QualCoder 3.8.2

QualCoder Version 3.8.2 (patch)

We recently identified bugs that may affect those who use the Auto-Code Exact Text feature (The left-most Auto-code button). The issues were selecting multiple files to auto-code, and the application of the Regex function.

• Fixed: Auto-Code Exact Text using Regex, The Regex text itself was stored and presented in reports, and not the text that the Regex referred to.

• Fixed: Auto-code when selecting multiple files the auto-code may not always scan through all the files.

• Fixed: Other minor bugs described in the Known Issues for 3.8 were also addressed.

• There is one new feature. There is an option to import from a Taguette.sqlite3 file.

Installation

Windows

Attached to the end of release page you will find two options:

QualCoder_3_8_2_Win_setup.exe: a Windows installer, will set up QualCoder like any normal app, with entries in the start menu, etc.
QualCoder_3_8_2_Win_Portable.exe: A portable binary. Double-click to run and wait for 15 seconds.

On first use of the exe, Windows will ask you to allow to run QualCoder. This is because it is from an unknown publisher. It costs a lot of money to get a trusted publisher certificate - so that will not be possible for the foreseeable future.

The executable files are large downloads. Occasionally you might get a CRDOWNLOAD issue. First, check the file is fully downloaded. If not then Resume downloads in your browser. If it seems to be fully downloaded then rename it to the name that was expected and double-click to run. (e.g. From CRDOWNLOAD to 1.QualCoder_3_8_2_Win_Setup.exe)

MacOS

Attached to the end of release page you will find two options:

QualCoder_3_8_2_arm64.dmg: App bundle for newer Macs with Apple Silicon (M1 ... M4 processors)
QualCoder_3_8_2_x86_64.dmg: App bundle for the older Macs with Intel processor (core i5, i7, etc). (Note that w are not able to compile a binary for Intel based Macs right now due to incompatibilities in the libraries we use.)
The app bundles are compiled on macOS Sequoia. They might also work on Sonoma and Ventura.

We are currently not able to sign the app bundles, so you will get a warning that QualCoder is from an unregistered developer. You have to manually allow the app to be executed, if your Gatekeeper is active. Follow these steps:

Double-click the downloaded dmg-file.

Drag QualCoder into the link to your applications.
Start QualCoder by double-clicking the app within your applications folder. You will get an error that QualCoder is from an unregistered developer. The app will not start.
Go to Settings -> Privacy and Security -> Scroll down until you see a message stating QualCoder was prevented from starting. Click on "open anyway".
From now on, QualCoder should start without issues.

Linux Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Mint, ZorinOS, Debian, Arch

This binary should work on the above recent releases of Linux distros, e.g. Linux Mint 22.3, Ubuntu 24.04 etc.

QualCoder_3_8_2_ubuntu executable

The binary file may work in other distros also. You need to make it executable, via the GUI or using the terminal.

Linux Fedora

Fedora has a segmentation fault (software crashes) which is, we believe, currently not fixed, regarding audio / video coding. This fault has not been recently tested, so it may or may not still be present.

Manual install

For install from source code, download the zip file below and use the instructions in the README file to install on your operating system.

Known issues

• When clicking on links from the AI chat to document sources, the quote might not scroll into view correctly. This issue is fixed in the binaries below.

QualCoder 3.8

Note a new patched version 3.8.2 has been released to address the Known Issues listed below.

Installation

Windows

You have two options (see attached files at the end of the release page):

• QualCoder_3_8_Win_setup.exe: a Windows installer, will set up QualCoder like any normal app, with entries in the start menu, etc.
• QualCoder_3_8_Win_Portable.exe: A portable binary. Double-click to run and wait for 15 seconds.

On first use of the exe, Windows will ask you to allow to run QualCoder. This is because it is from an unknown publisher. It costs a lot of money to get a trusted publisher certificate - so that will not be possible for the foreseeable future.

MacOS

Attached to the release page you will find:

• QualCoder_3_8_arm64.dmg: App bundle for newer Macs with Apple Silicon (M1 ... M4 processors)

The app bundle is compiled on macOS Sequoia. They might also work on Sonoma and Ventura.

We are currently not able to sign the app bundles, so you will get a warning that QualCoder is from an unregistered developer. You have to manually allow the app to be executed, if your Gatekeeper is active. Follow these steps:

Double-click the downloaded dmg-file.

• Drag QualCoder into the link to your applications.
• Start QualCoder by double-clicking the app within your applications folder. You will get an error that QualCoder is from an unregistered developer. The app will not start.
• Go to Settings -> Privacy and Security -> Scroll down until you see a message stating QualCoder was prevented from starting. Click on "open anyway".
• From now on, QualCoder should start without issues.

Linux Ubuntu / Lubuntu / Mint / ZorinOS / Debian / Arch

This binary should work on the above recent releases of Linux distros, e.g. Linux Mint 22.3, Ubuntu 24.04 etc.
It may work in other distros also. You need t make it executable, via theGUI or using the terminal: chmod +x Qualcoder_3_8_ubuntu

• QualCoder_3_8_ubuntu executable

Other Linux

Fedora has a segmentation fault (software crashes) which is currently not fixed, regarding audio / video coding. Not sure if this issue is still current as has not been able to check this.

Manual install on any operating system mentioned above

For install from source code, download the zip file below and use the instructions in the README file to install on your operating system.

========

Changes

Throughout - help now redirects to the new website: https://qualcoder-org.github.io/
This will allow us to gradually add additional pages in other languages.

Shutdown

The Shutdown process has been improved.

Settings

The default project directory is now the location for saving automatic backups.

Coder names, a button to show visibility of other coders, and to add, merge and rename coders.

Artificial intelligence

Improved model access.

View graph

Added button: export image as pdf. Better for scaling.

All coding screens

Sort files by name, date loaded in, case name. Ascending or descending.

Except A/V coding: Coder names, a new button to show visibility of other coders, and to add a new coder.

Code text

Added options to code ONLY within an existing code - for autocode buttons. Right-click on the buttons to get a menu to change the options.

Added button to find and mark (code) speakers by speaker name.

Codes in all files screen

Added options to edit memos, add / remove important flag.

Report codes

If there are no cases in the project. Hide the cases pane, and cases option in the matrix drop-down selection.

Settings

There is a button beside the current coder name, to edit coder names. This also includes merging a coder name into an existing name.

Pseudonymisation

Pseudonyms must be set up before importing documents.

Data de-identification is an important privacy aspect. Data de-identification applies to most qualitative text imports, e.g. from txt, docx and other text files. It does not apply to PDF imports, nor the plain text associated with PDFs. It applies to survey import columns designated as qualitative.

In Manage Files there is a button to open the pseudonymisation screen.
On this screen, enter names that must be replaced with randomised pseudonyms.
The pseudonym file is created within the QualCoder project folder called pseudonyms.json
This json file can be removed and stored separately, or deleted, after all text importing is completed.

Fixed error merging project containing audio and video

Audio and video merging, the associated text files were incorrectly assigned.

Code co-occurrence report

Added option to create a new code from overlapping codes. Right-click on a cell that contains overlapping code to do this.

Charts

Added some cumulative bar charts. Cumulative bar chars of code frequency in files/cases, by code.

Wordcloud now uses the python wordcloud module. Added an option to override existing stopwords for the word cloud, by adding a button to temporarily link to any user chosen stopwords file.

Mark speakers

In Manage Files and Code Text. There is a button (a pin icon) for QualCoder to identify and mark with a code the transcription speakers. The speaker name must begin the sentence, and be in one of several formats described in the tooltips.

Known Issues

• AI "BadRequest" error:
  If you are using GPT 4.1, you might get an error message stating: BadRequestError: Error code: 400 - {'error': {'message': 'Unrecognized request argument supplied: reasoning_effort'.... To resolve this, go to Project > Settings and update your AI profile to the newer "OpenAI GPT 5.2 reasoning". For quicker responses, you can also choose the "no reasoning" variant. If you really want to continue working with GPT 4.1, you must go to the Advanced AI Settings and set "Reasoning" to "default".
  Note: We have already fixed this issue in the binaries below.

• Iramuteq export

Coding report. Export to IRaMuTeQ (iramuteq) format does not work if QualCoder language is set to Spanish or French. Change language setting to English and then export to iramuteq..

• Code Summary Report - code count

The total code count in the codes tree only shows the total count of text codings. Image and A/V codings are not included in the total count. Longstanding error.

• Codes Report

If References is checked, the results output reference title may display as "None". Longstanding error.

• Auto-code exact text

Two substantial issues here:

• Not working correctly by exiting early when multiple files are selected. Solution: select only ONE file in the file selection step, or use QualCoder 3.7 version.
• Regex - running coding reports only shows the Regex text used, but not the text found by Regex. The solution is to run an update in Reports > Database Queries using this command, (Note, always make a backup of your project first):
  update code_text set seltext = (select substr(source.fulltext, code_text.pos0 + 1, code_text.pos1-code_text.pos0) from source where code_text.fid=source.id)

QualCoder 3.7

Installation

Windows

There are two easy options (see attached files at the end of the release page):

• QualCoder.3.7.Win.Setup.exe A Windows installer, will set up QualCoder like any normal app, with entries in the start menu, etc.
• QualCoder.3.7.Win.Portable.zip A portable app without installation. Download and unzip the archive into a folder of your choice. The portable version contains the QualCoder exe and an associated _internal folder that it needs to run successfully. Double-click the "QualCoder.exe" to run. The portable version does take longer to start up - estimate 20 seconds.

On first use of the exe, Windows will ask you to allow to run QualCoder. This is because it is from an unknown publisher. It costs a lot of money to get a trusted publisher certificate - so that will not be possible for the foreseeable future.

MacOS

Attached to the release page you will find two options:

• QualCoder_3_7_arm64.dmg App bundle for newer Macs with Apple Silicon (M1 ... M4 processors)
• QualCoder_3_7_x86_64.dmg App bundle for the older Macs with Intel processor (core i5, i7, etc).

The app bundles are compiled on macOS Sequoia. They might also work on Sonoma and Ventura.

We are currently not able to sign the app bundles, so you will get a warning that QualCoder is from an unregistered developer. You have to manually allow the app to be executed, if your Gatekeeper is active. Follow these steps:

Double-click the downloaded dmg-file.

• Drag QualCoder into the link to your applications.
• Start QualCoder by double-clicking the app within your applications folder. You will get an error that QualCoder is from an unregistered developer. The app will not start.
• Go to Settings -> Privacy and Security -> Scroll down until you see a message stating QualCoder was prevented from starting. Click on "open anyway".
• From now on, QualCoder should start without issues.

Ubuntu and other Linux

Download run from the source code. See below section on run from source code.

You can also make a .desktop file for launching QualCoder:

Create a .Desktop file for launch, enter this command (adapt the file paths according to the location of the source code folder):

bash -c cd ~/.local/share/qualcoder/src/ && ~/.local/share/qualcoder/env/bin/python3.12 -m qualcoder

Run from source code on various operating systems

For install from source code, download the zip file below and use the instructions in the README file to install on your operating system.

Fedora 42 (and earlier versions) has a segmentation fault (software crashes) which is currently not fixed, regarding audio / video coding.

Changes in QualCoder 3.7

Other languages

Added translations for Swedish (verified), Chinese (unverified), Japanese (unverified). Improved Spanish translations.

Artificial Intelligence

• More AI models to choose from (Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, Ollama for local models).

• AI topic analysis: now allows extending the analysis with more data, see new button at the end

• AI code analysis: new prompt "Code Critic"

• AI text analysis: improved source references

• Fixed #1072

Attributes selection

• Attributes selection in reports. Where attribute settings are created, these can be saved and loaded for quicker subsequent use.

Manage Files

• Ctrl C, Ctrl V copy and paste into other table cells.

• Save and load table display profiles (Hidden rows and columns and column widths based on like/equals/hide parameters).

Manage Cases

• Ctrl C, Ctrl V copy and paste into other table cells.

All the Coding screens - text, image, pdf, audio/video

• Now have a Find Code button, either under the codes tree or in the header section. This is a convenient way to find matching text to help find a code in a large list of codes. It highlights the first matching text code name in the tree list codes.

• All coding screens have a button to select a default colour for new codes, rather than relying on a randomly chosen colour.

• More sort options for the codes tree

• Show codes by colour range. This is another way to trim back the size of the codes tree.

Code Text

• Added option to auto-code using Regex, enabled via a checkbox.

• Auto-code sentences - now ask you which text files you want to apply this function to, once pressing the auto-code sentences button.

Code Image

• Added Zoom In, Zoom Out, Rotate and Captions buttons.

• Added options for captions to coded image areas.

• Added ability to image code PDF pages.

• Added tooltip warning about exactly overlapping coded areas. Suggest that one of them is sightly resized or moved.

Code Audio/Video

• Added a button to save a video frame as a png.

• Added a button to import the video frame into the project. For image coding.

Code PDF

• Added Zoom In, Zoom Out buttons.

• Improved PDF image presentation (images, curves, lines, polygons - good representation).

Report Codes

• Check box option to add a reference to the coded result.

• On initial results text, right-click context menu on a reported item to add an additional code.

Code count by file / case

Select codes, then select files or cases.

This gives a table of code counts by file or case. Click on a cell to show more coding details. You can export the table to Excel.

View Graph

Added arrow-head to the Add Line function.

Code Co-occurrence table report

• Fixed error when selecting codes. The code counts did not display in correct columns and all the code names rather than the short list were shown.
• Added option to select categories - so codes of those categories are used in the table.

Errors in this release

Charts error

There was a problem with the Charts function for the executables on the release date 23 July 2025. This was fixed, 25 July 2025.

Merge projects error

When merging projects that contain audio and video files. The text transcription is incorrectly linked to the wrong audio or video file.

To find these errors go to Reports > Database queries and run this SQL:

select id, name, av_text_id from source

To fix for each individual entry use this sql statement:
The CORRECTID is the ID of the text file that should be associated with the relevant AUDIOORVIDEONAME

update source set av_text_id = CORRECTID where name = "AUDIOORVIDEONAME"

QualCoder 3.6

Various updates to QualCoder 3.6 are detailed below.

Installation:

Windows

You have two options (see attached files at the end of the release page):

• QualCoder_3_6_setup.exe: a Windows installer, will set up QualCoder like any normal app, with entries in the start menu, etc.
• QualCoder-3.6.exe A portable binary. Double-click to run and wait for 15 seconds.

On first use of the exe, Windows will ask you to allow to run QualCoder. This is because it is from an unknown publisher. It costs a lot of money to get a trusted publisher certificate - so that will not be possible for the foreseeable future.

Mac

Attached to the release page you will find two options:

• QualCoder_3_6_arm64.dmg: App bundle for newer Macs with Apple Silicon (M1 ... M4 processors)
• QualCoder_3_6_x86_64.dmg: App bundle for the older Macs with Intel processor (core i5, i7, etc).

The app bundles are compiled on macOS Sequoia. They might also work on Sonoma and Ventura. If you are on an older version, consider updating your OS or install QualCoder from source as described in the Wiki: https://github.com/ccbogel/QualCoder/wiki/2.1.-Installation#macos

Note: We are currently not able to sign the app bundles, so you will get a warning that QualCoder is from an unregistered developer. You have to manually allow the app to be executed, if your Gatekeeper is active. Follow these steps:

• Double-click the downloaded dmg-file.
• Drag QualCoder into the link to your applications.
• Start QualCoder by double-clicking the app within your applications folder. You will get an error that QualCoder is from an unregistered developer. The app will not start.
• Go to Settings -> Privacy and Security -> Scroll down until you see a message stating QualCoder was prevented from starting. Click on "open anyway".
• From now on, QualCoder should start without issues.

Linux

The Ubuntu 24 executable can be accessed via this link: https://drive.switch.ch/index.php/s/FyOGqtG8DkeY4ir
The file size is very large 3.3GB. This also mean when it unpacks to run, it may take a couple of minutes to start.
Note: with the executable there is an issue playing Audio/Video. I think it may be due to an internal permissions issue. Instead, download the source code and run QualCoder inside a virtual environment (as detailed on the GitHub front page of QualCoder).

Run from source

For install from source code, download the zip file below and use the instructions on the main GitHub QualCoder page, or the wiki to install on your operating system.

License changes

The license for QualCoder has been changed to the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) version 3 license.

General changes

Throughout QualCoder all the icons have been replace with material design icons.

Thanks to Kai:
A lock out for the SQLite database to prevent multiple access.
Improved error messaging with an error dialog class.
Default to native style on Windows.
Applied UTF-8 to config file.

Kai Droege - Artificial intelligence features

Many thanks to Kai for testing and developing these features over the last several months.

• An AI based search function to explore the data, look for a particular phenomenon or concept in the whole corpus and interpret the data interactively with the AI. This is part of the text coding workspace.
• An AI Chat: Here, the AI analyzes data, summarizes the results (with exact sources, linked to the original documents), and allows to discuss them. I have implemented three types of chats:
  ** A “code chat” that works on already coded data,
  ** a “topic chat” that explores a certain phenomenon in the data, even if it has not been coded yet (this is internally using the ‘AI search’ described above), and
  ** a “general chat” that allows to discuss any question not directly related to the data (basically a build in ChatGPT).
• Prompt Editing: All the functions described above can be modified by varying the underlying prompts that instruct the AI what to do (in plain English). QualCoder already comes with a predefined set of prompts. These allow, for instance, to modify the AI search to be either very open, interpretative and inclusive or to be more focused, adhering to predefined coding rules outlined in the code’s memo (as it is common practice in content or thematic analysis).
• Methodological control and transparency: The user can also rewrite these prompts or define their own, targeted at their particular methods and research questions. This is a major advantage over commercial QDA software packages that do not offer the same level of transparency and control since they keep the underlying prompts confidential. Not so with QualCoder, which offers an easy to use interface to view, modify, and share such prompts.
• Different AI models: QualCoder uses a combination of a local AI model, specialized on multilingual sematic search in a large corpus of data (an E5 sentence encoder) and a Large Language Model (LLM) like GPT-4, usually hosted online. QualCoder can now also use other LLMs, in particular the open-source models offered by the German academic research agency Helmholtz Society (project “Blablador”, free academic access available). The available models are defined in QualCoders config.yml

Implementation details:

By default, the AI features are disabled. The user is asked at the first startup whether they want to enable it. If so, a wizard will guide through the setup process. This wizard can also be started later via the new AI menu.

Startup: Even with the AI turned off, the startup time will be a little longer. Some of the heavy AI-related libraries (especially “sentence-encoder”) will be loaded in a background thread to prevent the app from becoming unresponsive. A new status message at the bottom of the app indicates when the AI is ready.

Vector store: For the semantic search to operate, all text based empirical documents in a project must be converted into semantic embeddings using the local AI model (sentence encoder) mentioned above. These embeddings are then stored in a special database called a “vector store”, based on chroma_db. This happens only once (and when a document is edited, renamed or newly added). Since the analysis of a large document can take up to a minute or longer, this is done in a background thread (status bar: "AI: reading data"). The AI features cannot be used until this process is finished.

Data Structure: Additional AI-related data will be stored in a newly created subfolder within the project called "ai_data". This contains the vector store, a yaml-file with project specific prompts (if there are any) and an SQLite database storing the AI-chats.
UI integration: A new tab for the AI chat and a new menu for the AI features. All AI-related settings are incorporated in the normal settings dialog.

Manage files

Context menu. Added a show all rows EXCEPT value.
Added button to rename all visible rows. Select visible rows by using show value like, show this value and/or show Except value. The rename take a user created prefix and the _001, _002 et cetera.

Editing text files. Uses a different module to speed up identifying changes. A big improvement with large text files.

Manage files - audio video

The option to automatically transcribe audio to text using AI has been removed.

Import survey

The default process is now for each qualitative data column, will be imported as an individual file into the database.
On import each qualitative column name will be added as a code, and the relevant row text will be auto-coded to that code.

Manage references

Improved several functions.
Can view the file via right-click on the file in the files table.
File linked ris_id now has a tooltip that shows the reference title, year and reference type.
New button to automatically link a reference to a file. This works by matching words in the reference title to words in the file name. Needs at least a 70% match between the words to automatically link.
Check the linking after it is applied to ensure it is correct.

Fixed error that kept reference attributes for a file, that remained after a reference was unlinked.

Codes

Code organiser menu option.

Useful for grounded theory development to help develop and organise the coding concepts and their hierarchy.
BACK UP PROJECT before applying changes to the codes tree.
Select a code branch or All, then right click to:
Add categories, rename codes and categories, update memos, merge codes, merge categories, delete categories.

Code images

Can export image grayed-out/blurred/solarised with coded sections highlighted, using key press Ctrl G
Can export image grayed-out/blurred/solarised with selected coded area highlighted - using right-click context menu in a selected coded area
Can export image grayed-out/blurred/solarised with selected code highlighted - using right-click context menu in a selected coded area
L keypress to 'Show codes like' when coding area is in focus

Code text

Line numbers added to show position in text.
A button added to set a default colour for all newly added codes while coding, instead of a random colour.
L keypress to 'Show codes like' when coding area is in focus

Code audio video

Added a button to open the context menu for options with coded segments. Select the segment then the option.
This is a hack to fix an issue in the Windows Exe where right-click on a segment does not open the context menu.
L keypress to 'Show codes like' when coding area is in focus

Reports

Report codes

Checkbox added to allow of export file and case attributes. This is only for exporting codes results as Excel (XLSX) or CSV file formats.
Each file variable will be prepended with FileVar_
Each case variable will be prepended with CaseVar_...

QualCoder 3.5

Early release of 3.5

This an early release of 3.5 to have all current updates and fixes in place, as there is potentially a major change coming in the next version, with introduction of artificial intelligence and GPT4 identification of coded text. (Still in development thanks to Kai Droge).

A binary (double-click to run) for Windows is available at the end of the release page for:
QualCoder-3.5.exe md5 checksum: 3faa37a813bf3944b2409c424077ee19

On first use of the exe, Windows will ask you to allow to run QualCoder. This is because it is from an unknown publisher. It costs a lot of money to get a trusted publisher certificate - so that will not be possible for the foreseeable future.

A binary (double click to run) is available for Ubuntu 22.04. The md5 checksum is: 4d754d388a3e921162fbfd56b3c84edc

For install from source code, download the zip file below and use the instructions on the main GitHub QualCoder page, or the wiki to install on your operating system.
A PDF manual of the 3.5 release can be purchased from:

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ccbogelb/extras

Wiki: https://github.com/ccbogel/QualCoder/wiki

Report codes

Removed [VIEW] in the header of all the code segments in results. It has been replaced with character positions for coded text segments. e.g. [150-188]

Added context menu option - Change code to another code.

Replaced cogs button with Play button triangle. Repositioned and made larger button. Replace word 'search' with 'Run report'.

NEW Report - Code text exact matches

Added a new report that reports on exacted text matches in each file, where multiple codes have been applied to the exact same text. This report is perhaps particularly useful for those people who use codes as variables to perform analyses.

Code text

Export html now includes tooltips when hovering over coded sections. Some character set display issues for some characters, e.g. Euro symbol.
Export text is a new option. this exports a text file with coded segment marked with text in parentheses like this:
Regular text {{code name{{the tagged text portion}}code name}} regular text.

Stating character position: click in the displayed text and press ! to show the numeric position in the text. Press $ to shift all coded segments after the clicked position by up to to +/- 500 characters.

Charts - Word cloud

The word cloud has been changed with 'home grown' code. That is, I made my own word cloud code in python. This was mainly to prevent errors with packaging the PyPi Wordcloud into pyinstaller.

Error fixes

• Zero division error in compare coders. Occurs under a specific circumstance - a code has been created but never assigned to data. Fixed.

• Creating a Case Attribute from the Cases screen. An error occurs. A work around is to create the Attribute from the Manage Attributes screen. Fixed.

• Wordcloud function does not use coded text within selected category. Fixed.

• Note regarding survey imports. Please go to Manage files then View that imported text file per qualitative question, to see where the text assigned to cases starts and ends. It does not include the QC added [id] text at the beginning as a part of that case.

Errors in this release

The Code Audio/Video Segment right-click context menu does not work when using the Windows exe. (a brief flash then disappears). Download and run the source code instead, if this is a feature you need.

Issue with the python vlc module with Fedora 39. Unable to resolve this. So, for audio/video (loading files or coding) either use a different OS or another qualitative software.

Issue with installing pyqt6 on ChromeOS. Unable to resolve this.

Coding report - when selecting cases via attribute parameters, and multiple cases are assigned to parts of the same text document (e.g. from a survey import), the entire text document is used in the report.

Coding report - when Important only is checked, this is ignored in cases search report. Fixed in 3.6.

Some people have had trouble running the QualCoder-3.5.exe on Windows.
I have added another Windows exe with an updated QtCore module - I hope this solves that issue.

Merge projects error
When merging projects that contain audio and video files. The text transcription is incorrectly linked to the wrong audio or video file.

To find these errors go to Reports > Database queries and run this SQL:

select id, name, av_text_id from source

To fix for each individual entry use this sql statement:
The CORRECTID is the ID of the text file that should be associated with the relevant AUDIOORVIDEONAME

update source set av_text_id = CORRECTID where name = "AUDIOORVIDEONAME"

QualCoder 3.4

QualCoder 3.4

A binary (double-click to run) for Windows is available at the end of the release page for:
QualCoder-3.4.exe md5 checksum: cbdd7585b06f50e93949a942320d2676

On first use of the exe, Windows will ask you to allow to run QualCoder. This is because it is from an unknown publisher. It costs a lot of money to get a trusted publisher certificate - so that will not be possible for the foreseeable future.

A binary (double click to run) is available for Ubuntu 22.04. The md5 checksum is: 926f12b7befc8bb3e868e43820f2cda9

For install from source code, download the zip file below and use the instructions on the main GitHub QualCoder page, or the wiki to install on your operating system.

Changes

Manage files

Added a date entry selector via the right-click menu option. This works on attributes that are character and have 'date' in the attribute name.
Added right-click menu option for reference columns (Ref_Authors, Ref_Title, Ref_Journal, Ref_Type, Ref_Year). This allows copying reference to the clipboard as a Vancouver or APA style reference.

Code text

Press ! to show the current numerical clicked position in the text.

After Edit mode changes - sometimes code positions can be shifted wrongly after the edited section.
Press $ and all codes after the clicked position can be shifted left or right by X characters.
A pop up box will ask how many characters to shift. Negative numbers shift left and positive numbers shift right.
Save a backup of the project before doing this action.

Note - Best practice: whenever you decide to edit the text of a text file with already coded text, it is best to save a backup of the project before editing, in case the coding positions are wrongly repositioned.

Removed the journal view option from the right-hand side hidden pane. This occasionally caused some errors. Additionally, the Manage journal menu opens the journals window as a separate floating window that can be used for writing journal notes when coding, getting reports, paste references or performing other functions within QualCoder.

Code PDF

Direct PDF coding is challenging but QualCoder can now display the pdf pages within QualCoder - with a lot of limitations.

Unlike Microsoft Word or LibreOffice Writer or plain text documents, Pdfs are very different. They are designed in a print format and not designed to have text extracted. Some Pdfs may present the text as a full page image - so text extraction is not possible without using optical character recognition software. This will not be an option in QualCoder -you would have to do this separately and import the plain text. Where there is text on a Pdf page, the text does not naturally flow from one bunch of words to the next like in a Word document. Instead the text is displayed in text box chucks with x and y coordinates to position each text chunk on the page. Text extraction, like QualCoder using pdfminer, estimates what the next flowing bit of text is, based on these x, y coordinates. This can be correct and be wrong sometimes too.

QualCoder uses pdfminer, so the limitations of pdfminer and re-interpreting pdf display are present. So far, pdf rendering is adequate, to be able to perform text coding.

There are quite a few limitations regarding displaying the graphics - Images and Polygon shapes. Pdfminer does not find all the images on a page and some images appear to be like photo negatives. Often images have a mask to display a portion of the image, or to rotate the image - I cannot work this out yet. Other problems I have come across, is the order of displaying items, particularly, lines, rectangles, curves and images when overlapping. Curves are polygons which require extra instructions to display correctly, so for now they will appear chunky. The text will be displayed using one font - the font size can be changed to overcome overlapping text display issues. Also, each character within a text box can have its own formatting (colour, size, emphasis), so most of this is ignored and formatting is estimated for the entire text chunk.

Large PDF files will take time to load - as QualCoder has to parse the entire set of objects for the PDF before it is displayed. This is noticeable with 10 pages or larger files.

The right-hand side pane displays the plain text for the page.

Controls and options:

Checkboxes at the top will show or hides PDF elements such as lines, rectangles, curves (polygons), images, text. Another check box will display all text in black, in case it blends with background colours.
There is a page selector, or type in the page number and press enter.
There is a text font size adjuster in case the font from the text boxes overlaps too much.
Click on the PDF display and + or - will zoom in and out.

You can export an image of the rendered PDF with coding stripes.

Journals

Can now have journal attributes. Can order by column ascending or descending.
Can Show names like ... or attribute values like ... or select a specific coder name to trim the list of journal rows displayed.

The journal window will now display as a floating window.
This change is so that you can read a coded text, image or audio/video or view reports and at the same time write into the journal entry.

Report codes

When a coding report is run and results are displayed.
You can delete codes by right-click on the code heading and select unmark.
You can add an important mark to a coded segment.

In the code tree area, right-click to select all codes, unselect all codes, and select codes where the name contains matching text.

REFI-QDA Project export

Fixed a None type error. Where memo data was Null instead of empty strings.

Charts

Added a wordcloud charting option, with selection of several background colours. This option is not available in the Windows exe or the Ubuntu executable as it caused an error when creating the exe. You must do a manual install on Windows to get this function.

References

Added right-click menu option to copy reference to the clipboard as a Vancouver or APA style reference.
More columns show in the Manage reference pane.
Options to sort and filter the reference list and the files list.
Sorting is alphabetic not numerical (e.g. journal volumes and issues). As the RIS import is text based some of these fields can contain text and not only numbers. For example, volumes: I, II, II, IV, or issue 1, issue 2 summer.
Alphabetic sorting of numbers is like this:
1
10
101
12
2
21

Translations

I use DeepL for translations. most translations are done. Some on the QtWidgets are not done.

Fixes

• Fixed showing annotations from other text files, when viewing current text file.
• Fixed rare occurrence integrity error. When merging a code into another code and all unique constraints match - e.g. owner, cid, fid, pos0, pos1.
• Fixed coder comparisons report error that failed to make report. (partly fixed, see below).

Errors

• Zero division error in compare coders. Occurs under a specific circumstance - a code has been created but never assigned to data.

• Creating a Case Attribute from the Cases screen. An error occurs. A work around is to create the Attribute from the Manage Attributes screen.

• Wordcloud function does not use coded text within selected category.

Fixes for zero div and case attributes:

• The Windows exe and the Ubuntu executable have been updated to fix these errors. (27 Oct 2023).

3.3

QualCoder 3.3 Release

Binaries (double-click to run) are available at the end of the release page for:
Windows 10/11 QualCoder-3.3.exe md5 checksum: 0b8f50b6d6c5e22d3cb17d2c78f2facb
Ubuntu 22.04 QualCoder-3.3-Ubuntu-22.04 md5 checksum: b7eff6944e0da74c444b710f451eae15

On first use, Windows will ask you to allow to run QualCoder. This is because it is from an unknown publisher.
It costs a lot of money to get a trusted publisher certificate - so that will not be possible for the foreseeable future.

Main

Import a codes list from a plain text file. One code name per line. No categories are applied.
Projects created in 3.3 (or newer). If opened in older versions of QualCoder, text files may not be display in the Coding - Code Text section.

Accessibility

Throughout - added more key shortcuts. Under Help there is an option to display all the key shortcuts.
The colour selector shows how code colours can be seen with different types of colour impaired vision.
Under Coding menu there is a new window called Colour scheme. This allows a range of selected colours to be applied to a range of codes. This area also shows how the colours may be seen by people with different types of colour impairment.

Manage files

Can hide columns by right-click on the table header row for options to hide that column or to hide columns beginning with specific text. Or to show columns where the column name starts with specific text.
Can assign a file to a case via right-click menu when in the cases column.
Can right-click on a URL in an attribute and open the URL with the default web browser.
Faster table filling.

Twitter data

Import twitter data from a fully quoted csv file.
Example file in Examples folder.
Requires these exact column names: id and full_text headers for tweet data and screen_name for user data.
Additional tweet fields can be these exact column names:
created_at, coordinates, retweet_count, favorite_count, lang
Additional user fields can be:
location, url, description, followers_count, friends_count, listed_count, favourites_count, statuses_count

The twitter import page also has an example of how to use R with RTweet to extract tweet data. This was tested and worked before twitter applied a fee for service. Note that currently there is a cost associated with accessing twitter data. I cannot give advice on any problems you may have getting twitter data.

The tweet data is loaded into individual database files (Manage Files), The user data is loaded into cases (Manage cases). Multiple tweets (stored as files are assigned to the matching user (case).

Manage cases

Faster table filling
Can hide columns by right-click on the table header row for options to hide that column or to hide columns beginning with specific text. Or to show columns starting with a text value.
Can order by case name or by attribute value, ascending or descending.
Can hide rows by right-click menu and selecting a text value that equals or 'is like' some chosen text.

Case file manager

Some improved functions in this dialog include a check box to hide assigned files. The right hand side text edit will fill with any file text when the file is selected in the left hand side table.

Journals

Some markdown is enacted to make viewing journal entries nicer:
#, ##, ### for heading levels
**text** for bolded text
*text* for italic text

Code text

'in vivo' coding added. Selected text becomes the code

Colour scheme

There is a new window for setting colour ranges to codes. It also has options to see the codes from difference colour vision perspectives.

Bugs in this release

Code Text: Mouse text hover. Annotation tooltips from other text files are shown when mouse hovers at annotation position in the current text file.

Coder comparisons report. Error and fails to make report.

Merge codes error - unique integrity error - identical codes on identical text positions for identical coder. Probably been present for a few releases. But a rare occurence in practice.

3.2

QualCoder 3.2 Release

Binaries are for:
Windows 10/11: QualCoder-3.2.exe The md5 checksum is 7d31334746649fd7549dbf487090660c
On first use, Windows will ask you to allow to run QualCoder. This is because it is from an unknown publisher.
It costs a lot of money to get a trusted publisher certificate - so that will not be possible for the foreseeable future.

Ubuntu 22: QualCoder-3.2-Ubuntu22 The md5 checksum is 3aff11cacd998fab9b998cf34d78d9c6

Overall changes

Removed dependency on VLC software for audio/video. (thanks Andrzej)
So if VLC is not installed you can code text and images. You do require VLC for playing and coding audio/video.
Removed reliance on lxml python module. QualCoder will not crash if lxml is not installed. lxml is now only used for xml validation for REFI-QDA imports and exports. Reason: python 3.11, some people had problems installing lxml.

Settings

Added stylesheet options for overall look of QualCoder.
Added option to select number of characters before and after, when doing coding reports for coded text in context of the surrounding text.
Added option to highlight the coded text in bold, italic or larger font, within the surrounding text.

Bibliography

Import references from .ris or .txt files in the RIS plain text format.

Coding in Code Text, Code AV, Code image.

Added options to the Show coded files window:
These options include adding another code to the coded section, removing the code.
The coded text segment can be resized using Alt or Shift and Left and Right arrows to shrink or extend the text segment.

Code text

• Right-click menu option to create and mark selected text with new code.
• Do not clear search text term, when opening a different document.
• Long code or category names are shortened to 50 characters with '..' in the middle. Mouse hover displays the full code name. This was to prevent the codes tree taking over a lot of horizontal screen space.
• Auto-code with exact text button. Right click on the button to get options of auto-code all text (the default), first match in file, last match in file. Then press the button (left-click) to run the action.

Code Images

The coded image can be exported as an html file. Mouse hover highlights the coding details for each area.

Image rotation

Images in most places can be rotated. Mostly via right-click mouse button menu.

Report codes

• Code name results can be ordered by alphabet or by frequency of codes ascending or descending
• When cases selected can now also have codes/categories by file (for the selected cases).

REFI Project import

There is improved importation of text annotations. Required for how Nvivo stores text annotations in the qdpx folder.

Error fixes:

Fixed translations not being recognised in Report Coding matrix combo boxes.
Nvivo REFI-QDA project import re text annotations
REFI-QDA Codebook importation - typos stopping import, now fixed.

Wiki Manual

https://github.com/ccbogel/QualCoder/wiki

Facebook group

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1251478525589873

Windows exe does not start

In some circumstances, you might get a notice that Windows cannot access the device, path or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions.
Suggestions to resolve this are here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/-windows-cannot-access-the-specified-device-path-or-file-error-when-you-try-to-install-update-or-start-a-program-or-file-46361133-47ed-6967-c13e-e75d3cc29657

Alternatively, if none of the suggestions work, install from source code, see github main page for details on installing from source and running using the Command Prompt.

Issues or errors with this release

The Ubuntu executable does not work with vlc for audio/video on all computers. So if you get a message like this 'WARNING qualcoder.manage_files.view_av 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'media_player_new''
The only solution is to install from the source code and not use the executable.

macOS there is an issue with playing audio/video so Audio/Video may not be usable with QualCoder.

View charts - Select Attributes button to filter files for charts error

QualCoder 3.1

QualCoder 3.1 release information

I have only tested on Ubuntu 22.04 and Windows 10.
You must have VLC installed.
Optionally, install ffmpeg for speech to text and waveform image creation. (ffmpeg tested on Ubuntu only).

In the Assets section below:
There is an exe for Windows 10 and 11 QualCoder-3.1.exe, double-click to run. The md5 checksum is: 53d693a1add52f7aa380fce3d1023b15
There is an executable for Ubuntu 22.04 QualCoder-3.1, double-click to run. The md5 checksum is: 49ae546bccab8be1a11b2646c4b7fbbd
Alternatively, download the source.zip, unzip and manually install using the commands.

Please read the manual:
https://github.com/ccbogel/QualCoder/wiki
And the license conditions: https://github.com/ccbogel/QualCoder/wiki/01-Introduction

Settings

Very large text files, slows the program when coding.
Added option to choose character text chunk size, when coding very large text files.

Code text

Added right-click option to change the code to another code.
Added display of annotations in the tooltips.

Reports Codings, File Summary, Code Summary

Added search coding results for text.

Reports Codings

Added memo display options.
Added wrap for matrix vertical and horizontal headers.
Can export matrix as Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.

Report relations

Added extra columns for the ctid identifiers and text.
Added statistics summary table and csv export.

Reports Graph

Save, load and delete graphs. Can add various elements and lines to the graph. It can be used as a concept map or mind map.
Show coding ids in graph tooltips where settings show ids is active.

Error fixes

Fixed two recently identified issues to improve REFI-QDA project import and export.
Fixed ODT file import error.
Fixed codes by file matrix report error.

Errors in this release

• Import of Nvivo REFI-QDA project file. If the file contains text annotations - the import may halt.
• There is an error in importng REFI-QDA Codebook files
• The Manage Files View Audio/Video may hang if ffmpeg is installed on Windows (and maybe macOS). As the function to create a waveform using ffmpeg may be flawed. A quick fix would be to un-install ffmpeg.
• View charts - Select Attributes button to filter files for charts error

Facebook Group

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1251478525589873

QualCoder 3.0

QualCoder 3.0 release information

I have only tested on Ubuntu 20.04 and Windows 10.
You must have VLC installed.
Optionally, install ffmpeg for speech to text and waveform image creation. (ffmpeg tested on Ubuntu only).
There is an exe for Windows 10 and 11, double-click to run. The md5 checksum is: c8b3813ca3b5b9612e462110af602a94
There is an executable for Ubuntu 20.04, double-click to run. The md5 checksum is: ddd01ab1e5ab3f41e7db5ad4dafc7ca7
Alternatively, download the source.zip, unzip and manually install using the commands.

Qt6

Moved the graphical framework from Qt5 to Qt6

Manage files

• Rename database file name entry function added.

Code text

• Fixed uncaught IndexError exception when editing text positions.
• Fixed AttributeError updating Tooltips in merge_codes
• Export coded text file to odt or html. Does not export the tooltips (future work to do).

Reports

• Added Charting function.

• Pie, Bar, Sunburst, Heatmap and Treemap charts can be created and are displayed in the default web browser.

• Heatmaps are limited to 40 rows and 40 columns for nicer display.

• Graph

  • Added functions to show files and cases as text objects.
  • Added function to add extra free text objects and lines.
  • zoom +/- function.
  • Future work will be to save and load these user edited graphs within the database.

Special functions

• Added ability to merge another QualCoder project into the current project. Always do a back up of your project first.

Errors fixed

• File deletion error - SQL bindings mismatch - fixed.
• Uncaught IndexError exception when editing text positions from within code text - fixed.
• AttributeError updating Tooltips when merging codes- fixed.
• Dark text on dark code colour in Code image fixed. Now shows white text. fixed.

Read the Readme file for installation from source

Errors in this release

• Minor: Manage Files > Viewing Text file. The right-click context menu causes an error. This error is fixed in the binaries below.
• Under some circumstances REFI Project import won't work ( due to a missing utf8 encoding line). (Now fixed in current code, for subsequent release).
• Under some circumstances REFI project export (text coding) contains invalid XML. (Now fixed in current code, for subsequent release).
• ODT files may not import. Quick solution - open with LibreOffice or MS Word and save as plain text file, then import the plain text file.

Facebook group

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1251478525589873