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Re: Lexicon management

From:Patrick Jarrett <gtg346g@...>
Date:Tuesday, August 24, 2004, 15:25
I've found this post quite interesting but I'm having trouble locating where
the quotes originated to follow previous discussions.

I'm still fairly new to linguistics and conlanging, though I've lurked on the
list for well over a year now, hoping to learn (mostly through osmosis).

I manage my lexicon by a simple excel file, which I have learned to back up
nightly. It's on my USB Flash Pen drive so I just carry it wherever I am on
campus and plug into one of the lab machines and work on it some more.

My Excel sheet is fairly basic, the most advanced feature telling me
how "complete" my lexicon is based on the number of English words which are
entered but do not contain a Durin translation.

Kôradamara // Farewell freinds
Patrick



Quoting "Iain E. Davis" <feaelin@...>:

> > From: Remi Villatel [mailto:maxilys@TELE2.FR] > > For those who already have a somewhat big lexicon, how do you > > manage it? > > > From: Caleb [mailto:cph9fa@ADMIRAL.UMSL.EDU] > > > Spreadsheets are very nice. They have nice layout and > > formating features, as well as powerful searching, sorting, > > and filtering features. But let's face it, the data in them > > isn't very open if you want to write your own tools for > > The tools are there, at least in Excel. I've not worked with Quattro or > Lotus in so long, I wouldn't know what features they have. :) > > > manipulating it. And they may or may not be cross-platform > > compatible (or even cross software compatible -- Excel > > doesn't like my Corel Quatro Pro files eg.) > > Conversion is often a problem. Generally, it's a version juggling act...its > not that Excel doesn't like Quattro files, it depends on the version of > Excel, the version of Quattro, and what Quattro features you used...:) > > On the cross-platform note, I'm assuming my files are readable in > OpenOffice. I assume though, that the VBA macros I use I'd have to recreate > on the OpenOffice platform? I've never investigated that. > > > So the route I've taken is to place all my words into a > > simple text file. I haven't decided for sure what to use for > Bleah. :). But extremely portable, as you say. Nearly everything attempts to > parse those kinds of files. :) > > > best part is that it shouldn't be too difficult to write a > > simple program/script in one of C/C++/Python/Perl to output > > my own HTML file -- or any other format for that matter. > > I'm doing this with my excel data. I wrote a VBA script that spits out valid > HTML instead of the garbage that Excel produces on its own. :). I also have > a script that generates a dictionary-style msword document of the same > material. The same script actually generates three sections. A > Taraitola-to-English "dictionary". A cross-index section that simply points > you to the Taraitola entry you should read, and a "Important People" > section. :) > > Interestingly, the script that generates the dictionary-style document > became painfully slow after upgrading to > XP/2003. :( > > > From: Rik Roots [mailto:rik@kalieda.org] > > I use a database (MySQL), which I access through a web browser: > > > > http://www.kalieda.org/gevey/lexicon.html > > I'm impressed. I've experimented in that direction, but I've not really > gotten to a viable solution yet. I also have concerns about losing the ease > of manipulation I have in Excel. :). I've considered building the tables in > excel as separate worksheets, for ease of manipulation. :) > > Iain >

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Iain E. Davis <feaelin@...>