Data from the keyboard
Summary: You can always type data into Wordcorr using the keyboard. Even if you import some of your data from another computer, you can add entries, and even complete word lists, from the keyboard.
The keyboard is the most direct way to input data to Wordcorr. You can use the characters you usually use on your computer. You also have full access to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) through your keyboard. And you can import data from other Wordcorr users, spreadsheets, and some other computer programs. This module deals with ordinary typing.
Once you have an entry started on the Data panel, with a primary gloss (and a secondary gloss if this collection has a secondary gloss language designated), you shift your attention to the middle of your screen. There you see the "Add Datum" button, and below it, what starts out as a blank grid where the data you are about to type will reside. Click Add Datum.
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The entry number and the primary gloss are carried in from the entry you were on when you clicked Add Datum. Below that, you fill in the obligatory Variety field by clicking on the darkened bar, which shows you a list of the varieties in your collection. Click on the variety whose datum you are ready to type in.
Next, click inside the Datum window (also obligatory), and type in one form for that variety in that entry. We'll pick up later on Easy IPA, Wordcorr's simplified strategy that gives you quick access to every current IPA symbol.
You can have more than one word in the same speech variety that matches the meaning of the same entry. To begin with, you may not know which one of several possible words reflects the forms you have for the other varieties. Wordcorr doesn't mind if you put in several forms for the same variety; some of them may have a common origin with one group of varieties, and another may match a different group of varieties. But activate Add Datum separately for each form.
There are two more text areas on the Add Datum dialog box. Special Semantics is what you use when the meaning of the word in this variety differs noticeably from the meaning implied by the gloss for the entry as a whole, you put a note in Special Semantics. The French word that matches the word for "house" in other Romance languages is chez, a preposition, not maison, the regular French word for "house." So you would put something like "where X lives, preposition" in Special Semantics.
Remarks is an important field. It holds all the information, or conjecture or guess, that Wordcorr doesn't give you a box for, but you feel it may turn out to be important anyway. Write all you like. Nearly everything in Wordcorr has its own Remarks field associated with it. This Remarks field applies only to the single datum you typed in the Datum field.
Then, when you want to keep what you've got, click the OK button at the bottom. Later, if you want, you can come back and edit what's there any time, and fill in Special Semantics or Remarks if some new idea comes up.
And if you decide you're not ready to commit what you've typed at least tentatively, click the Cancel button. You'll never see what's in that particular Add Datum dialog box again. If you come back to it, start over from scratch at the Add Datum button on the Data panel.
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This work is licensed by Joseph Grimes under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 2.0).
Last edited by Joseph Grimes on Jul 22, 2006 10:00 pm GMT-5.