CSD report

[Koontz John E]

On Wed, 8 Oct 2003, ROOD DAVID S wrote:
> I just looked at what I have for CSD files, and have both good and bad
> news to report.  The old database has been converted into a shoebox file,
> which is good news; all the field names we used now have shoebox codes,
> etc.  In addition, there is a formatting program which, when applied to
> that file, produces paragraphs with various type faces for different kinds
> of information -- essentially what John did for formatting the original
> database.

I don't know how Taime did this, but there are at least three ways.  One
is that Shoebox has limited abilities to export directly
(http://www.sil.org/computing/catalog/show_software.asp?id=26).

Another is SF Converter
(http://www.sil.org/computing/catalog/show_software.asp?id=44):

"The SF Converter is a utility designed to read a plain text file tagged
with SIL Standard Format Markers and produce a file in Microsoft's Rich
Text Format (RTF) suitable for printing with Word and many other word
processors. It can be used to format and print dictionaries and other
documents."

SF Converter works with the Shoebox database files (SF or Standard Format
files), but doesn't work through Shoebox itself.  It's just another
program that knows about SF.

The third was something called, I believe, Multilingual Dictionary
Formatter.  It was quite elaborate.  I don't see it anymore.  It was OK
for bilingual dictionaries of some sorts, but the set of fields was fixed
in advance and didn't look like it would work well with either Siouan
materials in specific or comparative dictionaries in general.

I suspect Taime used method one or two.

> The output of the formatting is a Word file, so it will be very easy to
> edit on screen.

However, it would probably not be a good idea to edit that Word document,
because there is probably nothing to reverse the process and convert it
back to the underlying database.  I suppose someone could copy the changes
by hand.  It would probably be better to edit using the Showbox interface.

> There should be no need to involve the IDD at any stage now, and it
> seems to me that Shoebox would convert to xml, etc. without too much
> trouble, too.

I'm not sure if it supports this directly, but Word might be able to
export the Word-formatted version.

> The bad news is that, as of today, I'm not getting the right fonts to go
> with the formatting.  My recollection is that my programmer fixed that,
> but I can no longer remember what she told me to do to make it work.

My direct experience with the newer Shoeboxes is limited, but my
recollection is that there is a menu that allows you to attach a
particular font to each field.  If Taime set this up and it was saved, but
it's not working now, then I'd suspect that the problem might be that
Shoebox was unable to find the file or files that describe its
configuration for the CSD files.  Probably you have a copy of the new CSD
that omits these files and you opened up that copy instead of the one with
the configuration information added.  That's just a guess.

> I'll have to get her to tell me again.  Meanwhile, Armik is taking the
> cd home with him tonight to see if running it on a mac with the Siouan
> fonts installed will matter (my programmer, poor misguided child, used a
> mac for this work).

I might be able to figure this out, too, if needed.

> The really bad news, however, is that none of this takes care of the messy
> editing that still needs doing.  Because the conversion to Shoebox was
> automatic, all the errors in demarking stuff in the original database have
> translated into formatting errors in the currently "final" version.
> Amazing what a missing period can do!!

I can try to fix the conversion, if you started with my version of it.  I
know I haven;t gotten around to this in the past.  I'm pretty sure I still
have and more or less understand the series of AWK scripts I used.