Linguistic Data Editing Software

LIFT Tools offers efficient and accurate linguistic data editing. Designed for users of FieldWorks, WeSay, and Lexique Pro, our software suite helps manage and enhance your LIFT files.

About

LIFT Tools is a collection of utilities aimed at making bulk edits to LIFT files straightforward and hassle-free. Whether you’re working with homographs, audio files, or writing systems, our tools ensure your data is always up-to-date and compliant with the latest version of the LIFT schema. Let LIFT Tools handle the complexities for you, without the need for manual edits.

Key Features

Validate Lift File

Ensure your LIFT file is compliant with the latest schema, avoiding compatibility issues and data corruption.

Merge Homographs

Combine multiple senses into homographs seamlessly, with new options for merging ‘option list’ type properties.

Fix Audio File Names

Automatically reconnect detached audio files by renaming them correctly and updating links within the LIFT file.

News

Updated Homograph Merger

2012 MARCH

The Homograph merger has been updated:

  • Multiples senses are now considered as candidates for merging.
  • ‘option list’ type properties can now be merged in, rather than causing entries to remain separate.
  • Fixed a bug whereby multiple homographs were not considered as candidates for merging.

New ‘CAWL’ tool added to Lift Tools

2012 FEBRUARY

The CAWL tool can be used to strip unwanted language forms in lift for glosses and definitions. Such forms may have been introduced through the use of the CAWL task for example in WeSay. After removing unwanted forms, you can then use the Writing Systems tool to remove the now redundant writing systems definitions.

New ‘Writing Systems’ tool added to Lift Tools

2012 FEBRUARY

There are two main issues with the use of Writing Systems in Lift that this tool addresses:

  1. Writing Systems that are essentially duplicates of each other, but have been used in the lift data independently.
  2. Unused writing systems that have a definition and thus show up in the UI.

To address these issues this tool provides the following features:

  • Reports on Writing Systems in use in the Lift file.
  • Provides a function to rename one Writing System (or regular expression) to another Writing System.
  • Deletes (now) unused Writing Systems from the Writing Systems folder.

New ‘Audio Files’ tool added to Lift Tools

2012 FEBRUARY

Some recent issues in some dictionary software applications have caused audio files to become detached from the lift file. This is because either the file is inadvertently renamed, or the link inside the lift file is deleted. The ‘Audio Files’ tool attempts to reconnect audio files to lift by:

  1. Attempting to rename the audio file if it is incorrectly named.
  2. Attempting to find an entry in the lift file that matches part of the audio file name.

Downloads

LIFT Tools 1.1.41 for Windows MSI | 1.99 MB | 5 Apr 2013

Code

The code (C#) is publicly available via the LIFT Tools GitHub repository.

Usage Instructions

Each tool in the application comes with its own instructions, but here are some instructions for how to use LiftTools with dictionary applications:

FieldWorks Language Explorer (FLEx)

  1. In FLEx, select File:Project Management:Backup and Restore. Backup your project.
  2. Select File Menu:Export…, Export LIFT.
  3. In LiftTools, choose the file you just exported.
  4. Run the tool.
  5. In FLEx, choose File:Import:Lift Lexicon.
    1. Select the radio button which says “import the conflicting data and overwrite the current data”. If you fail to do this, any items removed (say, because they were merged into another entry) will not be removed from your lexicon.
    2. Untick the “Trust entry modification times”.
    3. Click “Browse…” and select the file which was output by the LiftTools tool.
    4. Click OK.

WeSay

  1. Backup your WeSay Project (Or better yet, do a Send/Receive and indicate “Before merging homographs” (or whatever))
  2. Run LiftTools, and point it at the .lift file of your project.
  3. Run the utilities.

At the moment LiftTools is shy. It is afraid to actually change your original LIFT file. Instead, it will make a new one, alongside your old one. So rename the old LIFT file, and then rename the new one to match it. Open WeSay, and you should see the change you made with the utility.

Support

Support from other software users may be available through the SIL Language Software Community. This community will be growing to become the major source of software support.

Contact

If you are unable to obtain support through individual software support pages or the SIL Language Software Community, or have a general question about SIL language software, please contact us.