Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics

ELAN source distribution

The ELAN source tree is a snapshot from the large MPI source tree, containing just as much to compile ELAN. The distribution comes with an Ant build script and necessary libraries. With one exception: a JNIWrapper license key is needed to make the tree compile. We can not redistribute the license key; a (evaluation) key can be obtained at www.jniwrapper.com. The jniwrapper software is used for the DirectX based integrated media player for Windows.
ELAN once started as a RMI based client-server system. The RMI stuff has been removed but traces can still be found in the package structure. The mpi.eudico.client.* packages mainly contain classes for the application's frontend, user interface, media handling and so on. Classes in the mpi.eudico.server.* packages mainly deal with the internal data structures, like transcription, tiers, annotations and so forth.

The sources can be used freely in any non-commercial project. We would appreciate to recieve a notification of the release of any software that re-uses parts of our code.

May 31, 2006: Release 2.6.1

There are only a few changes of interest to developers in this release.

• TimeSlots are now added in one single operation to TimeOrderImpl when an .eaf is loaded. This improves the performance significantly.
• memory management: when an ELAN window is closed only part of the used memory seems to be freed. Some methods have been added (ElanFrame2, ViewerManager, ElanLayoutManager etc) to make objects reachable for the garbage collector. This remains a point of concern.
• when secondary linked files (like time series files) are missing this is handled in a way similar to missing media files.

See the ELAN release notes for further information on changes.

April 05, 2006: Release 2.6

As always the new features in ELAN 2.6 are described in the ELAN release notes.
A new viewer for timeseries data has been (partially) implemented: the TimeSeries Viewer. Currently there is support for just two file types, one of which is a MPI proprietary .log file containing data from a "Cyberglove". Each sample can consist of approx. 100 measurement values. The other supported file type is a plain text file (.txt) containing time - value pairs on each line, separated by a whitespace or a tab. It is assumed that it is a continuous rate sample file (i.e. a constant time increment between sample). The time information can be in milliseconds or in ss.ms format.
For example:

0.010  nnnn
0.020  nnnn
0.030  nnnn
...

There doesn't seem to be standard for timeseries data and the above format certainly isn't. There are two ways to use your own data in the time series viewer.

• convert your file(s) to the above format
• implement an import module for your file type and either add it to the ELAN source tree or register it as a so called "service provider" (see below)

Most source files involved in this viewer can be found in the package:

mpi.eudico.client.annotator.timeseries

In this package there is a package spi containing the interface TSServiceProvider. An implementing class could be placed in a .jar on the classpath. The jar should contain a folder META_INF/services, containing a file named mpi.eudico.client.annotator.timeseries.spi.TSServiceProvider, containing a single line which should be the fully-qualified name of your implementing class. (All according to the Java documentation, this has not been tested yet.)
If any user interaction is needed to configure the track(s) from your files, the provider's isConfigurable() should return true and the getConfigPanel() should return a Component that can be placed in a JDialog. (Example in the glove package.)
Track data are stored in a mpi.eudico.client.annotator.timeseries.TimeSeriesTrack implementor; the only one available yet is ContinuousRateTSTrack, storing the track data in a single float array.
In order to be able to store configuration properties of source files and tracks, a source file object is wrapped in a mpi.eudico.client.annotator.timeseries.config.TSSourceConfiguration object and a track object is wrapped in a mpi.eudico.client.annotator.timeseries.config.TSTrackConfiguration object.

Known issue:

• The distribution comes with jniwrapper 2.x. If you only have a license key for a jniwrapper 3.x version, you should replace the jniwrapper libraries and edit one mpi source file:

  mpi.eudico.client.annotator.player.NativeMediaPlayerWindowsDS

  Change the line

  mediaControl = FilgraphManager.create(new ClsCtx(ClsCtx.CLSCTX_INPROC_SERVER));

  to

  mediaControl = FilgraphManager.create(ClsCtx.INPROC_SERVER);

November 02, 2005: Release 2.5

The new features in ELAN 2.5 are described in the ELAN release notes. Most changes can be found in classes in the mpi.eudico.client.annotator.* packages. For developers mainly interested in the media playback solution, it may be of interest that the class "IBasicVideoImpl" in package "mpi.eudico.client.annotator.nativemedia.quartztypelib.impl" has been extended with a method getCurrentImage2( Parameter[] p). This method has been introduced for succesful grabbing of a video frame. 
The Ant file has been slightly changed in the definition of the classpath.
The source tree now also compiles against Java 1.5.

August, 2005: Release 2.4.2

This is the first (snapshot) source release with an Ant build file, libraries etc. Also the first release after a thorough refactoring of the package structure and the removal of the RMI related constructs.