Advice on research software

Posted by 22111
Aug 20, 2013 at 06:57 PM

I missed the need for quantifying, and this is indeed a very important aspect of the overall task.

I did not try with AS but it seems to me that there, some quantifying at least could be realized, within reports, by adding fields within the reports where other fields or “search hits” are summed up or even are just counted - unfortunately, the help section of AS is rather terrible, and as said, the - very instructive - forum help is gone together with the forum. Also, all this quantifying, especially in combinations = creating tables would need some scripting or use of a relational database?

Anyway, the description of CT6 seems very promising, all the more so since the “source identification data” is there (within the link info). So perhaps the developer will make it available, too, in some way, for example by toggle, instead of the link before each clip.

Of course, this will not resolve the quantification needs problem, so the following hint would apply to AS or CT6 or any other such program.

Consider having two softwares running at the same time, on two screens, or side by side on a large screen. Have AS, CT6 or such in order to edit your data, including formatting, coding, gathering clips in new collections, etc.

Then for any quantifying analysis, export your data into a plain .txt file (1 former paragraph here 1 very long line, but not necessarily), and work on it by an editor like KEdit (look for more details about KEdit within the donationcoder.com site). Especially for this type of analysis “how many #ac in combination with #pt but without #td”, KEdit is one of the best tools there is, since you can go back and forth, meaning you join other codes, you withdraw some, etc., etc. - you just have to write your criteria down on paper in order to not get lost within your “more” and “less” choices, and at every moment, you will know how many such “paragraphs” = lines will meet your criteria combination.

As said, there is nothing that even comes near it for this work, except of course, I assume, specialized software; and of course, all these sub-groups of your data can be stored distinctly.

Of course, the deploy of this tool supposes preselections made within another tool, AS / CT6, that are able to put “source identification data” before each such paragraph / line.

Or, if you can live without wysiwyg formatting (you can toggle the long lines to paragraphs and back, in order to edit vs. analyze), have a very simple macro running that puts the “source data” from line 1 of any “package” before any of the following lines, then deletes that line: I suppose the records / “packages” of your original data are distinguished by a special character, or by two blank lines, paragraphs being separated by just one blank line, or similar. In such an environment, your original data could be “prepared for KEdit” in some 10 minutes.

KEdit is certainly worth a very thorough look (and also, they have plenty of help material for these special commands which make it unique), be it as an add-on to AS or CT6, or as your only tool from now on.

As soon as you got your “source data” into each respective line, it comes quite near what to expect from a database, except for sparing you all the programming / tweaking that would be necessary there.