Mac

At the moment, we are stuck on a low-level problem of audio extraction. Transana for Mac works well with video produced on Windows in MPEG-1, MPEG-2, or most AVI formats, but it doesn't work automatically with most video produced on a Macintosh. We've found a way to produce MPEG-1 videos using Final Cut Pro 4.0 or later on the Mac that work with Transana, but we've had a lot less luck with other video editing and manipulation packages. Most Mac users with Mac-produced video are forced to use a workaround involving manual extraction of the video's audio track. We consider this unacceptable, and will not move from Alpha release to Beta or Final release until this problem is resolved.

We think we know how to solve the problem, but lack the funds at the moment to hire the expertise we need to finish the job. If you need Transana for OS/X, please help us fund Transana's ongoing development.

The second known Mac issue is that of RTF export and "round-tripping". Transana can export Transcripts in Rich Text Format, and if these exported transcripts are edited in Word on Windows, they can be re-imported without difficulty or loss of formatting. (This is called round-tripping.) Unfortunately, the RTF produced by Transana interacts oddly with Word on the Mac. The Transana files load into Word without difficulty, but as soon as you save the file within Word, all of the font information will be lost. It will still appear in the Word document, but if you reload what you just saved in Word, (or import it into Transana,) you will see that all of your fonts have been changed to Times. This includes all of the special symbol information used for Jeffersonian transcription. So while it looks like the Transana file gets properly loaded in Word, clearly the font information doesn't get completely internalized by Word on the Mac. To resolve this problem, once you've loaded the file in Word for Mac, choose "Format" > "AutoFormat...", make sure the "AutoFormat now" option is selected, and press "OK" prior to saving your document. Then only text in Courier New font will be changed to Times font, as far as I know.

Please note that Transana for Macintosh OS/X requires OS/X version 10.3 or higher. If you haven't upgraded to "Panther" yet, now might be a good time.

Linux

There are no immediate plans for a Linux release. We don't have the funds to be able to pay someone to do it. However, I've heard rumor that the new video component written for the Mac can be made to work on Linux with only minor modification.

The second issue that needs to be addressed on Linux is that of audio extraction. We think the new system of audio extraction we're currently working on might run on Linux, but we're not really sure what it will take to get it going. Again, a volunteer with Linux development experience could probably address this issue reasonably easily with a little guidance from Jon and me.

Once there is an appropriate Linux video player component and the waveforming infrastructure is in place, the rest of Transana should work on Linux. However, the cross-platform nature of wxPython is not quite perfect, so a small amount of testing and debugging would be required. There are also packaging and distribution issues that would need to be resolved. If someone else writes the video interface and solves the audio extraction problem, we will do the rest.