HermeneutiX: a software tool for semantic structure analysis

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Carsten Englert
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HermeneutiX: a software tool for semantic structure analysis

Post by Carsten Englert »

Hi folks,

I feel kinda odd since there is no sugarcoating it: I am advertising the freeware tool I created with a friend of mine. :geek:
But since it´s free of charge and my hope is just that someone benefits from the work we put into it...

At the same time I´m coming with a question to you: Might this be a helpful tool or does it lack any important feature?

Just see for yourself.
HermeneutiX was designed to help in the creation of syntactic and semantic structure analysis (with its focus on bible texts). It does not aim at computer aided translation or automatic tagging of texts. There are already enough tools a lot more sophisticated than ours for that.
It just tries to simplify and standardize the creation process. And since it has a light weight exchange file format you can discuss about your analysis and email each other these projects files for changing or just adding comments. We already tested it for a few years with some students and their prof. Heinrich v. Siebenthal at the Giessen School of Theology where it was already used successfully in the greek and hebrew lectures.

You can download it at SourceForge and because I just finished writing an overview there in the integrated project wiki you might as well check it out on your own.

I would really appreciate it if some of you would take some time to browse the wiki article or just try it out.
I hereby ask for your opinion on HermeneutiX and your forgiveness for advertising so boldly.
Carsten Englert
- Project Admin of HermeneutiX (tool for syntactic/semantic structure analysis) hosted on SourceForge
Carsten Englert
Posts: 8
Joined: December 5th, 2013, 5:55 pm
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Re: HermeneutiX: a software tool for semantic structure anal

Post by Carsten Englert »

Hello again,

its been almost two weeks now and a some of you already downloaded HermeneutiX (according to the slightly increased download statistics).

A few minutes ago I uploaded a new release 1.1 containing all additional features I could think of by myself, that might be of use.
Now I am out of new ideas and can only emphasize my need of feedback.

The last idea I got at the moment is enabling standard bible xml formats to be accepted as input (are there any you might want to be included?) or using an automatic tokenizer - which I would have to find in Java (or compatible way), because I will certainly not implement a new one.

Anyway... please help me by giving at least short feedback.
  • What is your first impression?
  • Is the documentation in the wiki sufficient?
  • Do you have any unanswered questions (concerning HermeneutiX, its functions, documentation, me^^)?
Carsten Englert
- Project Admin of HermeneutiX (tool for syntactic/semantic structure analysis) hosted on SourceForge
Jonathan Robie
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Re: HermeneutiX: a software tool for semantic structure anal

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Would syntax trees with morphology be helpful for you?

https://github.com/biblicalhumanities/g ... ees/sblgnt

We do not yet have that for Hebrew.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
cwconrad
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Re: HermeneutiX: a software tool for semantic structure anal

Post by cwconrad »

Carsten Englert wrote:You can download it at SourceForge and because I just finished writing an overview there in the integrated project wiki you might as well check it out on your own..
I downloaded this when it was first announced -- the Mac app -- and was unable to open it after extracting it rom the .dmg file. I tried again today with the same results. Don't know what the problem is.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
MAubrey
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Re: HermeneutiX: a software tool for semantic structure anal

Post by MAubrey »

Just curious, but what motivated you to choose SSA?
Mike Aubrey, Linguist
SIL International
Koine-Greek.com
Carsten Englert
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Re: HermeneutiX: a software tool for semantic structure anal

Post by Carsten Englert »

@Jonathan: I might allow those xml sources as an input for HermeneutiX, thereby using the tokenized texts and (maybe later) the syntactic functions as well.
Since I have no background in theology I am not the right person to handle bible texts myself. But I might include the syntactic trees as a new view for HermeneutiX (reusing the lowest function in the current syntactic analysis view).
I will look into that next year.

@Carl: that ´s too bad. Maybe we can narrow it down (since I am developing under Mac OS X myself and it runs smoothly - if anything, it should be better on Mac :P ).
Let´s start with a few questions:
  • Where did you put the extracted .app?
  • What Mac OS X version are you using?
  • Do you get the same result with the other distribution? Download Portable Version
  • Are you comfortable using the Terminal? If you are, go to the directory containing the hermeneutix.jar (via cd command – might be easier for you with the portable distribution), use the java -jar hermeneutix.jar command and post the resulting error message.
@Mike: the aforementioned friend with whom I decided to create HermeneutiX has a Master in Theology.
He attended the Giessen School of Theology. where he learned those two analyses from Heinrich v. Siebenthal (I mentioned that in the manual as well).
He always created his analyses in MS Word and complained about this time consuming task.
So when we started to get our Bachelor in Business Economics and Information Technology together (2008) – we tried to create an easier way.
And that´s also the reason, why it was used in the lectures at his old school, since it is exactly the method they teach there.
Nonetheless I could as well implement other analyses, if you specify them in a way I am able to transfer into software. Just like the syntactic trees mentioned by Jonathan. :ugeek:
Carsten Englert
- Project Admin of HermeneutiX (tool for syntactic/semantic structure analysis) hosted on SourceForge
cwconrad
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Re: HermeneutiX: a software tool for semantic structure anal

Post by cwconrad »

Carsten Englert wrote: @Carl: that ´s too bad. Maybe we can narrow it down (since I am developing under Mac OS X myself and it runs smoothly - if anything, it should be better on Mac :P ).
Let´s start with a few questions:
  • Where did you put the extracted .app?
  • What Mac OS X version are you using?
  • Do you get the same result with the other distribution? Download Portable Version
  • Are you comfortable using the Terminal? If you are, go to the directory containing the hermeneutix.jar (via cd command – might be easier for you with the portable distribution), use the java -jar hermeneutix.jar command and post the resulting error message.
:
I'm using Mac OS X 10.9.1; I've put HermeneutiX.app into my Applications folder; clicking on it yields: "HermeneutiX.app is damaged and can't be opened. You should move it to the trash." No, I'm not really comfortable using the Terminal app. Sorry. As for the portable version, that's a PC .exe file -- which obviously won't work on a Mac.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Carsten Englert
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Location: Germany
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Re: HermeneutiX: a software tool for semantic structure anal

Post by Carsten Englert »

Just ignore the .exe file. It is only a pretty way for starting HermeneutiX on Windows, like the .app-Bundle on Mac OS X.
Just double-click on the hermeneutix.jar in your Finder and please tell me, if there is a similar error message.

I guess it is the Mac OS X Gatekeeper, that suppresses the usage of the current HermeneutiX.app, since I did not sign it digitally to support this anti-malware feature in the new Mac OS X.
Thank you for pointing that out to me!

But for now, you have three options:
  1. don´t try HermeneutiX till I managed to sign the .app-Bundle,
  2. use the portable distribution by opening the hermeneutix.jar directly (if this works with the activated Gatekeeper - I´m unsure) or
  3. deactivate your Gatekeeper, try to start HermeneutiX.app again and reactivate the Gatekeeper (It claims to remember previously opened apps and shouldn´t bother you again.)
I will look into it and try to sign future releases and maybe publish it in the Mac AppStore as well.
I will post it here, if I make any progress.
Carsten Englert
- Project Admin of HermeneutiX (tool for syntactic/semantic structure analysis) hosted on SourceForge
cwconrad
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Re: HermeneutiX: a software tool for semantic structure anal

Post by cwconrad »

Carsten Englert wrote:Just ignore the .exe file. It is only a pretty way for starting HermeneutiX on Windows, like the .app-Bundle on Mac OS X.
Just double-click on the hermeneutix.jar in your Finder and please tell me, if there is a similar error message.

I guess it is the Mac OS X Gatekeeper, that suppresses the usage of the current HermeneutiX.app, since I did not sign it digitally to support this anti-malware feature in the new Mac OS X.
Thank you for pointing that out to me!.
I think it's working more or less properly now. I should just note here that I realize this should all be in a private message, but it's conceivable that I'm not the only ἑτέρως φρονῶν in the Forum, so others may conceivably benefit from the open discussion here.

I tried two different things:
(1) I downloaded the PC file and was able to open the hermeneutix.jar Java file; and
(2) I opened up the Hermeutix.app package and found the hermeneutix.jar file there -- and was able to open it. I also attempted to move that hermeutix.jar file outside of the app, but it wouldn't work there.

The "Gatekeeper" did try to bar my way, but I responded to the message about "unidentified developers" by clicking on the "open anyway" option -- and behold, it did indeed open. I did this both times: with the file from the PC download and with the inner file from the Mac app, and it worked both times. Now I can start playing with the program.
Carsten Englert wrote:But for now, you have three options:
  1. don´t try HermeneutiX till I managed to sign the .app-Bundle,
  2. use the portable distribution by opening the hermeneutix.jar directly (if this works with the activated Gatekeeper - I´m unsure) or
  3. deactivate your Gatekeeper, try to start HermeneutiX.app again and reactivate the Gatekeeper (It claims to remember previously opened apps and shouldn´t bother you again.)
I will look into it and try to sign future releases and maybe publish it in the Mac AppStore as well.
I will post it here, if I make any progress.
Thanks for your patience. Apple hasn't been very helpful recently regarding Java applications, but I guess it's still relatively safe from malware.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Carsten Englert
Posts: 8
Joined: December 5th, 2013, 5:55 pm
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: HermeneutiX: a software tool for semantic structure anal

Post by Carsten Englert »

cwconrad wrote:Apple hasn't been very helpful recently regarding Java applications, but I guess it's still relatively safe from malware.
Well, that seems to be one way to put it.
After a little research I conclude: if I want to sign HermeneutiX in a way, that allows it to be executed properly (like it did for the last four years) as an Application Bundle, I would have to enroll for the Apple Mac Developer Program – just to get my hands on the required certificates.
This means: 99 $/year Thank You Apple! :evil:
Since HermeneutiX is published under the BSD License – which basically means you can do whatever you want with the sources or the whole program without ever paying me anything – and I will definitly not change that, I have no means to earn any money.

So I have to check if I can find a way for HermeneutiX to (at least) replace the "HermeneutiX.app is damaged and can´t be opened" message with something like "HermeneutiX.app is unsigned. Do you really want to run this application?".
But at the moment I am unwilling to spend money for something that does not return any of it.

Apart from that I will modify the current code to achieve the maximum native Mac experience without the .app Bundle.
Carsten Englert
- Project Admin of HermeneutiX (tool for syntactic/semantic structure analysis) hosted on SourceForge
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