AdveneUserFAQ

Is it possible to use a controlled vocabulary in annotations?

Advene is intended to provide the maximum flexibility. It will thus not prevent you to enter words outside a given vocabulary. However, its completion feature makes it easy to have an homogeneous vocabulary. When editing an annotation, Advene will propose completions based on the first letters you typed. These completions are dynamically gathered from the existing annotations in the same type. They can also be specified in the annotation type property (edit annotation type, then fill the Advanced/Completions input field with the needed terms). The AdA project manual provides detailed information about this setup.

If you want to use only predefined terms (and disable the dynamic generation of completions), check the Predefined terms only option in Edit/Preferences/Text content.

In addition, the Checker view provides a Completions checker, that displays a table of the annotations that contain unspecified keywords for every annotation type that has predefined keywords. It can be used to identify the errors or the necessity to introduce new keywords.

How to run Advene from its sources?

You need to have python plus a number of libraries (GStreamer, Gtk...) installed. The needed libraries are detailed in the INSTALL.txt file

Why is Advene a desktop application (instead of a web-based application)?

Given that Advene aims at sharing comments about videos, it may seem strange that it is a desktop application, that needs to be installed on the computer, instead of a more easily used web-based online application. This comes from a number of requirements for the Advene project, which all relate to freedom.

• Freedom to use from anywhere, even offline : a common requirement for Advene, from the start, was the ability to work on a video (annotate, navigate...) on a 3-hour long train trip. Since network access is not generally available, the tool has to be offline.
• Freedom to use any type (format) of video : video on the web still require specific formats. Using a desktop application allows to support a wider range of video formats. If you have a large corpus on your hard disk, it may not be convenient to have to convert everything before being able to work. Advene does not stuck you with one video format. Moreover, one of the first focuses of the Advene project was on DVDs, which cannot be read through web browsers.
• Freedom to manage your own information (video and annotations): when working locally, you know where your information is. You are responsible for backing it up and sharing it. When using an online service, you rely on some idea (often not explicit, or better, false idea if you read the common disclaimers) that your data and video will be available and shared along your terms. If the service shuts down (like www.mojiti.com for instance) or its terms of service change, you may lose your data.

That said, Advene can perfectly serve as an authoring environment for data that will be put online (in the form of hypervideos). Have a look at the examples for some ideas of what can be done.