WeSay hacks: New kinds of tasks

WeSay hacks: New kinds of tasks

There are some tasks that the WeSay Configuration Tool doesn’t let you configure directly. But you can write your own quite easily (as someone else has discovered) since the XML configuration file format has quite a lot of scope for extension using just Notepad or another text editor. Here we show how to do this and give some sample tasks that you can copy and paste into your configuration files to fine-tune data collection.

How to open the configuration file in Notepad:

• Open your Documents (or My Documents) folder and find the WeSay folder there.
• Open the folder for your language.
• Right-click on the WeSayConfig file and choose Open With > Notepad.

Sample tasks:

Look through the tasks below and find one you like. Copy everything from <task> to </task> then paste it after one of the </task> tags that you find near the end of the Config file. You’ll need to customise at least the writingSystemsToMatch for your language code.

Add Hausa Meaning

[code lang=”xml”]
<task taskName="AddMissingInfo" visible="true">
<label>Hausa Meanings</label>
<longLabel>Add Hausa Meanings</longLabel>
<description>Add Hausa meanings (senses) to entries where they are missing.</description>
<field>definition</field>
<showFields>definition</showFields>
<readOnly>semantic-domain-ddp4</readOnly>
<writingSystemsToMatch>ha</writingSystemsToMatch>
<writingSystemsWhichAreRequired />
</task>[/code]

Add English Meaning

[code lang=”xml”]
<task taskName="AddMissingInfo" visible="true">
<label>English Meanings</label>
<longLabel>Add English Meanings</longLabel>
<description>Add English meanings (senses) to entries where they are missing.</description>
<field>definition</field>
<showFields>definition</showFields>
<readOnly>semantic-domain-ddp4</readOnly>
<writingSystemsToMatch>en</writingSystemsToMatch>
<writingSystemsWhichAreRequired />
</task>
[/code]

Adding a phonetic form

[code lang=”xml”]
<task taskName="AddMissingInfo" visible="true">
<label>Phonetic</label>
<longLabel>Add Phonetic Form</longLabel>
<description>Add an IPA transcription to words which don’t have one yet.</description>
<field>EntryLexicalForm</field>
<showFields>EntryLexicalForm</showFields>
<readOnly>semantic-domain-ddp4, definition</readOnly>
<writingSystemsToMatch>grh-fonipa-x-etic</writingSystemsToMatch>
<writingSystemsWhichAreRequired />
</task>
[/code]

Adding audio recordings

[code lang=”xml”]
<task taskName="AddMissingInfo" visible="true">
<label>Audio Recording</label>
<longLabel>Add Audio Recording</longLabel>
<description>Add an audio recording to words which don’t have one yet.</description>
<field>EntryLexicalForm</field>
<showFields>EntryLexicalForm</showFields>
<readOnly>semantic-domain-ddp4, definition</readOnly>
<writingSystemsToMatch>grh-Zxxx-x-audio</writingSystemsToMatch>
<writingSystemsWhichAreRequired />
</task>
[/code]

Acknowledgements & References

Thanks to http://atoznback.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/new-wesay-tasks for the inspiration.

 hack tasks wesay xml