FLEx files


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ELAN allows you to export your project to the SIL Fieldwork Language Explorer software, also referred to as FLEx. The data exchange is realized through .flextext files, a file type that defines several container elements and attributes (see below), onto which ELAN's tiers (via their tier type) and annotations have to be mapped. For the configuration of these mappings the complex, multiple step export window described below, is provided. Configuration will be less complicated in case the .eaf was created by importing a FLEx .flextext file. On import, some FLEx attributes are "encoded" in the names of tiers, on export these attributes are reconstructed by "decoding" the tier names. To better understand the options in the user interface, a simplified representation of the structure of a .flextext file follows here.

            <interlinear-text>
              <item lang="" type="">...</item>
              <paragraph>
                <phrase>
                  <item lang="" type="">...</item>
                  <word>
                    <item lang="" type="">...</item>
                    <morph type="">
                      <item lang="" type="">...</item>
                    </morph>
                  </word>
                </phrase>
              </paragraph>
            </interlinear-text>

All elements can occur multiple times, e.g. there can always be multiple item child elements for any parent element.

	Note
	If your .eaf file contains multiple participants, make sure you have given each participant a name value. You can set a participant value under Tier > Change Tier Attributes....

Choosing File > Export as > FLEx file … will give you the following screen:

Figure 37. Export FLEx file step 1

In this screen you can specify:

which tier type corresponds to which FLEx element
which tiers should be included in the export
with the Export interlinear-text tier option, if there is a tier corresponding to the interlinear-text element and, if so, which tier it is. This determines whether a tier and its dependent tiers provide the contents for item child elements of interlinear-text.
with the Export paragraph tier option, if there is a tier corresponding to the paragraph element. If so, its segmentation is used for grouping phrase child elements, if not, each phrase will be embedded in its own paragraph element.

Figure 38. Export FLEx file step 2

The second screen allows to:

map tier types to the item child element of the correct, corresponding container element
specify which tiers should be exported as that item
specify with the Select a tier type for 'morph-type' tiers option, which tier type provides the value for the type attribute of the .flextext morph element. This should be a valid FLEx morph type. If this option is deselected each morph element will be exported with attribute type="root".

Figure 39. Export FLEx file step 3

The third screen allows to customize the FLEx lang (language) and type attributes output:

the upper part of the screen contains a table and two radio buttons. The buttons enable to switch between tiers and tier types mode (the latter is preferred). The contents of the table is updated after a change in choice. The value of each cell in the type and language column can be selected from a pull-down menu.

the lower part of the screen allows to edit the list of values selectable in those pull-down menus. The type and language radio buttons determine which list is being updated by either adding new values or removing existing values. The list for type is based on a FLEx controlled vocabulary, which could be out-of-date at the time of use, therefore new values can be added manually. The list of languages currently is based on "decoding" the tier names and on the content languages of the tiers. The list can be empty, it should be filled manually in that case.

	Note
	FLEx requires that for languages that have both a two letter ISO 639-1 code and a three letter ISO 639-3 code, the two letter code should be used. This screen tries to automatically replace three letter codes by their two letter equivalents where needed, but it is good to check the codes.

For more information on the structure of FLEx, see Figure 69, “FLEx to ELAN structure”.

The final screen allows you to save the file as a flextext file, so it can be used in FLEx.

	Note
	On the third-party resources page of ELAN (https://archive.mpi.nl/tla/elan/thirdparty ), you can find a teaching-set which covers the aspects of importing from FLEx to ELAN and back to FLEx.