QualCoder

Thanks to Julius Reich for the smart and modern icon look for QualCoder:

.

Hello,

I am pleased to announce a new release of QualCoder, version 2.8. This release includes a Windows 10 exe.

This release contains bug fixes and additional functionality.

The release is available from: https://github.com/ccbogel/QualCoder/releases/tag/2.8

The main new functions are:

Code by case.

You can select a case and code the files or text file portions assigned to that case. There is some reduced functionality compared to the existing Code Text and Code AV functions:

• in text files: no auto-coding – due to risk of auto coding non-case assigned text portions.
• in A/V files only duration segments can be coded, the associated text file is not shown – due to file conflicts in how the data structure works in Code by Case.

The code by case function will be useful when importing a survey and one or more of the survey columns is designated ‘qualitative’. The qualitative data are converted into a single text entry on import. Sections of this text are assigned to the relevant case (relevant survey row) and can then be coded for each case (survey row entry).

SQL statements

You can save SQL statements for later use. SQL statements can be deleted via right-click menu option.

With regards Colin

Hi all,

I have put out a YouTube videos of how to do coding with audio/video.

I have created a short YouTube video on image coding using Qualcoder 2.7 on Windows.

Hi again,

I have made another video . This one is about how to create codes and categories and do coding on text files. It uses the QualCoder 2.7 exe on Windows 10.

Hi all,

I have created my first YouTube video using the QualCoder 2.7 exe on Windows 10.

This video shows the Settings options and how to manage files, cases and journals.

Installation and use on Windows have been made a lot easier.

I have created an exe file for Microsoft Windows. It was created on Windows 10 64 bit and also works on Windows 7 64 bit. Double-click to run. All python modules are included in the exe.

The VLC audio/video software does still need to be installed for QualCoder to work. https://www.videolan.org/vlc/

The QualCoder exe is available here:

https://github.com/ccbogel/QualCoder/releases/tag/2.7

The exe file was created using pyinstaller 4.2 and bundles python 3.8 into the exe file.

The latest version of QualCoder has been released. https://github.com/ccbogel/QualCoder/releases/tag/2.7

Release 2.6 was removed as there was an error.

The wiki manual is current. https://github.com/ccbogel/QualCoder/wiki The pdf and odt manuals in the release folder do not show the latest functionality and so are outdated.

Fixed bugs:

Coding text: when searching for text and the ‘all files’ option is selected, an error occurs. (due to an upgrade in another functionality). Fixed.

Case deletion: This can affect the case attributes for multiple cases. Fixed.

Functionality:

Added dark mode. Activate in Settings.

Added search text function in Journals and in Manage Files > view audio/video file.
Improved overly sensitive code extension and reduction keys in Code text (Shift or Alt + Left or Right arrow).

Added new auto-code function in Code text. This function uses start and end marks for autocoding. It includes all of the start mark and stops just before the end mark. The line ending character is ‘\n’.

Added an ‘Important’ function to coding. This flags coded text, AV, images as important codes. To use for obtaining exemplars. Added ‘I’ shortcut in code text code av text to mark important

Added a files filter when coding text, AV, images. This shows a filtered list of files, based on attribute values selected.

The codes tree – can now merge one category into another category.

Improved importation of file variables from REFI-QDA Projects. Improved exportation of REFI-QDA Project file.

Added ctid unique autointeger column to the code_text database table.
This also updates older QualCoder projects, when opened.

Can now edit coded text files while the text file contains coded/annotated/case-assigned text. Avoid selecting text chunks and deleting or pasting text across selected text chunks which contain combinations of unmarked text sections and marked coded/annotated/case-assigned sections. As this will not update those assigned text segments correctly. Press Ctrl+E when in the text area, to activate and exit this editing mode.

Reports:
Added function to report on annotations in text files.
Added function to add reporting memos: Options: None, Coded text memos, All memos.

Installation and running QualCoder:

Windows:

Install VLC or from the Windows Store. Download and unzip the QualCoder-2.7.zip release.

The software does not have an exe for Windows. Download and install the Python programming language https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/. The minimum version that works for QualCoder is python 3.6. Download the file (at the bottom of the web site) “Windows installer (64-bit)” (or 32-bit if you have an older system) and install Python. IMPORTANT: in the first window of the installation mark the option “Add Python to PATH”

Install extra modules to Python. Type the letters “cmd” in the Windows Start searching engine, and click on the black software “cmd.exe” – this is the command console for Windows. In the console paste, using the right-click context menu (ctrl+v does not work) the following:

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

Then click enter. Wait, until all modules are installed (the command phrase should be again visible: “C:\Users[Your Windows account name]> or similar).

Run QualCoder from cmd.exe Move to the QualCoder-2.7 folder. Then type py -m qualcoder

Or run by double-click. Open the QualCoder-2.7\qualcoder folder. Double-click the __main__.py file to run. You can make a shortcut to this file and keep the shortcut on the desktop.

Linux:

Install these modules from the terminal:

sudo apt install python3-lxml python3-ply python3-six python3-pdfminer python3-chardet python3-qt5 python3-pillow

On some Linux versions you will need to install pip

sudo apt install python3-pip

sudo python3 -m pip install pdfminer.six openpyxl ebooklib

In the terminal, Go to the QualCoder-2.7 folder, then type:

sudo python3 setup.py install

To run. From the terminal type:

qualcoder

(Note: This release does not include a Debian install package.)

There are mostly minor changes in this release. The link to the 2.5 release is shown below:

https://github.com/ccbogel/QualCoder/releases/tag/2.5

Mainly removing bugs:

Bug of defaulting only to character attributes when attribute is created now – fixed.

Bug with csv survey import – fixed.

Bug deleting when deleting a case that can affect other case attributes – fixed.

Minor bug regarding overlapping codes and text cursor position – fixed.

Added Portuguese language (draft translation), as there is lots of interest from Brazil.

The latest release of QualCoder has been published: https://github.com/ccbogel/QualCoder/releases/tag/2.4

It contains a major change from many opened dialog windows. to a tabbed interface with four tabs for actions performed log, coding, manage and reports.

Details of other updates are:

• Use of base64 for icons.
• Export option for case and file attributes.
• Reports – Case matrix – various options for the matrix columns: codes, categories, top categories.
• Extra explanation for text search in code text regards Regex.
• Additional shortcut keys when coding:
• Shortcut R to select Recent codes. (requires text selection)
• Shortcut Q to Quick code with the most recent code. (requires text selection)
• Shortcut M to memo a code. (click on the coded segment first)
• Shortcut O to cycle through overlapping codes in situ. (click on the coded segment first)
• Code in context of original file – now available in code text, code image, code av, graph and code reports results. In the coding menus in code text ,code image, code AV, click on ‘Show coded files’ code tree menu option then in the displayed codes window, click on a colored heading to show the code in its original context.
• In code text: the font size for the document text can be changed. (Future: this may be moved to an option for all document text in the Settings menu).
• In Manage Attributes. Right click on ‘numeric’ for an attribute and there is a menu option to change to ‘character’.

I skipped the 2.3 release as I could not change two minor issues after the code was released on Github.