If you wish to report a bug, please contact me.
Known Bugs
Version 2.16
Windows XP display bug
Windows XP users may find that TextLadder's display window
freezes at some point. However, TextLadder is in fact running
perfectly: it is is simply unable to refresh the display window. To
confirm that TextLadder is in fact still running, go into the TextLadder
program folder, then into the Output subfolder, and click on the file
"LastUpdated.txt". This file is updated by TextLadder at regular
intervals: if the time listed in this file is less than 5 to 10 minutes
earlier, then you know that TextLadder is running OK.
Fixed Bugs
Version 2.15
A bug in the entry of the hyperlink information in the Defaults (5 of 5)
window meant that unless the entered information started with "http://",
the reference would not work. Also, if any spaces were entered before or
after the hyperlink information, the reference would, again, not work.
This has been corrected in version 2.16: the user does not need to include
"http://" as part of the hyperlink information as TextLadder will
automatically add it if it is not there. Also, TextLadder will now ignore
any unnecessary spaces added at the beginning or end of the hyperlink
information.
Version 2.14
In previous versions, once the Brill folder (for optional part-of-speech
tagging) was selected by the user, it could not be changed. This has been
fixed in version 2.15. In addition, a number of major new features were
added in version 2.15: 1) the ability to process texts organized in subgroups
(i.e. not separatiing texts within a subgroup from each other), 2) the
ability to specify a pre-set order for the texts; 3) the ability to create
HTML versions of the texts being processed, as well as the outputted
pre-reading list (students reading these texts and list would then be able
to click on any word in them and get an instant online dictionary
definition or translation, although it is up for the user to get the
hyperlink reference for such a dictionary -- TextLadder does not supply it).
Finally, a new piece of output "ScreeningOutputNotPassed.txt" was added to
complement "ScreeningOutput.txt".
Version 2.13
The 1500-word-per-text limit that existed in version 2.13 and all earlier
versions has been replaced by a 3000-word-per-text-limit in 2.14, thus
allowing users to use longer texts.
As well, users who select the "generate a list of high-frequency
non-list words" option can use texts containing as many as 2,250,000
words. However, certain restrictions apply: all the words in all
the texts cannot exceed this 2,250,000 word-limit. Also, it is better
to have either a few very large texts or many small texts,
but not both together.
Finally, a bug that existed in versions 2.13 and earlier which caused
TextLadder to crash when analyzing certain texts (specifically,
texts that ended immediately after a word, rather than after
punctuation or a line feed) has been fixed in version 2.14.
Version 2.12
An important bug has been discovered in Versions 2.12 and earlier.
This bug caused TextLadder to deliver an error message if more than
one text selected for analysis was over the word-limit (the word-limit
is 1500 words). This problem has been fixed in Version 2.13.
Version 2.11
A number of small bugs mostly related to the user interface
were fixed. For example, TextLadder now tells you when you
have selected too many texts for analysis (in Version 2.12 the
limit is 750 texts, although users interested in increasing the limit
should contact me, as this can be easily done.)
Version 2.10
1) The processing time for compiling TextLadder's list of high-
frequency non-list words is much faster in Version 2.11 than in 2.10.
2) A bug that sometimes caused negative values to appear among
the sequence list results has been fixed. 3) A new option has
been added in the "Change Defaults" section of TextLadder Version 2.11
that was not present in Version 2.10 or earlier. The new option allows
the user to require that all unfamiliar words for each text appear
in the pre-reading list, including non-list words and very low frequency
list words. The default setting (which is the only setting possible in
versions 2.10 and earlier) restricts the pre-reading list to only as many
list words as is necessary to reach the reading comprehension
threshold (set at 95% token coverage by default) for each text.
Version 2.09 beta
Despite the speed modifications of previous versions, TextLadder
2.09 still ran very slowly on Windows 98 and Millenium
computers when used to build sequence lists out of a large number
of texts. Version 2.10 has been modified to run much faster on
Windows 98 and Windows Millenium, and should not take more than
an hour or two at the most to build a sequence list out of a large
number of texts.
Version 2.08 beta
Closing TextLadder in mid-run was a problem in version 2.08 and
earlier versions (TextLadder would not fully close). This bug was
fixed in version 2.09.
Version 2.07 beta
A bug was causing minor accuracy problems in pre-reading output.
This bug was fixed in version 2.08, which also runs somewhat
faster than version 2.07 and other earlier versions.
Version 2.06 beta
When using TextLadder with the "Generate List of High-Frequency
Words" option on, TextLadder would in fact only identify high
frequency words in texts that had already passed the cut-off. However,
in most cases, users will want to get a list of all the high-frequency
non-list words in all the texts. Version 2.07 was thus changed
to allow the user to choose whether all high-frequency non-list
words should be generated (now the default) or not.
Version 2.05 beta
The part-of-speech tagging option did not work in Windows XP. XP
users who chose this option got a run-time error during TextLadder's
tagging stage. This was due to the fact that the only version of Brill
available on this site at the time did not work with Windows XP.
This situation has been remedied by adding a new version of Brill
to the site (XP users can download it here), and by adjusting
TextLadder 2.06 (and above) so that it recognizes this new version
of Brill (as well as the old one, of course).
Version 2.04 beta
This version has a number of small bugs: users who choose
the part-of-speech tagging option may find, once TextLadder
has finished, that Brill (visible as "WinOldAp" in the "End
Task" window) has not closed. As well, they may also find that
a large file called "BigTxtCopy.txt" has appeared in their
Brill folder and is not disappearing once TextLadder has finished.
These and a few other small bugs were fixed in version 2.05.
(Also, the file "LastUpdated.txt" is now produced as output as of
version 2.05: see below.)
Version 2.03 beta
This version was released for several hours only, and
has an obvious bug which prevents the user from getting
beyond the output screening stage. The bug was fixed in
version 2.04.
Version 2.02 beta
TextLadder was intolerably slow on a lot of computers.
This was fixed in version 2.03/2.04 by having TextLadder
use a database rather than load all the data into memory.
(Note, though, that TextLadder still runs rather slowly
on computers with less than 256 MB RAM and less than
750 MHz clock speed, when processing a large number of texts.)
Version 2.01 beta
Another bug was preventing some users from being able
to use the part-of-speech tagging option. This bug was
fixed in version 2.02.
Version 2.00 beta
Users who chose the option to add part-of-speech information
sometimes had the program go into an endless loop. As well,
another bug was causing slightly inaccurate results for users
who chose not to add part-of-speech information. Both bugs were
fixed in version 2.01.
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