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Improved README.
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jrwdunham committed Jan 14, 2016
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[![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/FieldDB/dative.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/FieldDB/dative)
# Dative: a GUI for FieldDB and the OLD

# Dative

## Description

Dative is a browser-based application for linguistic fieldwork and language
documentation.
Dative is a graphical interface for linguistic fieldwork and language
documentation applications. At present, Dative works with the [Online
Linguistic Database (OLD)](http://www.onlinelinguisticdatabase.org).


Its high-level goals are:
## Features

- to interface with multiple server-side backends (FieldDB corpora, OLDs)
- to incorporate the best parts of existing linguistic fieldwork database
application GUIs:
- Collaboration and data sharing
- Advanced and smart search
- Automatic morpheme cross-referencing
- Build morphological parsers and phonologies
- CSV import
- Text creation
- Media file (i.e., audio, video, image)-to-text association.
- User access control
- Documentation
- Open source

- [Spreadsheet](http://app.lingsync.org/)
- [Prototype](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/placeholder/eeipnabdeimobhlkfaiohienhibfcfpa)
- [OLD](http://www.onlinelinguisticdatabase.org)
- [FLEx](http://fieldworks.sil.org/flex/)
- [EOPAS](http://www.eopas.org/)
![Screenshot of Dative](dative-screenshot.png)

![Gratuitous screenshot](dative-screenshot.png)

## For Developers

Expand Down Expand Up @@ -105,58 +108,3 @@ The above command generates files in the docs/ directory. Because docco
overwrites files of the same name in different directories, I have configured
the Gruntfile to rename each file for doc generation using the file's path.



#### Compass/Sass Complications

Long story short: we are not currently using Compass/Sass/SCSS.

The default grunt file from the Backbone Yo generator uses the
grunt-contrib-compass Grunt plugin to convert SCSS/Sass files to CSS. This
requires that Ruby, Sass, and Compass >=0.12.2 be installed. If you're on OS X
or Linux you probably already have Ruby installed; test with ruby -v in your
terminal.

I have been unable to successfully install Compass on Debian. Following
http://www.rosehosting.com/blog/install-ruby-sass-and-compass/, I did the
following:

$ sudo apt-get install rubygems
$ sudo gem install compass

I can find compass in /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/compass-0.12.7/bin/compass; however,
the Grunt tasks are unable to locate it (despite how I alter my $PATH).

On other Unix systems (with Ruby installed), successfully installing Compass
and Sass may be as easy as running:

$ sudo gem update --system && gem install compass

I had no trouble installing Compass/Sass on my Mac OS X system and running the
default Yo Backbone generator's Gruntfile. However, since Debian is not
cooperating with Ruby/Compass, I have (at present) commented out the calls to
the compass Grunt task in the Gruntfile. If we decide that using SCSS is
important at a later time, it may be necessary to delve into this
Debian/Compass issue further.


### Coding Conventions

The [CoffeeScript styleguide](https://github.com/polarmobile/coffeescript-style-guide)
should be followed. Adherence to the second principle of *The Zen of Python* is
advised: "Explicit is better than implicit."

A baseline test for decent CoffeeScript is to run `grunt lint` and ensure that
there are no errors. For now I have configured grunt-coffeelint to allow
implicit parentheses but issue warnings. It may be a good idea to change these
warnings to errors if the code becomes unreadable.

For articles on how CoffeeScript can encourage the creation of unreadable
code, see:

- http://ceronman.com/2012/09/17/coffeescript-less-typing-bad-readability/
- http://ryanflorence.com/2011/case-against-coffeescript/




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