Qualitative analysis software for video and audio data  
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Release Notes for Archived Versions of Transana

Choose the appropriate version of Transana to see the Release Note:

Version 2.22
Version 2.21
Version 2.20

Version 2.12
Version 2.11
Version 2.10

Version 2.05
Version 2.04
Version 2.03
Version 2.02
Version 2.01
Version 2.0

Version 1.24
Version 1.23
Version 1.22
Version 1.21
Version 1.20
Version 1.11
Version 1.1


Version 2.22

Release 2.22 adds two major functions, several minor features, and a number of important bug fixes.

  • Episode Transcript Change Propagation -- If you edit an episode transcript, you can reflect that change in all clips derived from that portion of that transcript.

    • Just place your transcript cursor within the changed section and press the "Propagate Changes" button in the Transcript Toolbar.

  • Clip Change Propagation -- If you edit a clip's transcript, keywords, or clip ID, you can reflect those changes in all exact copies of the clip.

    • If you edit a clip's Properties, press the "Propagate Changes" button on the Clip Properties form and Clip ID, transcript, and keyword changes will be pushed to all clips with the same (original) Clip ID taken from the same transcript and with the same start and end points.

    • If you load a clip in Transana's main interface and edit its keywords or transcript, pressing the "Propagate Changes" button in the Transcript Toolbar will push the changes out to copies of that clip.

  • A toolbar button has been added to the Transcript Toolbar that allows the display of Time Code Data in human readable form within the transcript.

    Please note that this feature is implemented by simply adding text to the transcript. You should NOT create clips with this feature enabled. However, because of the way clip creation works, it is not practical to disable it automatically during the clip creation process. Clips accidentally created with time code data showing will require manual editing to remove the time code data.

    If time code data is shown when you save a transcript to RTF, the time code data will be visible in the same format in your exported transcript. However, you should be aware that it will not be possible to remove that time code data automatically if you re-import the transcript. (Thanks to the DICA-lab team and the multi-LEARN project at the University of Luxembourg for supporting this project.)

  • The color of Transana's Transcript Highlight has been altered from white text on a dark blue background to black text on a cyan background. This should be more legible, especially when a data projector is being used.

  • Collection IDs now show the full nested collection path in most locations.

  • Episode and Collection Reports that include Clip Keywords now show cumulative time for each keyword in addition to keyword count in the summary section of the report.

  • Episode and Collection Reports that include Clip Transcripts now show an indicator of what transcript the clip was created from. (This is helpful when there are multiple transcripts for a given episode.)

  • When you are creating Quick Clips, Transana no longer automatically expands the database tree to show the new quick clip, as this would often move your keywords out of the visible portion of the Data Window. Users found that this slowed down the Quick Clip process. If you like to see the clips as they are created, have your Quick Clips collection expanded. If you find this disruptive, leave the Quick Clips collection node collapsed.

  • Time Codes are now displayed within the transcript on the Clip Properties form.

  • The maximum size of a Note has been increased from 64KB to a bit over 4 MB.

  • On Windows, release 2.20 added media formats but lost the ability to alter playback speed for formats that used to be supported, due to a bug in the new media control I switched to. For this release, a new parameter has been added to the Transcriber Settings tab for Windows only that allows users to select between supporting more media formats (using the new media control) and having support for playback speed control (using the old media control.)

    If you need speed control, use the old control. If you need WMV or WMA formats, use the new control. If you need speed control with WMV or WMA, you'll need to convert your media files to a format that supports speed control.

  • If you delete a transcript from which clips have been made, those clips are orphaned. You can no longer use the "Locate Clip in Episode" function to discover the clip's context. If you delete the episode record as well as the trancript, the orphaned clips cannot be displayed in episode-based reports, maps, or graphs. Transana now asks if you really want to delete transcripts from which clips have been created. As a general rule, this should be avoided.

  • Clip Data Export now handles Unicode characters that don't fit into the default encoding scheme differently. It used to fail, now it attempts to do character translation.

  • Unfortunately, there is a new bug in wxPython that breaks Print Preview functionality on the Mac. As a result, all Print Preview capability has been temporarily removed from Transana on the Mac. While program flow is a little different in a couple of spots, the overall impact of these changes should be minimal. These changes will be removed when the wxPython bug is fixed.

  • The single-user version of Transana for Mac did not allow non-English characters in the media filenames or paths. This restriction has been removed as obsolete.

  • Note Time Stamps in Transana-MU now automatically show the username of the person who adds the time stamp.

  • The Chat feature in Transana-MU now optionally plays a sound when new messages come in.

  • A Buffer Size parameter has been added for SRB connections. This allows manual selection of a parameter that may affect file transfer speeds depending on internet connection speeds.

  • Bug fixes in this release include:

    • If you choose to delete a collection but then interrupt the process because of the presence of a keyword example, the interruption of the deletion was not handled properly. This left the database in an unstable condition, preventing it from loading correctly and rendering it unusable. (Fortunately, this is a rare sequence in real usage of Transana.)

      If you have a database that was corrupted in this way, please contact me. I can repair it for you quite easily.

    • If, during the process of converting search results to a collection, you ended up with a nested collection that matched your Quick Clips collection name, you could no longer create Quick Clips.

    • If you used "Undo" following deleting a time code, the time code was improperly restored. This could cause a variety of serious problems with the transcript. If you have any transcripts that are not working properly as a result of this problem, please contact me.

    • The Series Keyword Maps and Graphs can get quite large and complex quite quickly. Unfortunately, the capacity to save filter configurations for these maps and graphs was limited by the size of one of the fields in the database. This was reflected in an odd error when trying to load filter configurations where the number of clips exceeded this limit, followed by the failure of the configuration data to load. The size of this database field has been increased.

    • If you selected text that included one or more time codes, then applied formatting using the Transcript toolbar or the formatting shortcut keys, the time code was formatted and the hidden time code data was exposed, sometimes spoiling the time code in the process. This problem has been corrected.

    • If the only change you made to a transcript involved formatting using the toolbar or shortcut keys, transcript changes were not "noticed" by Transana and would be lost if you left Edit mode without explicitly saving.

    • Ctrl-U, the shortcut key for underlining text in the transcript, would change upper case letters in a selection to lower case and remove all formatting from them. This behavior (which comes from the underlying control and not from Transana's code) is now avoided in Transana.

    • If you used "Paste" to create clips following having used "Add Clips," the Add Clip form was given incorrect data. The "Paste" method has been eliminated as a clip creation method.

    • If your transcript requires the use of Word Wrap, typing speeds could become painfully slow. This problem was expecially evident on PowerPC Macs. Several changes were made to reduce typing lag. While the results are not perfect, the problem is largely resolved.

    • If you were editing a keyword label in the data tree to initiate merging of keywords and exited by clicking on another item in the data tree, an odd error message occurred.

    • Unicode did not interact with the Clipboard properly on the Mac.

    • The ".mov" and ".mp4" file extensions were case-sensitive on Windows.

    • The Transcript Window help page was missing a graphic on Windows only.

    • When using Transana-MU in English, trying to change object IDs would cause a Unicode error.

    • The cursor could become trapped inside a time code, between the time code symbol and the time code data, on the Mac. This caused time code data to appear in some clip transcripts and may have caused other problems.

    • One user produced a transcript with one mal-formed time code. I'm still not quite sure how. Transana now scans for mal-formed time codes upon loading transcripts and corrects them if possible.

    • Quick Clip creation got very slow as large numbers of Quick Clips were created. It was quite evident with about 1,500 Quick Clips. This process was optimized to reduce speed problems.

    • On the Keyword Map (and possibly other reports, maps, and graphs,) if you printed, then used the Filter Dialog, then tried to print again, Transana would crash. The cause of this crash has been remedied.

Version 2.21

Version 2.21 introduced the following features:

  • Transana's text-based report infrastructure has been completely revamped.

    • The Series Keyword Usage Report has been renamed the Series Report. It has been made filterable (ie. it now has a filter dialog which allows you to select which data objects to include.)

    • The Episode Keyword Usage Report has been renamed the Episode Report. It has been made filterable and the report contents are configurable.

    • The Collection Keyword Usage Report and the Collection Summary Report have been collaped into a single Collection Report, where the report contents are filterable and the report contents are configurable. Both the Keyword Usage Report and the Collection Summary Report can be created using the Collection Report, but they can also be combined, and a variety of new report structures can be specified.

    • The Episode and Collection Reports configuration options include:

      • Clip Times, Length, Media Filename are now optional.

      • Clip Transcripts and Clip Keywords are independently selectable, so that they can both be included in the same report if desired.

      • Collection and Clip Comments can now be included in the report.

      • Collection and Clip Notes can now be included in the report.

    • Reports for a specific collection can now include clips from nested collections as well. The inclusion of data from nested collections is optional, but the data is included by default.

    • The Collection Report can now be run from the Root Collection node, allowing a report to include all clips in all collections in the entire database.

    • Collections now show the full nested collection path rather than only showing the collection name of the deepest level.

    • Filter Dialogs have been added to most text-based reports, making them much more flexible and customizable.

    • The content of all text-based reports can now be edited manually.

    • The content of all text-based reports can now be exported to Rich Text Format files.

  • Clip Data Export is available in more places.

    • When requested from a Series Node, all clips from all episodes in that series are included.

    • When requested from the Root Collections Node, all clips in all collections can be included.

    • Clips in nested collections can be (optionally) included.

    • Full collection path data is included, instead of listing only the most deeply nested collection's name.

  • Play All Clips has been improved.

    • "Next" and "Previous" buttons have been added, making it easier to skip and repeat clips during Play All Clips.

    • Clips from Nested Collections are now included, following the final clip from the root collection. (Press "Cancel" to stop these clips from being played.)

    • Full Collection path information is displayed during Play All Clips.

  • The Notes Editor has been improved.

    • You can insert a date/time stamp into a Note by pressing the Timestamp button in the Note Editor toolbar or by pressing Ctrl-T.

    • Notes can be exported to Plain Text files.

    • Notes can be printed individually.

    • You can search for text within a note.

  • A new tool, the Notes Browser, has been added. (Tools > Notes Browser) The Notes Browser is designed to allow you to review your analytic notes (analytic memos) easily. (One model for using Notes, the Notes Browser, and the associated Notes Report is described briefly here.)

    • You can review and edit all existing notes in a single interface.

    • You can easily locate a note in the full Database Tree by right-clicking on the Note in the Notes Browser tree and selecting "Locate Note."

    • You can load the Clip that a Clip Note is attached to by right-clicking the Clip Note in the Notes Browser tree and selecting "Load the Associated Clip."

    • You can create a filterable, editable, exportable, printable report containing all (or selected) Series Notes, Episode Notes, Transcript Notes, Collection Notes, Clip Notes or all Notes in the entire database by right-clicking a root node in the Notes Browser tree. That is, right-click "Series," "Episode," Transcript," "Collection," "Clip," or the root Database node in the Notes Browser tree and select "Notes Report."

    • You can search for a word or phrase across all notes in your database using the Note Search tab of the Notes Browser tree.

  • Saved Configurations from Filter Dialogs now save more data. Almost all Report Settings and Options data is saved as part of a Filter Configuration now.

  • Full Collection Path data is now shown on the Keywords tab in the Data Window.

  • You can now import Transcripts that are in Plain Text format in addition to importing RTF files. At present, this only works for files in English, or at least for files that do not include characters outside the English (latin-1 encoding) character set. Users who require import of non-English files should continue to use RTF import instead of plain text.

  • Transana-XML files are now exported with the "*.tra" file extension instead of the "*.xml" file extension. (It will be possible to import these files directly into QDA Data Miner's August 2007 release.)

  • On the Mac, Transana Program Settings are now accessible via Transana > Preferences, rather than through the Options menu. (This is more consistent with the standard Mac interface.)

  • Several bugs have been found and fixed:

    • A variety of problems were discovered regarding the interaction between time codes in the transcript and the clipboard. On the Mac, copying text that included a time code from a transcript to the Mac clipboard caused Transana to crash. On Windows, pasting text with time codes did not work correctly, leading to display problems. Also, this could lead to problems with time code sequencing.

      To prevent these problems, the cut/copy operation now removes time code data on the Mac before text is placed in the clipboard. On Windows, cut/copy allows time code data (so it can be transfered to an external application) but paste removes time code data.

    • Starting with release 2.11, you could not move or change the Sort Order of a Clip that had Clip Notes attached.

    • If your Visualization seletion started at 0.0 seconds, you could not zoom in on a selection in the Visualization Window.

    • If you changed the Starting Point on one of the Maps or Graphs and had Vertical Grid Lines enabled, the initial grid line was being drawn at 0.0 rather than at the specified starting point.

    • If you turned off Color Output on one of the Maps or Graphs, then closed it, the next Map or Graph you created would not receive proper color assigments then the Color Output option was re-enabled.

    • Video Playback could get very rough and choppy if too complex a Keyword or Hybrid Visualization was displayed.

    • If you had a blank note, one without any text in it, this caused problems for database export.

    • A some obscure problem with color during RTF Export was fixed.

    • There were some character encoding issues with the various Maps and Graphs, particularly mouse-overs and filter dialogs, when non-English characters were used in keywords, collection ids, or clip ids. These encoding problems have been resolved.

    • Some difficulties with renaming and deleting object containing non-English characters in the object IDs were fixed.

    • In the multi-user version of Transana, deleting a Keyword in the Keyword Manager did not properly trigger the update of the Keyword Visualization on other computers.

    • On the Mac, File > Printer Setup and Transcript > Printer Setup did not function. These menu items have been fixed.

    • On the Mac, if you tried to search Help, the Help system crashed. This has been fixed.

    • The Mac-Intel version of Transana had problems with non-English prompts and non-English database names. These Unicode problems have been resolved.

  • We were unable to get updates for the Dutch and Russian translations in time for this release. The Dutch translation has been dropped until we can get an update. The Russian translation, while incomplete, has been retained in the single-user version of Transana on Windows, as removing it would make it impossible for people who used it in previous versions of single-user Transana on Windows to access their data properly.

    If you would be interested in volunteering to update either of these translations, or to do a translation for another language, please contact David Woods by e-mail.

Version 2.20

Version 2.20 introduced the following features:

  • The "copy and paste" (non-"drag and drop") method of clip creation has been streamlined. The "Select Clip Text" button in the transcript toolbar (which triggered a "Copy" action) has been eliminated. You no longer use "Paste" to create the clip, but instead use the "Add Clip" right-click menu option for collections or clips in the data window.

    You can see a demonstration of the revised methods for creating clips in the Clip Creation ScreenCast.

    • On Windows:
      • You can highlight text in the transcript, then right-click a collection and select "Add Clip" to add a clip to the end of the clip list. (This replaces "Select Clip Text" and "Paste".)

      • You can highlight text in the transcript, then right-click a clip and select "Add Clip" to add a clip in that position in the clip list. (This replaces "Select Clip Text" and "Paste".)

      • You can highlight text in the transcript and drag it onto a collection to add a clip to the end of the clip list. (This is unchanged.)

      • You can highlight text in the transcript and drag it onto a clip to add a clip in that position in the clip list. (This is unchanged.)

    • On OS X:
      • You can highlight text in the transcript, then right-click a collection and select "Add Clip" to add a clip to the end of the clip list. (This replaces "Select Clip Text" and "Paste".)

      • You can highlight text in the transcript, then right-click a clip and select "Add Clip" to add a clip in that position in the clip list. (This replaces "Select Clip Text" and "Paste".)

  • Quick Clip creation has been refined. The "Quick Clips Mode" option has been eliminated on OS X and has a more limited scope of influence on Windows than in previous Transana releases.

    • On Windows:
      • You can highlight text in the transcript and drag it onto a keyword to create a Quick Clip. This option is similar to the creation of regular clips. "Quick Clips Mode" does not affect this method of Quick Clip creation. (This is new.)

      • If "Quick Clips Mode" in the "Options" menu is checked, you can highlight text in the transcript, then drag a keyword from the data window onto the transcript. (If "Quick Clips Mode" is not checked, this action will assign the keyword to the transcript's parent episode or clip.) Some have argued that this is a more ergonomic action than the option above. (This is unchanged.)

      • You can highlight text in the transcript, then right-click a Keyword in the Data Window and select "Create Quick Clip" from the menu. "Quick Clips Mode" does not affect this method of Quick Clip creation. (This is changed only in that you do not need to select "Quick Clips Mode" any more for this option to be available.)

    • On OS X:

      • You can highlight text in the transcript, then right-click a Keyword in the Data Window and select "Create Quick Clip" from the menu. (This is changed only in that you do not need to select "Quick Clips Mode" any more for this option to be available.)

  • Transana's Audio Extraction code has been replaced with all new code. Therefore, the Mac release of Transana is now a full release, not an Alpha Test release.
  • Transana's Media Player code has been significantly upgraded. As a result, we now support a number of additional media formats:

    • QuickTime *.mov video and *.mp4 video now work with Transana on both Windows and Mac.

    • Windows Media *.wmv video and *.wma audio now work with Transana on Windows.

    • Additional audio and video formats MAY work, depending upon format, platform, codecs, and individual installations. Just give it a try. If it works, please report the details (format, platform, etc.) to me via e-mail.
  • New Visualizations have been added. Visualizations are selected by going to the Options menu and choosing a Visualization Style.

    • The Keyword Visualization shows how an Episode or Clip has been coded.

    • The Hybrid Visualization shows both the waveform and keyword placement information.

    • A Filter Dialog has been added to the Visualization Window, allowing customization of the information included in the Keyword Visualization.

  • Series Keyword Graphs have been added, allowing you to look for change over time in the distribution of coding across Episodes in a Series.

    • The Sequence Graph shows keyword usage across Episodes in a Series.

    • The Bar Graph shows total keyword usage across Episodes in a Series.

    • The Percentage Graph shows the same data as the Bar Graph, but in a normalized form.

  • You can now export select data from Transana to a tab-delimited text file suitable for import into SPSS, Excel, and other programs. See the"Clip Data Export" page in the Transana Manual for more information.

  • A Text Search box is now included in the Transcript Toolbar. This allows you to search for text in the currently-loaded transcript.

  • You can now merge Keywords. If you conclude that two of your keywords really represent the same concept, simply rename one to match the other.

  • The Batch Waveform Generator has been improved to make it easier to select multiple video files from the same folder.

  • Several configuration options have been added to the Keyword Map. You can now configure the height of the bars and the amount of whitespace between items, and you can choose to have grid lines displayed. The "Time Range" tab on the Filter Dialog was changed to "Options" when these additional options were added.

  • You can now print the Keyword Map in Landscape format on the Mac. There used to be no way to specify this, but now you can. (We replaced Printer Setup with Page Setup on the Keyword Map report screen.)

  • The Clip Properties dialog and the Keyword List Edit dialog now retain size changes within a given Transana session. This was requested by several users with very long keywords.

  • Deleting a Keyword or a Keyword Group no longer clears the Transcript or Clip you are working on from the Transana main display.

  • If you are running Transana-MU on the same computer where you host your MySQL database, you can now see the work of others working on the same database. Transana-MU will see that you are connecting to"localhost" and will prompt you for the name for your computer used by others.

  • Several bugs have been fixed and other problems resolved.

    • You can now select text in a Transcript from right to left or from bottom to top. In the previous release, Transana cleared selections that were not made in a left to right, top to bottom manner.

    • When creating a clip from another clip, if no time code preceded the transcript selection, the new clip was given the incorrect start time of 0:00 rather than the correct start time of the original clip's start time.

    • If you have a time-coded Transcript that exceeds your video file, you could still create clips without valid media in previous Transana releases. The clip start and stop times would be invalid, and such clips could not of course be loaded and played. This caused a host of problems. Such clips can no longer be created. If you currently have such clips in your database, please delete them.

    • If you loaded a Clip and put its transcript into Edit mode, then pressed the Edit Keywords button in the Transcript Toolbar, errors occurred and you could lose your edits. The underlying conflicts that caused this have been fixed.

    • If you tried to add a Transcript Note while you had a transcript in Edit Mode, you would see a strange error message when trying to save your transcript, and the changes would not be saved. (If you immediately re-entered Edit Mode and saved, no data would be lost.) This bug has been fixed.

    • Sporadic character encoding issues during XML Import have been resolved.

    • If an Episode or Transcript is deleted, Clips that have been created from it will be orphaned. In previous Transana releases, you could not edit the properties of these orphaned Clips.

    • Transana-MU's Record Lock Report now automatically clears the Transana Main Screen, preventing the current user from retaining legitimate record locks, which if cleared by the Record Lock Report could present problems with saving.

    • If you left Transana-MU idle too long, you could lose your connection to the database. Recovery was not smooth, and people sometimes lost edits to transcripts. Transana now more aggressively tries to retain its connection to the database.

    • A change in Transana 2.12 caused problems reporting errors connecting to the Transana database in Transana-MU. Database connection error messages are reported correctly during program startup again.

    • In Transana Message Server version 2.12 and earlier, the Database Host/DNS field was case-sensitive. This meant that two Transana-MU instances could connect to the same host and database but not be able to see each other due to case differences. This has been corrected with Message Server 2.20.

    • Microsoft has apparently changed the way they encode their RTF documents in the latest version of Word, particularly on the Mac, rendering them incompatible with Transana's RTF Import code. Some adjustments have been made. However, I doubt that our updates are comprehensive, and some problems may persist. If you have difficulty importing RTF documents into Transana, please contact me.

Version 2.12

Version 2.12 introduced the following features:

  • A bug prevented people using Transana in languages other than English from creating Quick Clips. This has been fixed.

  • A bug prevented people from inserting additional time codes in segments of transcripts that contained the ">" symbol. This was fixed.

  • MySQL was imposing a limit of 1 MB on Transcript objects. This was causing problems importing large RTF files and dealing with very long transcripts. If the 1 MB limit was exceeded, database corruption occurred, rendering the Transcript object unusable. It could also not be deleted. The size limit has been increased to 8 MB.

    If you experienced database problems because of this bug, I can repair your database. Please contact me for assistance.

  • SRB error messages were not being properly reported during file transfer. This problem has been fixed.

  • The installer on the Mac was not functioning properly for users with Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger). Transana appeared to install, but would not run. This problem has been resolved.

  • In the multi-user version, the Transana Message Server was treating database names as if they were case sensitive. Thus, if one user connected to "Transana_Data" and the other connected to "transana_data" on the same server, they would share data but the Message Server would not recognize them as being connected to the same database, so they did not see each other's changes. This has been fixed with the release of a new Transana Message Server.

Version 2.11

Version 2.11 introduced the following features:

  • To make a selection in the Visualization Window, you can now click on the starting point of your selection and hold down the Shift key while clicking to select the ending point. This allows easier modification of a selection in the waveform. Click once a the start, and use repeated shift-clicks until you find the correct ending point.

  • There are new ways to control the video position from the Visualization Window.

    • When the Visualization Window has the program focus, you can use cursor left and cursor right to move the visualization cursor one pixel. (The amount of time this movement represents depends on the length of the current video, the width of the visualization window on screen, and the level of zoom of the visualization window.) If one pixel would be less than a single frame of the video, the video position will shift by one full frame.

    • If you hold down the Shift key while pressing the cursor keys, you move the video in one second increments.

    • If you hold down the Alt key, the video moves in 1/2 second increments.

    • If you hold down the Ctrl key, the video moves by 1/30th of a second, or one frame under the NTSC standard.

  • You can now create clips using an open coding approach. That is, there is now a mechanism for creating simple clips quickly and easily in the early parts of an analysis. See the "Quick Clips" page in the Transana tutorial for more information about this feature.

  • A number of enhancements for the keyword map have been implemented:

    • As you move your mouse over a colored band in the keyword map, the name and duration of the clip(s) represented by that band are displayed in a hint popup.

    • Left-click a band to load the appropriate clip and close the keyword map.

    • Right-click a band to load the appropriate clip and leave the keyword map open.

    • If multiple clips overlap on the keyword map, this is now indicated by a multi-colored band.

    • You can select what keywords are included or excluded from the report (keyword filtering).

    • You can alter the order that keywords appear in the report (keyword ordering).

    • You can alter what clips are included in the keyword map (clip filtering).

    • You can specify a time range within the Episode for display. This makes short Clips in long Episodes much easier to see and interpret.

    • You can save and re-load "Filter Configurations" for the keyword map, allowing you to create reusable report templates.

    • The keyword map now displays bands in 23 colors, up from 12. (A couple of the greens can be a bit difficult to distinguish on a poorly adjusted monitor. Sorry about that.)

  • When loading a clip through the Episode Clips tab and the Selected Clips tab in the Data Window, the appropriate clip record is highlighted in the Database Tree tab, making the manipulation of the identified clips more convenient.

  • During Transcription, you can now save your transcript by pressing F12.

  • Database loading has been optimized. One multi-user database used for testing showed a decrease in loading time from 35 seconds to 0.33 seconds.

  • A few new colors have been added to the Transcript Font options.

  • Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Ny-norsk translations have been added. (We offer our sincere thanks to Dan Jacobsen for this.)

  • Numerous bugs, most of them obscure and unreported, have been fixed. Some of these were never public, but occurred when we upgraded wxPython. Others can be observed in the 2.10 release series.

    • Field length limits are now enforced on all Properties forms. (If you had multiple clips that had the same first 100 characters in the Clip ID, bad things could happen.)

    • If the user clicked on the time code symbol when making a selection for a clip, the transcript cursor could get "caught" between the time code symbol and the time code data. If you see a clip that starts with time code data (the "<" and ">" characters with numbers in between), it is likely that the clip has the wrong clip start time.

    • Creating a clip from within another clip was fixed.

    • Problems detecting Time Codes on the Mac during RTF and Transana XML import were fixed.

    • There was a problem with some style creation on the Mac, making it difficult to select some font colors.

    • There was a problem updating the Video Root directory with some legacy databases.

    • The Chat Window now reflects changes in interface language.

    • Database Export now works in languages other than English.

    • Editing or removing Clip Keywords via the Keywords Tab caused ugly error messages if the Clip Transcript was in Edit Mode. The error messages are much clearer now.

    • Keyword Group error checking has been improved. Case differences are now ignored. Illegal characters such as parentheses and colons are now prevented better.

    • Keywords with colons (":") embedded in them could not be removed from Episodes or Clips. This has been fixed.

    • Occasionally, a Clip would be prematurely terminated following Pause in the Play All Clips routine. This has been fixed.

    • In Transana-MU, Clip Transcripts would not re-load properly following Multi-user edit conflicts.

    • In Transana-MU, changes in Episode and Clip Keywords by one user were not being reflected on the Keywords tab of other users. If user 1 was viewing the Keywords tab when user 2 made changes, then user 1 made changes, user 2's changes would be lost.

    • In Transana-MU, drag-and-drop keyword assignment was not reporting keyword assignment failures due to record locks. Thus, a user could believe a keyword had been assigned when in fact it hadn't because of a record lock problem. Cut-and-paste keyword assignment reported the error awkwardly.

    • In Transana-MU, if one user is editing an object's properties, including the object's ID, when another user saves an object properties edit that changes the selection in the database tree for the first user, the wrong tree node on screen will be updated when the first user saves for all users. (The actual data objects will be saved correctly in the database. Only the database tree on screen will be incorrect. Restarting Transana-MU resolves the problem.) This problem has been corrected by ensuring that the current selection in the database tree is not altered when other users make changes that affect the tree.

Version 2.10

Version 2.10 introduced the following features:

  • Transcript loads and saves are now much faster. We see speed improvements of 95% in transcript loads. Please note that a transcript must be loaded once to be converted before speed improvements will be observable.

  • A multi-user version of Transana based on the Open Source code is now available. This brings all of the improvements seen in the single-user version of Transana since version 1.24 to the users of the collaborative version.

  • Transana now supports Unicode, more or less.

    All of the source code for Transana has been updated to handle Unicode, and this has led to a number of improvements in Transana, such as the ability to handle Unicode media file names. However, technical problems outside of our control limit this to some degree.

    The multi-user Windows version uses UTF-8 encoding, so supports use in most languages. The single-user Windows version requires the explicit specification of an encoding due to problems with the integration of the embedded MySQL database. We've enabled encodings for Russian, Chinese and Japanese. We tried to add Korean as well, but were foiled by a bug in the wxPython Styled Text Control, which is the basis for our Transcription Window.

    The Mac OS X versions of Transana are limited in their Unicode implementation due to internal problems with the wxPython Styled Text Control. Therefore, use in many non-Romance languages is limited to Windows at this time.

  • Transana (on Windows) now includes a Russian translation, thanks to Viktor Ignatjev, and supports Cyrillic character encoding. The single-user version on Windows now has explicit language modes for Chinese and Japanese data, though we do not have translations of the Transana prompts in those langauges yet.

  • Some of the logic for clearing Transana's windows when the user deletes a data object was revised. For example, deleting a Clip no longer clears the Transcript you are currently working from.

  • Additional waveforming routines have been added to the Windows versions of Transana, allowing wave extraction for media files that contain Unicode characters. In addition, some *.avi files created on a Mac now work on Windows. We continue to work on bringing these improvements to the Mac.

  • Transana now works with Storage Resource Broker version 3.3.1. Also, the way Transana connects to other users' SRB data was revised to make video sharing easier.

  • Numerous bugs, most of them obscure and unreported, have been fixed.

    • Clip notes would disappear when clips were moved. (They would re-appear when Transana was restarted. No data was ever lost.)

    • Problems with clip sort order following the deletion of some clips in a collection were resolved.

    • Problems with Episode Date Taped and with Core Data Date were resolved.

    • The Series Keyword Usage Report on the Mac was fixed to properly display Search Results nodes.

    • In Windows, visual feedback when dragging and dropping Search Results Collections and Clips has been improved.

    • Moving clips that are keyword examples caused the link to the keyword example to be broken until Transana was restarted. This has been fixed.

    • Clicking on the Visualization window no longer ignores the Auto Word-Tracking setting.

    • SRB folders are now displayed properly on the Mac.

    • The Refresh button now works for SRB file lists.

    • Cancelling a file move between the local file system and the SRB no longer causes the source file to be improperly deleted.

    • Using the File Management tool caused Help to be unable to find the Help files. This has been fixed.

Version 2.05

Transana 2.05 introduces the following features:

- A "Delete Database" function has been added.

- Numerous improvements have been made in handling fonts during transcription:

  • Support for font size has been added to the Transcription component.
  • A default font face and font size can now be specified for new Transcripts.
  • The font dialog has been completely rewritten. This is especially significant on the Macintosh, were you can now properly select fonts.
  • A new model for font formatting has been implemented. You can now alter some character formatting characteristics without accidentally changing others. This is significant when editing transcript selections where some font characteristics could be mixed within the selection.

- Support for Danish has been added.

- Numerous bugs and issues have been fixed:

  • Several RTF Import features have been improved. RTF files created on the Mac can now be imported. Font Formatting problems have been resolved.
  • Ctrl-S no longer moves the cursor position during editing on the Mac.
  • Clicking in the Waveform no longer crashes the program when a language other than English is selected.
  • The Search Dialog no longer allows the illegal specification of "()".
  • Ctrl-A now sets the video position to "0:00:00.0" when pressed in a video positioned at less than "0:00:10.0" seconds.
  • Leaving the Clip ID off a new Clip now has a better error message.
  • When using the "Select Clip Text" button to create Clips, you can now select "Add Clip" as well as "Paste" in the Collection's right-click menu.
  • The Database Selection dialog box sizes properly for languages other than English.
  • You can now use the Delete key to remove keywords from the Episode Properties dialog, the Clip Properties dialog, and the Edit Keywords dialog.
  • "Save Transcript As" now prompts you before overwriting an RTF file.
  • The Transcript Cursor is restored following Font selection or editing.
  • Transcripts can now include "{", "}", "/", and "\" characters.
  • "Print Transcript" now includes edits that have not yet been saved.
  • You now get a warning message if you try to select a media filename that includes characters not found in English. (I have been unable to resolve the problems that currently prevent Transana from being able to actually work with such files.)
  • The style of the line numbers no longer changes when the 33rd character format style is defined.

Version 2.04?

Transana 2.04 introduces the following features:

  • Transana 2.04 introduces the "Select Clip Text" button on the Transcript toolbar in both the Macintosh and Windows versions of Transana. You can now create a clip by highlighting the desired text in a transcript, pressing the "Select Clip Text" button in the transcript toolbar, then right-clicking the desired target collection and selecting "Paste" from the popup menu. Please see the tutorial and help pages for more details.
  • The mechanism for editing the properties of currently-loaded transcripts and clips was improved.
  • Search results are now displayed in reverse chronological order rather than alphabetic order.
  • A bug in previous Transana 2.0x releases that kept episode keywords from being deleted when an episode was deleted was fixed. The only known side effect of this bug is that Transana XML files exported from databases where episodes with keywords have been deleted will require minor editing before they can be re-imported.
  • Dutch and Swedish translations have been added.

Version 2.03

Transana 2.03 fixes the import of Conversation-Analytic transcripts that use the ">" character, which were not displaying properly. It fixes another RTF import issue, and changes the default font for transcripts to 10 point Courier New from 12 point Arial. This fixed-point font is considered more useful to some transcribers.

Version 2.02

Transana 2.02 again fixes bugs. The major change with this version is that Windows Me and Windows 98 Second Edition are now supported.

Version 2.01

Transana 2.01 is primarily a bug-fix release. The only significant change in functionality is that you no longer need to be so careful to exclude time codes at the beginning and end of you selection when creating Clips. Now, time codes at the start and end of the selection are excluded during Clip creation.

Version 2.0

Enhancements introduced in Transana 2.0 include:

  • Well, everything, actually. Transana has been completely re-written from the ground up. But the rest of this list will be dedicated to what's DIFFERENT from Transana 1.24.
  • It is now easier to create and work with multiple databases, allowing you to create different databases for different purposes. In fact, when you first start Transana 2.0, you are asked to select a database. If you don't have one already, just type in a name for your database and it will be created.
  • The Transcription component has been completely rewritten. All known bugs and major annoyances in the old Transcription component have been resolved. However, the feature set was not expanded to support images, tables, spell checking, or other features that have been requested over the years. (However, the changes we implemented make some of these possible in a way they weren't with the old component.) There are some new limitations in the new Transcription Component, such as a maximum of 256 formatting styles, and the (temporary) inability to alter font size. Ultimately, from my point of view, the new Transcription component represents a major improvement over the old one in terms of the ease of transcription.
  • Shortcut keys have been added for Jeffersonian Transcription Symbols, Ctrl-Cursor Up for Rising Intonation, Ctrl-Cursor Down for Falling Intonation, Ctrl-H for Audible Breath, and Ctrl-O for Whispered Speech.
  • You can now move Clips as well as copy them. To follow Windows' conventions, drag a Clip to move it, Ctrl-drag a Clip to copy it.
  • "Cut", "Copy", and "Paste" menu items have been added to the Database Window's right-click menus. This allows an alternate to Drag-and-Drop, and is useful when you have a lot of objects in your database.
  • During "Play All Clips", the Clip Keywords tab is now automatically displayed in the Data Windows. This helps the researchers see an overview of the keywords used in the Clips within the Collection being played.
  • * Search Results now act a lot more like Collections. You can view reports on them, Play All Clips for them, move Clips around, rename things, etc. This allows you to see if what your search has produced is meaningful before converting the Search Results into a Collection, and allows you to do more analytic manipulation of Search Results to see if you come up with something analytically meaningful.
  • You can now add Notes to Transcript Objects. Just right-click a Transcript in the Database Window and choose "Add Transcript Note".
  • The "Keyword Map" has been added to Episode Objects in the Database Window. The Keyword Map is a graphical representation of where keywords have been applied to an Episode. (This used to be available only as a stand-alone add-on for the multi-user version.)
  • Iterative Coding is now possible. That is, you can now make Clips from other, larger Clips.
  • You can now set a "Video Root Folder" in Program Settings. This allows for easier sharing of data and video.
  • Database Export and Import have been added. You can now export your Transana Database to a Transana XML document, and you can import that Transana XML document on another computer or into another Transana database.
  • The tutorial has been edited extensively to make it easier to follow.
  • The menus have been reorganized and Program Settings and Options have been consolidated. Note especially that most options have been moved to the Option menu; the Transcriber Settings dialog was improved and was moved under Program Options; and "Change Database" was moved to the File menu.
  • Transana is now ready for non-English translations. Note that
    French, German, Italian, and Spanish language support is provided. Danish, Dutch, and Swedish translations are almost complete. Norwegian and Polish translations are in the works. Transana is immediately ready to accept translations in Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Polish, Russian, and Swedish. Many, though not all, other languages can be implemented relatively easily as well. We are looking for volunteers to do translations.
  • Transana is now covered by the GNU-GPL, a General Public License that gives you the right to distribute the software as long as you follow the rules spelled out in the GPL. It also gives you the right to download and edit the source code for Transana if you wish, again subject to the terms of the GPL. Neither Transana nor the GPL provide any sort of warranty for the program.

Version 1.24

Transana's File Management Utility can now access Storage Resource Broker servers running SRB version 3.1

Version 1.23

One bug was discovered and fixed. Creation of a Clip during the transcription process rendered the insertion of Time Codes in the Episode Transcript after the end of the Clip impossible. The error message stated you could not insert the time code.

Version 1.22

Enhancements introduced in Transana 1.22 include:

  • The MPEG-2 and AVI Video formats are now fully supported. Transana 1.22 can create waveforms for these video formats without the use of an external program to perform Waveform extraction.
  • The File Management Utility now works with SRB 2.0 servers.
  • Several "issues" (bugs) in Transana 1.21 were discovered during the Transana 1.22 release testing process. I can only conclude that these bugs are obscure and/or subtle, as no one reported them before I found them. For more information, please see the "Issues, Bugs, and Suggestions" page under "Program Support".

Version 1.21

Enhancements introduced in Transana 1.21 include:

  • The File Management Utility has been modified to allow users to access Collections on a Storage Resource Broker that belong to other SRB Users, when permission has been granted in the SRB.
  • The File Management Utility Help button has been repaired.

Version 1.20

- Transana's Search capability has been improved. You can now specify more complex searches, and can use parentheses and the NOT logical operator in specifying searches.

- Support for Nested Collections has been added, allowing greater flexibility in organizing Clips.

- Clips now understand "Sort Order", easing the process of Case Development and allowing more control over Collections.

- More Shortcut Keys have been added to aid Transcription:

  • Ctrl-F will "Fast Forward" the video by 10 seconds.
  • Ctrl-A will "Rewind" the video by 10 seconds.
  • Ctrl-D will pause and restart the video without using Transana's "auto-rewind" feature.
  • Ctrl-B will Bold text.
  • Ctrl-I will Italicize text.
  • Ctrl-U will Underline text.

- Analytic Keyword Enhancements include:

  • Keyword Definitions can now be given to Keywords
  • Keyword Example Clips can be assigned to Keywords
  • You can now copy Keywords between groups via drag-and-drop
  • You can now edit Keywords and move them from one Keyword Group to another
  • The Keyword Summary Report lists all keywords with their definitions
  • The Keyword Usage Report for a Series lists all Keywords used for all contained Episodes with summary counts.
  • The Keyword Usage Report for an Episode lists all Keywords used for all Clips created from that Episode with summary counts.
  • The Keyword Usage Report for a Collection lists all Keywords used for all contained Clips with summary counts

-Media Format Enhancements include:

  • Waveform Support for *.mp3 and *.wav audio files
  • Additional video and audio formats, such as MPEG-2 and AVI, supported without Waveforms

- Configuration Enhancements include:

  • You can now set up and use separate databases for separate projects
  • You can now change the Waveform Directory

- Multi-user version (Transana-MU) Enhancements include:

  • When one user changes the Data Tree, all users see the change immediately and automatically
  • Multiple users can share Waveforms
  • Users can connect from outside Network Boundaries with properly configured servers (although they must have a copy of the video files available locally because of bandwidth issues)
  • "Chat" feature to facilitate real-time collaboration over a distance

Version 1.11

- Relationship between Episode and Clip

  • Database window renamed "Data Window"
  • Database Tree placed on the "Database" tab
  • All Clips created from an Episode listed on the "Episode Clips" tab in Start Time order
  • All Clips that contain the currently-highlighted Episode Transcript section listed on the "Selection Clips" tab
  • Double-click a Clip on the Episode Clips or Selection Clips tabs to load that clip
  • All Keywords assigned to the currently-loaded Episode or Clip displayed on the "Keywords" tab
  • Right-Click a Clip on the Database tab and select "Locate Clip in Episode", and Transana will load the originating Episode and position the video at the Clip's beginning point

- Keyword Assignment

  • Clip Add/Properties screen widened
  • Assign a Keyword by dragging it from the Database Tree to the Episode or Clip Transcript
  • Edit Keywords for the loaded Episode or Clip via the Data Window "Keywords" tab (see above)
  • "Edit Keywords" speed button added to the Transcript Window Tool Bar
  • Episode Keywords assigned to new Clips as "default" keywords

- Presentation Mode

  • Full-screen video only playback
  • Video and Transcript only playback

- Miscellaneous

  • Insert a Time Code by pressing Ctrl-T in the Transcript
  • Ctrl-Right-Click in a Transcript to play from the selected point to the end of the current Episode or Clip
  • File | New clears all windows
  • Transcript Selection that crosses time codes preserved following transcript-right-click playback
  • If you have not entered an Episode ID when you select a Video File while adding an Episode, the Episode ID will default to the Video's File Name
  • Transcription Notation Help added (Jeffersonian Symbols)
  • Manual updated
  • Tutorial updated
  • Several bugs discovered and fixed

Version 1.1

  • Transana now runs under Windows XP
  • Transana-MU, the multi-user version is now available
  • New Database structure with numeric keys
  • A "Collection Summary Report" is now available, which includes Clip Video and Transcript information
  • Notes are now resizable and scrollable.
  • New Waveform creation system with a functioning progress bar
  • Media Types allowed in Episode Definition have been refined
  • File Management has improved error checking, trapping, and messages
  • "Yes to all" option added to deletes in File Management
  • WCER's SRB instance is the default SRB rather than SDSC's
  • SRB to SRB file replication is now supported by File Management
  • File Management SRB Upload speed improved by 66-100%
  • "Auto-arrange" option added, supporting multiple monitors and non-default media player sizing
  • Help Screens for Keyword Management and all Add/Properties pages have been added
  • User can now access Keyword Management from the Episode and Clip Add/Properties screens
  • Dublin Core Metadata for video files added, accessible from the Episode Add/Properties screen

 

  
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