The Utterance List Editor

The utterance list editor is used to create, save and reload lists of utterances which define subsets of the database which will be used in database queries.

Using the editor, it is possible to add or delete one or more utterances in the utterance list. When an utterance name is selected in the scrolling list on the left, its name is entered in the add/delete entry box so that a single utterance can be deleted from the list by selecting it and then clicking on Delete from list. To add or delete more than one utterance from the list, enter a pattern which may use one of the following wildcards: ?, which matches any single character, * which matches any sequence of characters. Having entered the pattern, click on either Add to list or Delete from list and the utterances matching the pattern will be either added to or deleted from the list.

When searching for utterance names in the database, Emu uses a particular file extension: for example it might look for files ending in .lab. By default, Emu uses the extension defined in the database template as the PrimaryExtension (see Template Variable Definitions). If this is not defined the first extension defined in the paths section of the template file is used. The extension can be changed in the utterance list editor via the Options|File Extension menu item which lists all extensions defined in the template file: the selected extension is has a highlighted radiobutton displayed next to it.

Utterance lists can be saved via the File|Save menu item, lists are saved as text files with a short header. Since these lists are text files, they could be edited with a normal text editor (such as Notepad or textedit); however, this could result in invalid utterance lists if, for example, a typographical error is made, and so this procedure is not advised. Saved utterance lists retain any comment entered via the utterance list editor which can be used to document individual utterance lists for future reference. Saved utterance lists can be restored via the File|Load menu item; once loaded, the utterance list becomes the current utterance list for database queries.