Help

Keyboard shortcuts
CTRL+F sets the focus to the search input field
  ENTER inside the search input field sets the focus to the table
CTRL+A selects the entire Praat command for copying
CTRL+U sets the focus to the target menu
CTRL+Y sets the focus to the first argument of the found command
CTRL+Z sets the focus to the first visible row of the table
ARROW-UP/DOWN ~ PAGE UP/DOWN navigates through the table if it's selected

Search Input Field
The string that is entered here will be searched for in the Command and of Object(s) columns, and if a row (command or object) contains the search string it will be outputted. To look for more than one word or part of a word, simply enter a Space between the search strings. The order of multiple search strings doesn't affect the output.
The of Object(s) column lists the object type(s) – (if there are more than one they're separated by ".") which the command can be applied to. For instance, the command "Extract all intervals..." can only be executed if a "Sound" and a "TextGrid" object are selected. In order to search for all commands that can be applied to a given object you can use "." to mark the beginning and end of a word (object); ".." can be used to look for the absolute beginning and end of the entire column of Object(s).
Examples:

• to look for "Create Sound" commands
cre sou or sou cre
• to look for "Get number" commands where at least one of the selected objects is a TextGrid
get num textgrid or textgrid get num
• get all available commands for a "Sound" object only
..sound..
• get all available commands for a "Sound" object which contain "duration"
..sound.. dur
• get all commands if at least one "Sound" and one "TextGrid" object are selected
.textgrid. .sound.

Set Search Input Field via URL
You can set the search string and the target by using URL query parameters:
.../index.html?q=foo&t=bar
  foo := the search string
  bar := e = "Editor", s = "Script", anything else = "All" [optional]
Example:
http://www.bibiko.de/praat/wizard/index.html?q=get%20time%20..sound..&t=s will look for "get time ..sound.." [show all commands for a "Sound" object which contains the strings "get" and "time"] as normal script command.

Remark: This can be used by programmable script editors or other programs to search for a specific command online or offline [see "Download"].

Form of Arguments
If a command requires argument(s) an editable form, similar to Praat's forms, will be displayed. In addition a tooltip displaying the required argument format for each input field will be shown. A change of an argument triggers a simple argument validation and an update and of the entire command shown above the form.
Remark: Please do not use any script variable names as argument value! This can be done after pasting the entire command in your editor.

Buttons
All show either all, only     editor script, or only Praat     script commands
Other columns show or hide available columns
⇣ Select selects the found command for copying
? looks for help of the found command via Google™ online

About

Motivation: Praat is a brilliant tool which can do phonetic analyses and can be scripted. My point is, I'm not able to remember all the possible command names and esp. the argument structure of each single command. One way is to use Praat's "Paste History" functionality. This works fine for an initial script, but if I want to add something or fine-tune the script I get lost in all the possibilities to do that.

My Solution: Since Praat's documentation does not list all possible commands, I went the way to write a script which parses the entire source code of Praat to get a list of all commands in conjunction with the information about their default argument structure, whether it's an editor or script command, and to which object it can be applied to. The script, written in Perl, extracted 99% of these commands automatically, and of course, I'm aware of the fact that the script can't be perfect, thus if you encounter a missing command, a wrong argument structure, or any other erroneous issue, please do not hesitate to contact me via mail [at] bibiko.de .

Remark: Offline usage - since the entire web page is written in pure HTML and JavaScript only you can also use this wizard offline. Simply download this ZIP file (ca. 410kB), extract it, and open the index.html file with your favourite browser.

Hans-Jörg Bibiko

Download

Praat's Command Wizard is written in pure HTML and JavaScript only. That's why you can use it offline as well. Download this ZIP file (ca. 410kB), extract it to any locations, and open the index.html with your favourite browser.