Documentation updates

We've added a few useful odds and ends to the Oracc documentation over the past few months, which I thought it would be useful to summarise here:

• How to report a new sign value to Niek when the ATF checker complains of an unknown value;
• How to search the Qcat (catalogue of compositions) and request new entries;
• A list of Akkadian roots;
• How to add linguistic annotations to project glossaries;
• Fuller information about discourse divisions;
• And several new options for the oracc command.

As always, just ask if you have any questions or problems - or any suggestions for correcting, improving or adding to the documentation.

NEW: portal site software

Would you like to build a portal website for your Oracc project along the lines of Knowledge and Power or Assyrian Empire Builders? Now you can!

Just this week we have finished testing and documenting ESP, an Oracc version of the electrostatic programme written by George McKerron for the Whipple Museum of the History of Science in Cambridge. In order to use it, you will need to know the basics of (X)HTML and how to use Emacs (but most of us use Emacs for Oracc text editing anyway).

Instructions for use are on the Oracc website. The range of options for Oracc portal sites (including but not only ESP) is here.

As always, if you would like any advice or help, just ask me.

new Aquamacs

If you use Aquamacs (Emacs for Mac) to edit files on the Oracc server, you'll be delighted to know that the new release of Aquamacs does not require the endless retyping of passwords that the older versions do. I've been using Aquamacs 2.3 for several days now and strongly recommend it.

To install it, just open your current version of Aquamacs, choose "Check for updates..." on the Aquamacs menu, and follow the instructions you are given. Alternatively, you can go to http://aquamacs.org/download.shtml and download it from there.

If you have any problems with this, as always, let me know.


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