TextGrid : Control Panels

The first control panel, on the left of the video display, has, usually, four buttons: "Text", "Grid", "Subtitle",  "Timeline". If the object also contains a waveform two more options are available: "Waveform" and "Combined". Depending on which data viewing mode is activated, the rest of the workspace changes accordingly to display the data in the appropriate mode.

Text Mode

This view shows a column for each of the selected tiers. In each column the annotations of a tier are displayed in lines. You can click on an annotation to play the corresponding part of the media file. While the recording is being displayed, the relevant parts of the annotations are being highlighted with a red marker.

Grid Mode

This view shows all annotations with their begin and end times from the tiers selected in the media information panel. The annotations are displayed in chronological order. You can click on an annotation to play the corresponding part of the media object. As the video progresses, the relevant parts are highlighted. In addition, on the left of the grid, you can choose the type of tier a drop down list.

Subtitles Mode

This view shows the annotations as if they were subtitles while playing the video.

Timeline mode

This view is similar to the timeline viewer in ELAN. It displays the tiers and their annotations, and each annotation corresponds to a specific time interval. Above the tiers, a timescale is displayed. During playback, a red vertical bar, the crosshair, moves through the annotations and indicates the current point in time.
Furthermore, whenever you select a time interval, it will get a blue rim. The corresponding begin time, end time and duration are displayed in the media information panel.

When you select a specific chunk, three more options become available (see the left side of the timeline):

• Play selection: the video display will play only the selected chunk
• Clear selection: the blue rim goes away, and so does the information about begin/end time, etc. contained in the media information panel on the right of the video display
• Link to selection: when you select this option a message will appear saying that the address of the selected
  chunk has been copied to the clipboard

In addition, again on the left of the timeline, there are further options which are peculiar to the Timeline, Waveform, and Combined modes:

>| and |< (Move timeline view to the end/beginning)

>> and << (Move timeline view forward/backward)

> and < (Move timeline view slowly forward/backward)

+ and - (Zoom timeline view in/out)

The Timeline can also be played in two different modes:

1. Play screen by screen, where the red bar moves until the end of the screen and this changes everytime or
2. Play continually, where the red bar is still in the centre of the screen; what moves along are the annotations in the tiers.

Below the two just mentioned view modes there is the option to change the tier text font. Finally, to the right of the Media Information Panel, there is another window which allows users to view particular tiers in isolation. As the video progresses the relevant part of the text from the chosen tier will be highlighted with red marker.

Waveform and Combined

If there is a waveform in the document, it can be viewed in the Waveform mode. You can also combine the waveform and the timeline view modes in one screen with the Combined mode.