Difference between revisions of "Annotald"

Revision as of 23:45, 22 January 2011

Annotald is a program that facilitates editing of phrase structure in labeled bracketing format. The program is tightly integrated with the Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus (IcePaHC). The program, as well as this documentation, is a work in progress, and should be expected to be incomplete in various ways. Users are encouraged to save their files frequently and back them up to a repository to prevent loss of data.

Installing and running

In addition to the Annotald program files, included in the treedrawing directory of the IcePaHC git repository, the following 3rd party programs and libraries are required:

• Python 2 (not compatible with Python 3, yet)
• CherryPy 3 (not compatible with CherryPy 2)
• Google Chrome (not compatible with any other browser)

CherryPy is required in order to launch the Annotald web server that handles communication between the web-based Annotald user interface and manipulation of files on the hard drive. To install CherryPy 3 on Ubuntu, type in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install python-cherrypy3

To run Annotald from the IcePaHC parsing directory and open the file "filename.psd", type:

./annotald filename.psd

This is equivalent to:

python ../treedrawing/treedrawing.py filename.psd

When the program runs it starts a webserver on port 8080. You can then edit "filename.psd" by directing Google Chrome to the following path:

http://localhost:8080

General philosophy

Annotald is designed to maximize the speed of phrase structure annotation. It is important for the understand the philosophy of the design to make the most of the program. First, most tasks can be performed without ever taking the right hand off the mouse and the left hand off its normal position at the left side of the keyboard. Sometimes it is possible to enter a phrase label or tag using the full keyboard, but this is rarely a good idea, since it takes the annotator's hands out of the previously described position where all the shortcuts are accessible.

Selecting and unselecting nodes

Nodes are selected by left clicking them. The first node selected becomes the "startnode" and the second node selected becomes the "endnode" for the purposes of commands that deal with more than one node at a time. Only two nodes can be selected at any one time. Clicking a selected node unselects the node. When one of two selected nodes is unselected, the remaining selected node becomes the "startnode", whether it had that status before or not.

Clear selection with space bar

The fastest way to clear the selection entirely, including both nodes if two are selected, is to press the space bar. Another way to unselect everything is to left click the highlighted area to each side of editing area where the sentences are displayed. Left clicking the area to the left of the editing area is a fairly fast way clear the selection.

Moving nodes around

Left click + Right click

A node that has been selected can be moved under another node by right clicking the target node. Clause level nodes are highlighted (using a different background color) to make it easier to identify the current "floor" of the sentence. Annotald will not allow the user to move nodes in a way that violates the linear order of the words in the sentence, or results in an otherwise ill-formed structure.

Select 2 sisters + Right click

Multiple nodes can be moved at once by making use of a "starnode" and an "endnode". Select two nodes that are sisters and right click a target to move the two sisters and all their sisters that are in between them. Annotald will again not allow movement that results in an ill-formed structure.

Changing labels

The label of a selected node can by changed using shortcuts or by typing it in. The latter method should be avoided for it takes a longer time for a trained user and introduces typing mistakes as a potential source of errors.

Mouse shortcuts

Many of the most common label changes can be performed using mouse shortcuts. To bring up a context menu for a node, right click the node. When no node is selected (no "startnode" or "endnode" by means of left clicking) any node can be right clicked to bring up its menu. When one node is selected, that node, and only that node, has an active context menu. The context menu is not active at all when two nodes are selected.

Simple relabeling from context menu

A simple relabeling of the node is done by selecting an option from the "Label" section of the context menu. A "label" section appears for all nodes. In most cases Annotald offers labels that belong to a set of labels related to the current label, but as a fallback it shows verb tags, when it doesn't have a definition for what amounts to a related label.

Changing the case of a phrase or tag

When a right click is used to bring up the context menu for a phrase that has case, most commonly a noun phrase, a special "case" section appears in the context menu. Selecting case from the context menu of a phrase changes all the case extensions on tags that are immediately dominated by the phrase. This saves time when correcting case on multiple items, like when an NP has a quantifier, an adjective and a noun. The "case" section is also displayed in the context menu for tag nodes that have case, but only one tag can be corrected at a time using that feature.

Keyboard shortcuts

Changing a label using keyboard shortcuts can be very fast. When a node is selected (always the "startnode"), an annotator can pick a label for it using shortcuts on the left side of the keyboard. For this reason, the left hand should always rest on the left side of the keyboard while annotating. Various keys on the left side of the keyboard represent a label group:

NOTE: The shortcuts might change a little bit as the program moves from beta to stable

• E = CP-ADV, CP-CMP
• R = CP-REL, CP-FRL, CP-CAR
• S = IP-SUB, IP-MAT, IP-IMP
• V = IP-SMC, IP-INF, IP-INF-PRP
• T = CP-THT, CP-THT-PRN, CP-QUE
• G = ADJP, ADJP-SPR, NP-MSR, QP
• F = PP, ADVP, ADVP-TMP, ADVP-LOC, ADVP-DIR
• 2 = NP, NP-PRN, NP-POS
• Q = CONJP, ALSO, FP
• W = NP-SBJ, NP-OB1, NP-OB2, NP-PRD

L + Typing

Pressing the L button triggers the edit label mode. This key is on the right side of the keyboard since the user will anyway have to do the rare move of the right hand away from the mouse to do the typing. When L is pressed an edit box is displayed with the current label selected. To replace the label entirely, type away and the previous label will disappear. To change only the last part of the label, like adding or changing an extension to the tag, press space bar while in edit mode, which will unselect label and place the caret at the end of it. Press Enter to confirm the label that has been typed.