Toolbox
Here you will find a general collection of tools that I have written that, in one way or another, are designed to help get research or analyses done. A lot of these tools are quite old now and are probably completely outdated or obsolete. Nevertheless, I make them available here :)
Like any toolbox, you will find that some tools are better than others in form and function, some tools are single-purpose while others are more versatile, and some are in the toolbox simply because I just haven't got the heart to get rid of them. Much like my toolbox at home, some tools may not be of use to you, and not all of my tools are located here; some are in other places where they are more relevant (such as text analysis tools). Nevertheless, browse around, borrow anything that you need, and please give any credit where it may be due, either to myself or others.
Virtually everything on this page is outdated by several years -- that doesn't mean that the programs here have no use anymore, but it does mean that the descriptions below may be laughable. They're from another time :)
The Tools
Most of these tools require the some version of the .NET framework in order to run. This framework is available for free via Microsoft at the appropriate download page. Note that this page was originally created in ~2011 and is only updated on an as-needed basis, which is to say that it is rarely updated unless a new program is added.
Program | Version | Upload Date | Citation | Description | Download (Standalone) | Download (Installer) | Source Code | .NET Requirement |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ExamineTXT | 1.10 | 2018-10-15 | Boyd, R. L. (2018). ExamineTXT (Version 1.10) [Software]. Available from ryanboyd.io/ software/toolbox |
Detect and report the encoding of text-based files in bulk. Built around SimpleHelpers.FileEncoding. Note that this program uses several heuristics to try to identify your files' encodings. While detecting a file's encoding may seem like a simple and arbitrary task, it is actually a very complicated issue (e.g., see here and here). | ExamineTXT.zip | ExamineTXT Installer.msi | link | Microsoft .NET 4.6.2 |
Igor | 1.0.1 | 2020-10-01 | Boyd, R. L. (2020). Igor (Version 1.0.1) [Software]. Available from ryanboyd.io/ software/toolbox |
Counts the number of times different types of objects appear across a corpus of images. Built around Alturos.Yolo. | igor-v101.zip | n/a | link | Microsoft .NET 4.6.1. Also requires that MS Visual C++ Redist. for VS 2015/2017/2019 x64 are installed. |
KoToken | 0.91 | 2018-04-27 | Boyd, R. L. (2018). KoToken: Korean Text Tokenizer (Version 0.91) [Software]. Available from ryanboyd.io/ software/toolbox |
Tokenizes Korean texts. A simple GUI wrapper around modamoda's tokenization code. | KoToken-0.91.zip | n/a | link | Microsoft .NET 4.6.2 |
Plug N Chug | 1.01 | 2018-03-13 | Boyd, R. L. (2018). Plug N Chug (Version 1.01) [Software]. Available from ryanboyd.io/ software/toolbox |
General recursive code generator | PlugNChug.exe | PlugNChug_ Installer.msi |
link | Microsoft .NET 4.6.2 |
POSTModern | 0.990 | 2018-08-29 | Boyd, R. L. (2018). POSTModern Part of Speech Tagger (Version 0.990) [Software]. Available from ryanboyd.io/ software/toolbox |
Generates Part of Speech percentages and tags. Built around the Stanford.NLP.NET POS Tagger. Also, just because most models in this setup are based on the Penn Treebank, here is a link to the tags / interpretations: link (see also, here) | POST Modern-0.990.zip |
POSTModern- Installer.msi |
link | Microsoft .NET 4.6.2 |
Senti-Gent | 0.85 | 2018-06-26 | Boyd, R. L. (2018). Senti-Gent: CoreNLP Sentiment Analysis (Version 0.85) [Software]. Available from ryanboyd.io/ software/toolbox |
A simple, GUI-driven sentiment analysis program. Built around Stanford's CoreNLP for .NET (v3.9.1, English model). Uses a trained RNN model to classify sentences from "very negative" to "very positive". Produces sentence-level and document-level scores as output. | Senti-Gent_v0.85.zip | n/a | link | Microsoft .NET 4.6.2 |
SlimCSV | 1.04 | 2020-01-09 | Boyd, R. L. (2020). SlimCSV (Version 1.05) [Software]. Available from ryanboyd.io/ software/toolbox |
Strips columns from CSV files to make for lighter files in your dataset. Can work on CSV files of any size. | SlimCSV.exe | SlimCSV Installer.msi |
link | Microsoft .NET 4.6.2 |
TextEmend | 1.01 | 2018-10-31 | Boyd, R. L. (2018). TextEmend (Version 1.01) [Software]. Available from ryanboyd.io/ software/toolbox |
Batch regex.replace() across multiple text files. Requires moderate knowledge of regular expression formulation. Example of input list is located here. | TextEmend.exe | TextEmend Installer.msi | link | Microsoft .NET 4.6.2 |
Transmogrifier | This software has been relocated to https://translate.ryanb.cc | |||||||
TranscodeTXT | 1.02 | 2019-02-02 | Boyd, R. L. (2019). TranscodeTXT (Version 1.02) [Software]. Available from ryanboyd.io/ software/toolbox |
Change the encoding of text-based files in bulk. Can be used on any plaintext files with any extension (e.g., txt, csv, json, etc.). You must know the input files' encoding to make use of this software. | TranscodeTXT.exe | TranscodeTXT Installer.msi | link | Microsoft .NET 4.6.2 |
VADER-Tots | 0.92 | 2018-06-26 | Boyd, R. L. (2018). VADER-Tots Sentiment Analysis (Version 0.92) [Software]. Available from ryanboyd.io/ software/toolbox |
A simple, GUI-driven sentiment analysis program. Built around VaderSharp, which is a .NET port of Hutto & Gilbert's (2014) VADER. Outputs sentence-level and document-level sentiment scores. | VADER-Tots-0.92.zip | n/a | link | Microsoft .NET 4.6.2 |
ZhToken | 0.65 | 2018-05-19 | Boyd, R. L. (2018). ZhToken: Chinese Text Tokenizer (Version 0.65) [Software]. Available from ryanboyd.io/ software/toolbox | Tokenizes Chinese texts using Stanford NLP .NET v3.9.1. | ZhToken_v0.65.zip | n/a | link | Microsoft .NET 4.6.2 |
Even Older / More Obsolete Tools
All programs below this point are essentially obsolete as of 2015 or so. They are primarily useful for generating one-off batches of code for very specific analyses, and perhaps for looking at how syntax could be formatted for specific R / SAS methods. Feel free to use them as long as they are useful, although newer software like Plug N Chug are far more versatile.
Program | Version | Upload Date | Citation | Description | Download (Standalone) | Download (Installer) | Source Code | .NET Requirement |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2-Level MLM Generator for R | 1.1.7 | 2014-08-22 | Generates R scripts to run 2-level multilevel linear models. Uses the nlme package. | 2-Level_MLM_ Generator.exe |
n/a | n/a | Microsoft .NET 4.5 | |
Linear Mixed Effects Generator | 0.3.0a | 2013-08-05 | Generates R scripts to run LME models. The script generation process needs to be streamlined so that scripts are less redundant (and thus, smaller), but everything is fully functional. | LME Generator for R.exe | n/a | n/a | Microsoft .NET 4.0 Client | |
MLM Generator | 0.7.0b | 2012-11-26 | Generates SAS scripts for a specific type of MLM. Scripts may be modified to some gain for different models. | MLM_Generator.exe | n/a | n/a | Microsoft .NET 4.0 Client | |
Multiple Linear Regression Generator | 1.0.0 | 2013-11-22 | Generates R scripts to run simple, 2-predictor multiple linear regressions. Very streamlined. | MultiRegGen for R.exe | n/a | n/a | Microsoft .NET 4.0 Client | |
Repeated-Measures GLM Generator | 0.0.4b | 2012-03-01 | Generates scripts for repeated-measures GLM (specifically, LME) models in SAS. | Repeated-Measures_ GLM_Generator.exe |
n/a | n/a | Microsoft .NET 4.0 Client | |
SAS Multiple Regression Generator | 0.1.0b | 2013-04-23 | Generates scripts for simple, 2-predictor multiple linear regression models in SAS. | Multiple_Regression_ Generator.exe |
n/a | n/a | Microsoft .NET 4.0 Client | |
StringSmoosh! | 0.2a | 2013-02-06 | This is a zippy little tool that drastically reduces the amount of time required in order to get a large spreadsheet of data into separate files that are intended to be fed into RGCalc | StringSmoosh.exe | n/a | n/a | Microsoft .NET 4.0 Client | |
The Personality Scrubber | 1.4.2 | 2013-04-25 | This is a tool developed for use in the Robinson Lab at North Dakota State University. The Personality Scrubber generates SAS scripts intended to systematically produce most of the information that one would want to get for certain self-report measures. This is the standalone version (not the private installer version) and, thus, has a specific DLL requirement (download). It may not run on most machines without this DLL. | PersonalityScrubber.exe | n/a | n/a | Microsoft .NET 4.0 Client | |
Oldschool Scrubber | n/a | 2011-??-?? | This is a wholly obsolete, older version of what eventually became the Personality Scrubber. It is essentially a very simple batch script that pegs together text files in the same directory. The idea was to have text files for all of the coding schemes that you would want to assemble, then just drop the appropriate ones in an empty folder with a copy of the scrubber, and it would piece them together for you -- no muss, no fuss. I have included a link here largely for posterity and because I have a soft spot in my heart for batch scripting. If you want to apply it to other purposes, be my guest. I've included a few example files just for kicks. | Personality_Scrubber.zip | n/a | n/a | n/a |