NITE XML Toolkit - Configuration File Detail

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See also: Intro to tool configuration.

This is a detailed look at the settings in the NXT configuration files. Note: some of these settings can only be used in NXT builds from 1.3.5 (9/5/06). The details may change soon as we plan to refactor the middleware.

At the top level, in the NXTConfig element, there are currently two possible subelements: DACoderConfig and CSLConfig. The first is for configuring discourse coder tools (Dialogue act coder; named entity coder etc). The second is for configuring the continuous signal labeller tool.

Both CSLConfig and DACoderConfig can contain any number of corpussettings and guisettings elements, each of which has an id attribute to uniquely identify it: normally these IDs will be used in the CallableTools section of an NXT metadata file. guisettings are preferences that affect the overall look of the interface and corpussettings tell NXT about the elements and types we wish to display and annotate. The detail of what goes where is described in each section below.

DACoderConfig

guisettings attributes

• id Unique identifier
• gloss Example element containing short explanation of all possible settings
• showapwindow If true, the Adjacency Pair window is shown.
• showlogwindow If true, the log feedback window is shown.
• applicationtitle The title that you want to see in the main frame

corpussettings attributes

While we use da and ap in the attribute names here (standing for 'dialogue act' and 'adjacency pair'), these can refer to any kind of discourse elements you wish to annotate.

• id Unique identifier
• gloss Example element containing short explanation of all possible settings
• segmentationelementname Element name of the segmentation elements that pre-segments the transcription layer. Used for the initial display of the text.
• transcriptionlayername LAYER name of the transcription layer
• transcriptionattribute Name of the attribute in which text of transcription is stored. Leave out if text not stored in attribute.
• transcriptiondelegateclassname full class name of TranscriptionToTextDelegate. Leave out is no delegate is used. net.sourceforge.nite.gui.util.AMITranscriptionToTextDelegate is an example delegate class that works for the AMI corpus. For a new corpus you may have to write your own, but it is a simple process.
• daelementname element name of dialogue act instances
• daontology ontology name of dialogue acts
• daroot nite-id of dialogue act root
• datyperole role name of the pointer from a dialogue act to its type
• daattributename The enumerated attribute on the DA element used as its 'type'. If this attribute is set, the daontology, daroot and datyperole attributes are ignored.
• dagloss the name of the attribute of the dialog act types that contains some extra description of the meaning of this type
• apelementname element name of adjacency pair instances
• apgloss the name of the attribute of the relation types that contains some extra description of the meaning of this type
• apontology ontology name of adjacency pairs
• aproot nite-id of adjacency pair root
• defaultaptype nite-id of default adjacency pair type
• aptyperole role name of the pointer from a AP to its type
• apsourcerole role name of the pointer from a AP to its source
• aptargetrole role name of the pointer from a AP to its target
• neelementname element name of named entity instances
• neattributename The enumerated attribute on the NE element used as its 'type'. If this attribute is set, the neontology, neroot and netyperole attributes are ignored.
• neontology ontology name of named entities
• neroot nite-id of named entities root
• nenameattribute attribute name of the attribute that contains the name of the named entity
• netyperole role name of the pointer from a named entity to its type
• nenesting Set to true to allow named entities to nest inside each other. Defaults to false.
• nemultipointers if this is 'true' each span of words can be associated with multiple values in the ontology. Note that this only makes sense when the neattributename is not set - this setting is ignored if neattributename is set. It also requires that the nenesting attribute is true.
• abbrevattribute name of the attribute which contains an abbreviated code for the named entity for in-text display
• nelinkelementname The element linking NEs together. Used by NELinker.
• nelinkattribute The enumerated attribute on the NE link element used as its 'type'. If this attribute is set, the nelinkontology, nelinkroot and nelinkrole attributes are ignored, and the nelinktypedefault if present is the default string value of the type. Used by NELinker.
• nelinkontology The type ontology pointed to by the NE link element. Used by NELinker.
• nelinkroot The root of the type ontology pointed into by the NE link element. Used by NELinker.
• nelinktyperole The role used to point into the type ontology by the NE link element. Used by NELinker.
• nelinktypedefault The default type value for NE link elements. Used by NELinker.
• nelinksourcerole The role of the pointer from the link element to the first (or source) NE element. Used by NELinker.
• nelinktargetrole The role of the pointer from the link element to the second (or target) NE element. Used by NELinker.
• annotatorspecificcodings the semi-colon-separated list of codings that are annotator specific, i.e. for which each individual annotator will get his or her own datafiles. Usually these are the codings for all layers that will be annotated in the DACoder; see AMI example. This setting only has effect when the tool is started for a named annotator.

CSLCoderConfig

guisettings attributes

• id Unique identifier
• gloss Example CSL settings, giving an explanation for every entry.
• autokeystrokes Optional (default false): if true, keystrokes will be made automatically if no keystroke is defined in the corpus data or if the defined keystroke is already in use.
• showkeystrokes Optional (default off): set to off (keystroke won't be shown in the GUI), tooltip (keystroke will be shown in the tooltip of a control) or label (keystroke will be shown in the label of a control).
• continuous Optional (default true): if true, the CSL tool will ensure that annotations remain continuous (prevent gaps in the time line)
• syncrate Optional (default 200): the number of milliseconds between time change events from the NXT clock
• timedisplay Optional (default seconds): the type of display of coding times in the annotation window: if 'minutes' then the format is like that of the clock h:mm:ss.ms

corpussettings attributes

• id Unique identifier
• gloss Example CSL settings for Dagmar demo corpus
• annotatorspecificcodingspose

corpussettings / layerinfo attributes

For the continuous signal labeller we expect the corpussettings element to contain a number of layerinfo elements, each of which can contain these attributes. Each layer named within the current corpussettings element can be coded using the same tool: users choose what they're annotating using a menu.

• id Unique identifier
• gloss Textual description of this layer
• codename Name of the elements that are annotated in the given layer
• layername The name of the layer that you want to code in the video labeler
• layerclass Delegate AnnotationLayer class. Usually net.sourceforge.nite.tools.videolabeler.LabelAnnotationLayer
• controlpanelclass Delegate TargetControlPanel class. Usually net.sourceforge.nite.tools.videolabeler.LabelTargetControlPanel
• pointerrole Required for LabelAnnotationLayer: role of the pointer that points to the object set or ontology that contains the labels.
• labelattribute Required for LabelAnnotationLayer: name of the attribute of an object set or ontology element that contains the label name.
• evaluationattribute Required for FeeltraceAnnotationLayer: name of the double value attribute that contains the evaluation of an emotion.
• activationattribute Required for FeeltraceAnnotationLayer: name of the double value attribute that contains the activation of an emotion.
• showlabels Optional (default true) for FeeltraceTargetControlPanel: if true, labels for some predefined emotions will be shown in the Feeltrace circle.
• clickannotation Optional (default false) for FeeltraceTargetControlPanel: if true, the user can click to start and end annotating; if false, the user should keep the mouse button pressed while annotating.

 

Last modified 03/28/07