The Upload Tool
Upload is the standard starting point for the Lexos workflow. When you begin a new session or reset your workspace, you will be automatically re-directed to Upload.
Note: Lexos supports only the Chrome and Firefox browsers.
Drag your document files into the box labeled Or drop files here, or click the Browse button to use the file browser to locate your files. Most browsers will allow you to shift- or control-click to select multiple files.
Lexos accepts files as represented with filename (dot) extensions of: .txt , .html , .xml , .sgml , or .lexos (Lexos workspace files, see below). Make sure that your filenames use these file extensions.
There are some restrictions on file upload size in order to prevent the browser from hanging. Upload times may be slow for large files, particularly if you are working over the internet. The maximum file size of 250MB is approximately the size of of nine Webster's Unabridged Dictionaries. If you experience a problem, try uploading smaller files, or, if you are uploading many files, try uploading them in smaller batches.
Once you have selected your files, they will begin to upload, one at a time. As each upload is complete, you will see a notification at the bottom of the screen shortly after the Ready For Files To Upload progress bar has said "Complete!" The bigger the file the longer it will take to upload and show up on the page. After uploading is complete, each file is considered a document by Lexos. You can activate, de-activate, and re-label, and classify your documents using the Manage tool.
Note on character encoding: Lexos will automatically convert all files to UTF-8 character encoding. If you are uploading HTML, XML, or SGML files that contain special characters, the Scrubber tool will help you to convert them to UTF-8 characters. If you are using (raw) text files (.txt), we recommend that you Save-As a copy of your files with UTF-8 encoding (and Unix line breaks) prior to uploading to Lexos (for example, using BBedit on MacOS or NotePad++ on Windows).
Saving .lexos Workspace filesLexos does not permanently save your files on our server; however, Lexos allows you to save and download your workspace (files, options, etc) for later use. For example, perhaps you have uploaded 10 files and scrubbed them with certain parameters. You could save your Workspace (downloaded as a file with a .lexos filename extension). Upon returning to Lexos, rather that re-uploading and scrubbing your files again, you can Upload your .lexos file. Your working state will be restored for subsequent work.
The Lexos Beta Web Scraper
At present, your documents must be available as files on your computer. However, Lexos has a Beta web scraper tool, which will allow you to download files off the internet. This is especially useful when you are using files from sources such as Project Gutenberg. To enable the web scraper, click the "Gear" icon in the top right corner of the screen and select the Use Beta functions checkbox. A link to the web scraper tool will appear above the Browse button. Wherever possible, use it to download plain text files since, otherwise, you will download all the HTML markup in a web page (although this can be removed using the Scrubber tool). Upload times may vary, depending on internet speeds. If the process seems to hang, try uploading fewer URLs. Large-scale web scraping should not be done in Lexos.