Features

The Free Delta Editor (FDE) is a cross-platform software package for editing DELTA data files and running DELTA based programs (CONFOR, KEY, DIST, INTKEY).

This tool provides an interactive, user-friendly interface to DELTA-format files as a real DELTA data entry/maintenance program. It is possible to insert or delete items, characters, and states, without having to worry about the consistency of the DELTA files. A database-like interface makes it easy to setup and maintain the main DELTA data files (ITEMS, CHARS and SPECS), as well as several of the DELTA directives files (TONAT, TOKEY, TODIS). A spreadsheet-llike visualization facility for item and character data is also available.

It also makes possible to start all DELTA programs and create dichotomous keys for identification, natural-language descriptions, statistical reports, distance matrices, cluster and ordination analysis, etc., providing a viewer to look at and print the results (output files).

The Free Delta Editor is written in FreePascal/Lazarus, a free, cross-platform object-oriented programming language for Rapid Application Development. Therefore, the program is platform-independent, and can run without modifications on any PC compatible with the x86 architecture, under GNU/Linux, MacOSX, and MS-Windows.

Screenshots

Click on the images to enlarge.

Download

The software is available from the Free Delta website at SourceForge. The source code is also available from GitHub. The program and documentation are contained in an executable installation package. To install, download and save the installation package in any folder on your computer, and start it by clicking on the installation package from the file manager program. After installation, start the software by clickiing on the proper item at the start menu. Executable versions for MacOSX are not yet available.

The Free Delta Editor is free software, distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

Usage

The software is user-friendly and its use should be fairly intuitive. A user's manual is available here and is also included in the software installation packages.

The most important issue concerns the data file format: the Free Delta Editor uses conventional zip-compressed files (with the .dtz extension) to store all DELTA-formatted data. At a minimum, these files must include the three basic DELTA files (CHARS, ITEMS, and SPECS) and can be created either by exporting an already existing dataset from the CSIRO Delta or ALA Delta programs and compressing them into a zip file (changing its extension to .dtz), or by using the Free Delta Editor Import option from the File menu.

If you have any problems with the software, please contact me at the email address below.

It is recommendable to join the DELTA-L discussion list for discussions and exchanging questions about the software, as well as to get information about updates and bugs.

Translations

The Free Delta Editor is initially available in English, French, and Brazilian Portuguese. Any interested person can provide a translation for her/his native language. No knowledge of programming is required, just a freely available and easy to use software tool as POEdit or Virtaal. Please contact me for further details.

Donations

Contribute with a donation and help to keep alive the development of the Free Delta Editor. Donations can be made with credit card, using PayPal.

Contact

Last modified: June 9th, 2021