A few minor changes

This would probably be the last update of CasualConc this year.

I made a few minor cosmetic changes and fixed a few minor bugs. The latest version is 0.9.9.2. If you don't have any problem with 0.9.9.1, you don't need to update to this version. I just wanted to make the changes before I forget.

Happy new year!!

Bug fix and few final touch to CasualTranscriber

I found a bug when I was showing it to someone today. When I added a function to dynamically change menu items based on Preference settings (App Mode), I set some of them to turn off when they should be on. I think I fixed this. I also changed the time stamp insertion. I finally figured out how to override link clicking behavior (links open with a browser by default). So now you can click time stamp on the Editor to go to the time on the movie/sound clip. You can still select the time code and use shortcut (you don't need to use a mouse in this way). The latest version is 0.9.9.1.

But today, my friend showed me there IS software just like CasualTranscriber... It is called InqScribe. Well, what's shocking was it looks almost the same as CasualTranscriber. I mean the layout, functions, etc. I haven't tried it (it's $99 with 30-day free trial, $39 for students), so I don't know how good it is, but it would probably better considering its price and how much time I spent on CasualTranscriber (less than three weeks). So if you are more interested in adding subtitles, you might want to take a look at it. Probably the only advantage of CasualTranscriber is the cost...

Anyway, if you try CasualTranscriber, I'd really like to hear from you. And because there aren't many users (prabably only a few), your feature request might be taken seriously unless it's too complicated for me to handle.

CasualTranscriber Development is wrapping up

I worked on CasualTranscriber a little more and I finally found a major source of crash. It crashes less now (I hope). I also added a separate player in case someone might want to use controller for your movie playback (such as in class). I also found that OS X can handle MS Word format (only text), so I added a function to handle MS Word document.

I personally think this is a program to help transcription and adding subtitles is a secondary feature, but I looks like my friend uses this primarily for adding subtitles. So I spent a little more time to add subtitles in a different format (not as a text track).

I hope this program is useful for more people. Intended users are language teachers and conversation analysts.

Bug fixes to CasualTranscriber

Thanks to my friend who is testing CasualTranscriber, I was able to fix many bugs. The program is still not totally stable, but it sounds like it is usable. I implemented almost all the features I can think of (or I can manage) now and from now on I'll fix bugs and might add some features if I get feedback. The current version is 0.6, but it just means I've made some significant changes 6 times since I started working on this.

In any case, if you ever use it and find any bugs or think of something very cool, please let me know. I'm not sure what I do next, but I don't get much feedback, so I don't know what I should do with CasualConc. I want to make it handle 2-byte languages better and possible add parallel concordancing, but it takes time to think about how to implement them. I have a few more ideas about small programs, but maybe I have to get more serious about my own work...

CasualTranscriber

I know there are not so many people (probably only few mostly I personally know) have tried CasualTranscriber. It's still very early in development, but I've basically rewritten the program from a window-based to a document-based application. Now it deals a rich text or plain text file just like a text editor or word processor. When you close a window, that means you close the document on it.

In addition to the original features (shortcut control of movie/sound clip and extraction of a selected part), you can add chapters, extract a frame image, add subtitles, use the application just as a player, etc. I can't list all the features, but they are all on the new CasualConc site under Utility Programs. Some of the features (esp. adding subtitles) are still experimental and the application itself is not as stable as I want it to be (so now it has an autosave function). This is partly because I'm still new to QTKit (QuickTime Took Kit) and not all QuickTime functions are not avaiable via QTKit. I'm using RubyCocoa, which is a bridge between Ruby, a scripting language, and Cocoa, Mac's application foramework, so there is another layer of issues there.

I want to make this program easy to use for teachers and researchers (to-be) who need to transcribe conversations, speech, movie clips, etc. for teaching/researching. And if you ever use this, I'd really appreciate your feedback.