[Lexicog] Re: collaborative dictionary editing

[Eric Jackson]

Bill Poser wrote, "There is software available that automates a process similar to what Susan describes. It is called "revision control software" and is used primarily by computer programmers." Susan Gehr mentioned collaboration in FLEx, too. Actually, these two ideas come together--version control software in FLEx--in Fieldworks 7.0.5! I'm just now working on this for the project I'm on, so let me toss in what I've learned.

Fieldworks 6 allowed multiple users to work on a single copy of the lexical database, *if* those users were all on a single network (either a LAN or virtually a LAN by means of a VPN). It isn't always practical to require people to be online to collaborate on the FLEx database, though, so Fieldworks 7 offers that same kind of collaboration, *or* another via an add-on called LiftBridge. LiftBridge is designed to let users of Fieldworks work together with other users of Fieldworks, WeSay and other Chorus-enabled applications, and allows syncing many changes to a lexicon over a LAN, over the Internet, or by USB stick. In Fieldworks 7.0.5, only the non-custom fields in the lexicon can be 
shared, but things are supposed to be expanded in version 7.1, being 
released soon. What's Chorus? It's a distributed version control system tailored for language-based work, which is based on Mercurial, an open-source honest-to-goodness version control system. Thanks to the good people at Palaso, you don't need to have an IT background and the gumption to work at a terminal prompt in order to use powerful version control software for language work! (http://projects.palaso.org/) You get merging of changes, change history and tracking by user, and all kinds of goodness.

Currently, I'm trying to get this sort of collaboration going for multiple users of FLEx 7.0.5, one on Win7 and two on Ubuntu Linux; there are some snags for the Ubuntu users still, but in principle it ought to be possible. If everyone is using some version of MS Windows, then you shouldn't have a problem.

Hooray for collaboration,
Eric

-- Eric M. Jackson, Ph.D.          芮建生博士 SIL Intl, East Asia Group       世界少数民族语文研究院东亚部 http://sil.academia.edu/EricJackson/ 
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