3. Textual query editor

3.1 Query editor basics

The corpus query editor is the central part of the TIGERSearch tool. For a description of the query language please see chapter III. The query text editor is quite sophisticated, i.e. its features include query syntax highlighting and copy and paste functionality to exchange query texts with other applications (cf. Edit menu in the context menu). Using the Undo and Redo items you can restore corpus queries that have already been submitted.

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Figure: The corpus query editor

A helpful input help feature is the so-called feature popup window. If you type in a feature name followed by the equality character (e.g. pos=), the feature popup window appears. It comprises all feature values and types declared for this feature. You can browse through this list by using the cursor arrows or the page up and page down keys. If you press a character key, the cursor moves to the first item which begins with the corresponding characters:

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Figure: The feature pop-up window

If you select an item (by double-clicking or pressing the return key), it is copied into the query text editor. The feature popup window can be enabled / disabled in the Input Help menu of the context menu.

3.2 Advanced query editor features

To change the editor's font size, increase or decrease the relative font size from -5 to +5 in the editor's context menu (right mouse click in the editor, item relative font size in the context menu):

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Figure: Changing the editor's font size

To comment or uncomment lines in the query text, just mark the corresponding text area. Afterwards select the Insert within selected area or Remove within selected area option in the Comments menu of the context menu, respectively:

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Figure: (Un)commenting query text

If you want to include a corpus query into an electronic document, you can use the Copy item of the Edit menu. However, the syntax highlighting of the query will be ignored. For this purpose we have implemented the Copy colored query feature in the Edit menu. You can copy the colored query text as an HTML or LaTeX fragment. Afterwards you can paste the clipboard content into your HTML or LaTeX editor.

3.3 Internationalization of the query editor

A common problem for applications such as TIGERSearch is the keyboard input of characters which are not included in the ISO-Latin-1 character set. If you are working with a corpus that makes uses of such characters, you should consider the following three alternatives:

Please note: Typing in Unicode characters implies that Unicode charaters can be displayed (rendered) by the software. Thus, one of the Unicode fonts supported by TIGERSearch must have been installed on your system. Please consult section 3, chapter II for instructions.

Unicode encoding

The first alternative to encode a Unicode character is to type in its hexadecimal Unicode encoding. For example, the Greek capital letter Omega is represented by \u03a9. If you have typed in the Unicode encoding, just select the Expand Unicode Encodings option in the Input Help menu of the context menu to expand the character:

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Figure: Expanding Unicode encodings

The Unicode encoding will be replaced by its corresponding character (cf. screenshot below). Please remind that a Unicode font must be installed to render the character properly.

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Figure: Expansion of Unicode encodings

If you are frequently working with corpora using characters outside the ISO-Latin-1 character set, you should activate the Expand automatically option in the Input Help menu of the context menu.

Input help (operating system)

On many platforms, specialized tools have been developed to type in characters outside the ISO-Latin-1 character set. These tools are usually called input methods. As e.g. Greek characters do not exist on a German keyboard, these charaters are typed in as an abbreviation. For example, the string Omega might be used as an abbreviation for the Greek character that will be automatically expanded if the abbreviation has been typed in. Please consult the manual of your operating system to find out which tools are available for your platform.

Input help (TIGERSearch)

In the TIGERSeach Project we have implemented specialized input methods for 16 European languages which can be used in the TIGERSearch query editor (cf. subsection 3.2, chapter II). To activate the TIGERSearch input methods, press the upper left corner of the TIGERSearch window (Windows: press the tiger icon) and select the last option in the corresponding menu (usually called Choose input method).

The following screenshot shows how the input method is activated on a German Windows platform. The display will look similar on different platforms.

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Figure: Activating the TIGERSearch input methods (1)

Now you are asked to choose one of the supported European languages. In the following screenshot, the Greek language (modern) is chosen:

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Figure: Activating the TIGERSearch input methods (2)

The input method mode has been activated. A small status window is placed in the lower right corner of the screen. This window shows which language has been chosen and whether the input method is activated or deactivated:

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Figure: Input method status window

To select a different language, you can either process the input method activation procedure described before or you can switch between the languages using the F7 key. To activate or deactivate the current input method please use the F8 key.

Please note: To deactive the TIGERSearch input methods (especially to deactivate the input method status window), start the input method selection procedure again, but choose system input methods in the input method menu.

How is the input method used in the query editor? All characters that are not included in the ISO-Latin-1 character set are represented by special abbreviations. To allow the input of the Latin characters as well as the special characters side by side in one mode, we have chosen encodings conventions used in the LaTeX system. For example, the German character ä is represented as \"a which is its LaTeX encoding. So if you have chosen the German keyboard mapper and you type in the character sequence \"a, it will be automatically expanded to ä by the TIGERSearch input help system.

Please note: Of course, all German characters are included in the ISO-Latin-1 character set. However, German special characters (ä,ö,ü,ß) can only be typed in on keyboards manufactured for the German market. Otherwise, an input method for the German language is necessary in order to work with German treebanks such as the TIGER treebank.

For languages such as Greek which comprises many special characters, a side by side usage of Latin and Greek characters is not possible. In this case, most Greek characters are represented by Latin characters. For example, the capital letter Omega is represented by the Latin character V. So if you type in V in the query editor, this input string is automatically expanded as the capital letter Omega. The following screenshot illustrates how Greek characters are typed in:

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Figure: Typing in Greek characters

The mapping tables for the 16 supported European languages can be found in the file europe.pdf which is placed in the doc/pdf/ subdirectory of your TIGERSearch installation. It can also be downloaded from the TIGERSearch homepage (cf. http://www.tigersearch.de).

3.4 Bookmarks

TIGERSearch provides a bookmark concept to store your favourite corpus queries. As an option, you can also store the results of your queries. This makes sense especially for queries which took a long time to evaluate. The present subsection describes how to add and open bookmarks and the concept of bookmark maintenance.

Adding a bookmark

If you would like to file a bookmark, first mark the preferred bookmark parent folder in the Bookmarks tab (cf. screenshot). Afterwards, select the Add Bookmark to Main Group item in the Bookmarks menu in the context menu of the query editor. If you do not want to specify the parent folder, just select the Add Bookmark to Main Group option.

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Figure: Adding a bookmark

Next, the bookmark properties window is presented. Here you can specify the name of the bookmark and a comment that describes the bookmark. If the query has already been processed, the query results can also be stored. To confirm the bookmark properties and insert the bookmark in the specified parent folder, press the OK button:

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Figure: Bookmark properties

Please note: Storing query results is a helpful feature, but it consumes hard disc memory in the user's home account. If you do not plan to reuse the results, you should better do without it.

Opening a bookmark

The user's bookmarks are presented in the Bookmarks tab in the corpus information panel. If you press a bookmark icon, the bookmark name and definition are shown in the lower part of the tab. If you double-click on a bookmark or select the Open item in the bookmark's context menu, the query text of the bookmark is copied into the query editor. If query results are also stored, they are restored and can be inspected in the GraphViewer.

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Figure: Opening a bookmark

Bookmark maintenance

The bookmark maintenance is realized by context menus for bookmarks and bookmark folders (right mouse click on a bookmark folder or item, respectively). You can edit bookmark properties, delete a bookmark, cut a bookmark, and paste a bookmark which has been copied or cut before. You can also edit the properties of bookmark folders, cut/copy and paste a folder, and add a new subfolder or bookmark. In order to deallocate hard disc memory used by query results, users can mark a bookmark folder and select the Delete Results Information item in the context menu to delete the query results of all bookmark queries which are placed under this folder or any of its subfolders.

Please note: Corpus bookmarks cannot be deleted. If you like to use corpus bookmarks as a basis for defining derived queries, you might duplicate them by using the copy and paste feature.

In order to exchange bookmarks with other users, you can import and export bookmarks. Just mark the parent folder of the preferred bookmarks (e.g. the root folder to export all bookmarks) and select the Export as Bookmark File item in the context menu.

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Figure: Exporting bookmarks

Now the marked bookmark folder is saved. This file can be imported by other users using the Import bookmarks file item in the context menu of the preferred parent folder. A bookmark file can also be used as a corpus bookmarks file (cf. subsection 4.4, chapter VI).