Interlinear Text Editor software (ITE) allows linguist users to enter transcriptions and interlinear glosses, in particular to annotate recorded sound resources. It allows the user to enter and to edit annotation on four levels of analysis: the text, the sentence (or utterance), the word, and the morpheme. Elements of the lower levels (i.e. word and morpheme) are presented sentence by sentence in interlinear format, with gloss fields aligned under the transcription fields. As text is glossed, the program builds a lexicon, adding new transcribed elements with their glosses or adding new glosses for existing transcribed elements. ITE facilitates the entry of annotation by proposing glosses for elements which have occurred previously in the text or in previously entered texts. Tools for concordancing and indexing words and morphemes are provided, facilitating data-checking and analysis.
The data format is XML. No particular DTD is imposed, but the default options assume the use of the Lacito Archivage DTD. Advanced users can parametrize the program for other DTDs, and incorporate these parameters as options for end users. The following are required to adapt the program to a new DTD:
ITE is a free software. The ditribution is made under the General Public License (GPL) from the GNU project. This means that you've got all the freedom to use it, modify it and to give it to someone else. This means also that you can get the sources of this software. The main restriction is that, if you give this software or a modification of this software to someone else, you have to join it the same license. To know more about the GNU licenses: take a look to the GNU web site http://www.gnu.org/.
ITE is written in Java. To use it, you must have a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) installed on your system. You may already have a JVM on your system, otherwise you can download one from the Sun web site. JRE 1.4.2 (Java Runtime Environment version 1.4.2) or above is recommended.
Option: If you wish to be able to access audio or video resources assoiated with your transcriptions, you should install one of the following tools:
ITE can be launched directly from the web. To launch the software ITE, click on: Interlinear Text Editor. [If it's not working: save the file ITE.jnlp on your desktop and drag it's icon on your 'Java Web Start' sofware icon]
On your first use, if you run the program from the web, you will be asked to accept the certificate. Subsequently, the program can be used locally (without accessing the Internet) -- in this case you will be asked if you want a shortcut on your desktop. Any time you use ITE via Java Web Start, if you are on-line, the program will check the distribution site for the latest version and update your local copy. [If you run the program from the shortcut on your desktop, no updating will be done.]