry though, is that the data entry process in much
> time-consuming the TshwaneLex than it is in Toolbox.

Notwithstanding the speed-up in work gained from having many 
'gruntwork' style things like sense numbers done automatically for 
you, I wonder if this is one of those things where you would 
eventually attain comparable speed once you learned how to work in 
TshwaneLex effectively with the mouse and had lots of practice (and 
of course learned all of its available keyboard shortcuts), or if 
one or the other is truly 'objectively' faster than the other (e.g. 
if one did a pseudo-scientific experiement and took someone 
extremely proficient in TshwaneLex and put them next to someone 
extremely proficient in Toolbox, and had them both enter the same 
bunch of entries, if one would always in general be able to outpace 
the other). I know that once one has become well-versed in some 
piece of software, it's 'difficult' to change to anything else, as 
one has become well-practiced in doing things a certain way, and 
there's a 'learning curve' before one can become comparably 
proficient.

I know when I do programming, I definitely prefer to use the 
keyboard almost exclusively, and work extremely quickly that way, 
but somehow when I use TshwaneLex I don't generally get the feeling 
that I'd be prefer to be able to totally avoid the mouse or be able 
to speed up much that way (even though I could program in more 
keyboard-driven functionality, the general way one works in 
TshwaneLex doesn't necessarily lend itself well to this, 
particularly in the Tree View, though certainly it warrants further 
thought). We do have users, including myself, who work extremely 
fast in TshwaneLex even though it's somewhat mouse-oriented.

Note a few very useful keyboard shortcuts in TshwaneLex are 
documented in the FAQ: http://tshwanedje.com/faq.html

 - David

---
http://tshwanedje.com/
TshwaneDJe Human Language Technology




------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lexicographylist/

<*> Your email settings:
    Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lexicographylist/join
    (Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
    mailto:lexicographylist-digest at yahoogroups.com 
    mailto:lexicographylist-fullfeatured at yahoogroups.com

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    lexicographylist-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/