MetaLex

Editing MetaLex files

June 30th, 2006

Please visit the MetaLex download repository at http://draco.leibnizcenter.org/relay (login: public, pass:public)for a MetaLex configuration of the open source editor Jaxe. Read the instructions for installation. Jaxe is covered by the GPL license, and cannot be used in combination with closed-source products.

The editor uses a special simplified version of the MetaLex schema. The following changes were made in the process of adapting the MetaLex schema to Jaxe:

1. It is no longer possible to use ##any elements in TextType. In practice this means that elements like Sentence, Title, Introduction, etc. that typically take TextVersion elements now can only accept the (TextVersion+,Annotation+,MetaData+) pattern.
2. Elements of AReferringTextType now take elements from ##any, and no longer accept TextVersion subelements. Quote is an exception.
3. Fixed a little incompleteness that caused problems in Jaxe: added mixed=true in the definition of the contents of Annotation.

The most obvious incompatibility with the existing MetaLex example corpus is that Index elements now must contain a TextVersion. The biggest problem in editing is that the editor cannot deduce from the schema what kinds of elements are appropriate to use in free text inside TextVersion elements.

There is also an experimental MetaLex plugin for Vex, a Visual Editor for XML covered by the LGPL, in the MetaLex download repository at http://draco.leibnizcenter.org/relay (login: public, pass:public). Vex is an Eclipse plugin and has a wordprocessor-like interface. The plugin supports only a subset of MetaLex. Note that Vex is unfortunately incompatible with certain other Eclipse plugins, notably Topbraid Composer. We therefore recommend using the pre-configured Vex installation linked from the Vex website.

Entry Filed under: Downloads