It is important to grasp the philosophy behind Isilex. It is based on an approach which is entirely noSQL and is integrated around XML. It has been conceived on the one hand as a means of integrating textual corpora, and on the other hand as a way of providing notes to the corpora, with all the results searchable by a semantic-led search-engine. The links are made through exploiting libraries in full-text X-Query for the lemmatisation, the indexation and the stemming.

It therefore provides a software engine for automating the publication of textual data online. You can publish a text or corpus by uploading it, and then your team can work on the files, and both intersect.

In its ‘Lite’ version, Isilex is oriented either to a corpus or to a lexicon. Linking the two is done as a development specific to a project [?]

The annotation files

The alphabetical list (at the top right-hand of the screen) in Isilex links to a collectonm of XML files in a TEI/dictionary format. When Isilex encounter a format for which there is a file, it automatically creates an annotation, an indication in the form of a hyperlink in the margin of the corpus in question.

Isilex is thus a tool that is designed specifically for Web-based editions.