SIL has announced the release of version 5.0 of their language and culture research software FieldWorks:
SIL FieldWorks is a software suite that helps researchers to manage language and cultural data from the initial collection stage to the publication of dictionaries, text collections and grammars. Acclaimed by field researchers, FieldWorks is currently being used in small- to medium-sized dictionary projects at several universities. The new release, version 5.0, improves existing features and pioneers new features not found in other software.
New with version 5.0
- ability to produce stem-based and root-based dictionaries from a single database
- ability to interlinearize phrases
- ability to filter a text corpus
- partial French interface
- Windows Vista compatibility
Improved features
- expanded concordance capabilities
- more export formats
- ability to tailor the display of data in many available views
Contents of FieldWorks 5.0 suite
- Language Explorer 2.0, a major application for analyzing language data and managing a lexicon and text corpus
- Data Notebook 2.8, a data management application for cultural field work
- WorldPad 2.8, a simple text editor using the Graphite rendering engine for complex scripts
Like many other SIL software products, FieldWorks is available under the SIL Open Source License. Because this license is granted to the user at no cost, the user is not entitled to free technical support from SIL. Service Bulletins are posted for known problem fixes and patches.
You can download SIL FieldWorks here. If you do not have the bandwidth to make downloading practical, you may order a CD-ROM that contains the FieldWorks files for the price of the media, shipping, and handling. Contact: WWW@sil.org
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