The UMIACS Word Alignment Interface

Introduction:

This is an improved version of the alignment interface that Rebecca Hwa had written when she was a postdoc at UMIACS.
I liked the appearence of the interface a lot but I wanted to incorporate some of the functionality that Blinker
(another alignment interface written by Dan Melamed) provided. So, I rewrote some of the underlying code to get us
that functionality.Along the way, I also made some cosmetic changes to make the interface look and behave better
(e.g., dialog boxes etc).

Download:

1) Check out the code and data from github.
2) Build the project by running 'ant'.

Run:

• Windows:

  1) Open a commmand prompt. (Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Command Prompt)
  
  2) Change to the top level wordalignui directory. Run the interface as follows:
  
  	java -jar dist/lib/alignui.jar data/test.en data/test.zh
  

• Mac OS X:

  Just open the Terminal to the top level wordalignui directory and run:
  
  	java -jar dist/lib/alignui.jar data/test.en data/test.zh
  
  

Usage:

• Create a link:

  1) Click on one of the words that you want to link (either Chinese or English)
  2) Click on the word in the other language.
  3) Link is created automatically.
  
  The following animated gif shows a demo on how to create a link.
  

  
  
  Creating a link

• Delete a link:

  1) Click on any word in the link.
  2) Click on the other word.
  3) The link should now be red, indicating that it is selected.
  4) Click on the "Delete Link" button to delete the link.
  
  The following image shows how to delete a link:
  

  
  
  Deleting a link

• De-selecting a selected link

  1) Once you have selected a link as outlined above in "Delete a link", you can de-select it it if you change your
  mind about deleting that link. To do this, just click on the "De-select Link" button.
  
  The following image demonstrates this:
  

  
  
  De-selecting a selected link

Important Notes:

• If you are not finished with a sentence but would still like to proceed with the next sentence, click the "Next Sentence" button. You will see a warning:
  
  
  
  Warning when skipping an incompletely aligned sentence Click on "Yes" to proceed to the next sentence. You can return to any earlier sentence at any time by using the "Prev Sentence" button.


• When you skip a sentence that is not completely aligned, the interface records its number on disk. This is done to remind you to finish aligning those sentences. Reminders will be seen when you exit the interface:
  
  
  
  Warning about sentences left unaligned when exiting the interface
  
  You can see which sentence you left unfinished by clicking the "Which Ones?" button:
  
  
  
  The sentences that were left unfinished
  
  A similar warning will be seen when you start the interface after a session in which you had unfinished sentences:
  
  
  
  Warning about sentences that were left unaligned, when starting the interface

Help/Feedback:

Thanks:

• Bonnie Dorr
• Christof Monz
• Necip Fazil Ayan
• Nizar Habash
• Okan Kolak
• and, of course, Rebecca Hwa !!




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