QualCoder 2.9 release information

Two binaries are included made with pyinstaller using python3.8.

An exe made on Windows 10. md5sum 51e9906532f8073df0d5bbb1420df41f
This may work on earlier Windows versions.
An online virus testing site www.virustotal.com indicated 2 vendors out of many detected a potential problem due to their detection methods (5 March 2022). Always check the MD5 checksum on downloading the exe. I have not got the exe Microsoft certified (I am not sure of the processes or cost involved). If you are uncomfortable with these warnings install from source instead.

An executable made on Ubuntu 20.04. md5sum 5062ffd0666e631d932b2166bcebc0a1
This might also work on other flavours of Linux (let me know so I can add those details here). Does not work on Ubuntu 18.04 pr Ubuntu 22.04.

For all installations you must have a current 64 bit VLC program installed. Optionally, also have ffmpeg software installed for Speech to Text.

Changes in this release

Improved PEP compliance in the coding.

Manage files

Option to use a speech to text service if there is no transcription text present.
This requires ffmpeg software to be installed.
Fixed a time stamp error when inserting a time stamp on a transcription.

Manage bad links to files

Added an automated search that looks through the user's home directory for up to 2 matching file names. This intended to speed up finding the link to files where the link is currently pointing to nothing.

Coding text

Added right-hand side side panel that shows three different information options:

Current code with code rule and examples of its use.
Current journal (most recent date) for reading and editing
Project memo for reading and editing
Underline applied to overlapping codes, for identification of overlaps
Added button to enter and exit the edit text mode
Ctrl + Z to restore the last coding that was unmarked.

Coding images

Ctrl + Z to restore the last coding that was unmarked.
Add menu option to resize and reposition a coded area.

Coding Audio Video

Ctrl + Z to restore the last coding that was unmarked.

Reports codes

Added statistics summary via check box
Added options to the matrix. So can have codes/categories by file or by case displayed in a table of rows and columns.
Added coding in context checkbox for text codings. This shows the surrounding 250 characters of text to help put the coded section in context in the report. The coded text is shown in bold.

View Graph

Added button to save graph as a png image.

Special functions

Dynamic text file replacement.
For example, useful for updating a text file of a list of blog posts.
The function works by looking for identical text segments in the replacement file to match the previous codings and annotations.
If the replacement file contains multiple matches, then only the first match is used. So there is potential for inaccuracy.
Tries to match any case assignment also. Again may be inaccurate.

Settings

The number of project backups can be changed.
Changed how to select another coder name and how to enter a new coder name.

Issues identified in this release

Moderate error
Deleting a text transcript file sometimes does not work. If it does not delete using the Mange Files deletion and shows a Programming Error, follow these steps:
Let us say as an example the transcript file id is 999
Then go to Reports > Sql Statements
In the the top box enter each of these statements and run each one, one at a time:
delete from source where id = 999
Then press the Cogs button
delete from code_text where fid = 999
Then press the Cogs button
delete from annotation where fid = 999
Then press the Cogs button
delete from case_text where fid = 999
Then press the Cogs button
delete from attribute where attr_type ='file' and id=999
Then press the Cogs button
Moderate error
Uncaught IndexError exception when editing text positions from within code text. You can also edit text via Manage Files then open the text file.
Minor error
AttributeError updating Tooltips when merging codes

Install from source

Windows

Consider using a virtual environment to avoid clashes with other install python software, I have not tested using venv on a Windows intallation yet.

Download the QualCoder zip. Then, unpack the file in a selected place (e.g. desktop).

Download and install the Python programming language. The minimum recommended version for QualCoder is 3.6. Python3. Download the file (at the bottom of the web site) "Windows installer (64-bit)" IMPORTANT: in the first window of the installation mark the option "Add Python to PATH"

Install python modules from command. Type "cmd" in the Windows Start search engine, and click on the black software "cmd.exe" - the command console for Windows. In the console type or paste, using the right-click context menu (ctrl+v does not work) the following:

py -m pip install wheel pyqt5 lxml Pillow ebooklib ply chardet pdfminer.six openpyxl pydub SpeechRecognition

Wait, until all modules are installed .

Build and install Qualcoder, from the downloaded folder type

py setup.py install

The py command uses the most recent installed version of python. You can use a specific version on your Windows, if you have many python versions installed, e.g. py -3.8 See discussion here: Difference between py and python

Run QualCoder from cmd.exe Move to the QualCoder-master folder, then type

py -m qualcoder

Ubuntu

It is best to run QualCoder inside a python virtual environment, so that the system installed python modules do not clash and cause problems.

Install venv I am using python3.9 you can choose another recent version if you prefer.

sudo apt install python3.9-venv

Download and unzip the Qualcoder folder.

Open a terminal and move (cd) into that folder. You should be inside the QualCoder-master folder or if using a release, e.g. the Qualcoder-2.9 folder. Inside the QualCoder-master folder:

python3.9 -m venv qualcoder

Activate venv, this changes the command prompt display using (brackets): (qualcoder) Note: To exit venv type deactivate

source qualcoder/bin/activate

Install the needed python modules.

pip install lxml ply six pdfminer chardet pyqt5 pillow pdfminer.six openpyxl ebooklib pydub SpeechRecognition

Install QualCoder, type the following, the dot is important:

python3 -m pip install .

You may get a warning which can be ignored: WARNING: Building wheel for Qualcoder failed

To run type:

qualcoder

After all this is done, you can deactivate to exit the virtual environment. At any time to start QualCoder in the virtual environment, cd to the Qualcoder-master (or Qualcoder-2.9 release folder), then type: