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Weft QDA

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Web site: http://www.pressure.to/qda/

Date of review/ name of reviewer: 10/28/09 [Josh Braun]

Produced by:  Alex Fenton

Cost: Free

Description: "Weft QDA is an easy-to-use tool to assist in the analysis of textual data such as interview transcripts, written texts and fieldnotes."

 

Reviewer Disclaimer: I have not used this software on a Windows PC.  As this review largely details difficulties in getting Weft QDA to run on other platforms, rather than its list of features, updates to this review by Windows users are welcome.  In the meantime, people looking for a Windows-user perspective on this software should check out this positive review at Freeware Genius.

 

Comments from the Developer, Alex Fenton:

  • I'd suggest it's best to look at Weft QDA (v1.0) as a usable tool for Windows rather than trying to review the alpha versions for OS X. It's for good reason that v1.9.0 has never been linked to from the public homepage. v1.0, for all its limitation and a few bugs, is something that people still seem to find useful for teaching and research.

 

Advantages:

  • Weft QDA is potentially an effective, free and open-source alternative to expensive qualitative analysis software tools like Atlas.ti and QDA Miner.
  • Intended as a cross-platform tool, with versions slated or existing for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.
  • Well-written and extensive user manual.  Weft QDA is very well-documented, especially for an open-source project.

 

Disadvantages:

  • This open-source project is stalled for the time-being.  The software's homepage still links to a version released in 2006.  The last development news, announcing the release of a "version 2 preview" (a.k.a. v1.9.0) came in April 2008.  The slow release cycle is largely responsible for the rest of the issues listed below.  Alex Fenton, the software's primary developer works on Weft QDA in his precious spare time, and describes himself as "still around and interested...but equally [without] an immediate incentive to push ahead with Weft development for my own purposes." Collaborators and/or project funding are welcomed, and those interested should contact Fenton at <alex at pressure dot to>.
  • Doesn't yet run on Mac.  There are three releases of the software (v1.0.0, v1.0.1 and v1.9.0) available from RubyForge. Of these, v1.9.0 is the only one available for Mac OS X.  However, the Mac edition of v1.9.0, while downloadable and installable, is not yet completed and the application does not yet run correctly on OS X (it won't launch).
  • Difficult Linux Installation.  Many Linux users will likely be used to occasional difficulties compiling and/or installing software. Weft QDA is unavailable from most Linux software repositories and must be compiled from source code. Instructions are available for Debian users on how to do this. Users of other Linux distributions are on their own, though some general advice is provided in the Weft QDA user manual.  In general, however, lack of backward compatibility in contemporary Linux distributions has made v1.0.x nearly impossible to install.
  • Substantial versioning problems on Ubuntu Linux. This is mostly an elaboration on the previous point.  The software is difficult to install on newer versions of Ubuntu Linux.  I was unable to get it to run on the latest Ubuntu release (Jaunty, as of this writing), and apparently am not alone.  Some particularly skilled Ubuntu users will, no doubt, be able to figure out a workaround to install the software. However, the hurdle is unfortunate, as Ubuntu is one of the most popular and usable distributions of Linux.
  • Potential backward-compatibility problems.  Some users have reported difficulty opening Weft QDA version 1.0.x files using v1.9.0.

 

Tips:

  • The Weft QDA homepage links to v1.0.1, an older version of the software. This may well be the most stable edition of the program, but users interested in the latest release should head over to the project's RubyForge files page, which contains download links for the latest version, v1.9.0.  Version 1.9 is also the only version available for Mac—and while it doesn't appear to run properly at the moment, Mac users and/or developers interested in wrestling with the problem will need to download this version.

 

More information:

 

Developer Resources:

 

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