Until the Apache cTAKES documentation on this website is completely updated for 3.0, you might want to reference -documentation for previous releases. -That documentation is for cTAKES versions prior to becoming an Apache incubator project.

The Apache cTAKES community is deciding where the documentation will be in the future...

Apache cTAKES is an effort undergoing incubation at The Apache Software Foundation (ASF), sponsored by the Apache Incubator PMC. Incubation is required of all newly accepted projects until a further review indicates that the infrastructure, communications, and decision making process have stabilized in a manner consistent with other successful ASF projects. While incubation status is not necessarily a reflection of the completeness or stability of the code, it does indicate that the project has yet to be fully endorsed by the ASF.

How to use this site

Welcome to our Apache project called cTAKES. +May we direct your attention to the resources in the navigation section on the left.

<---- Those right over there.

If you need to know what cTAKES is, the About page in the General section will give you a cursory look at what cTAKES can do. +Downloads and the glossary are best left alone until you are directed there by the documentation or you need a definition.

The Community section is all about interacting with the group of people who contribute to the code base and who use it in projects at their own place of business. +Use that part of the site to see how you can participate.

Next you will see sections for Users and Developers.

Users is for people who want to take a binary distribution of cTAKES and try it out or perhaps configure it for a run at annotating text in their enterprise.
Developers is for those looking to change or extend the code, compile the code, deploy, and annotate text for their enterprise. Developers are encouraged to contribute changes and fixes back to the community.

Finally the PPMC (Podling Project Management Committee) and the ASF (Apache Software Foundation) section have to do with administrating this project.

cTAKES has one other site used to house the bulk of the documentation. You will eventually be directed to the cTAKES documentation as you begin.

Getting started as a user

Users are typically looking for the fastest way to get set up and try out the code. +For this use case, cTAKES distributes a binary file (combined with resources from a separate site) to get you started. +The downloads page is where you will go to find the latest stable binary distribution.

If you feel comfortable installing from README text then you can go right to the downloads page and get started. +If you would like more of the step-by-step instructions then look to the User Guide.

Being an Apache project, the source code is open to all. If you care to you can download the source distribution from the downloads page or simply cTAKE SVN in your browser.

Getting started as a developer

Developers can also take a look at the code as a user does, but to do development you are going to need to checkout the code. Anyone can checkout the code, but you must get involved as a committer to actually check in code (or work closely with a committer who can).

Developers will need a development environment of some kind. +Eclipse is popular but your favorite command line tools will also work just fine. +cTAKES builds are based on maven (another Apache project).

The Developer Guide is where you want to start. It has an extremely short set of install instructions for those that have been through this many times as well as step-by-step install and build instructions. +One thing you'll need before you get started is information on how the SVN cTAKES code trunk, branches, and tags are used.

Running the cTAKES annotators

cTAKES is based on UIMA (another Apache project). UIMA brings a couple of GUI tools to the table for you to start getting an understanding of what the annotators do. +The User Guide will show how to launch these tools (Developers your guide shows how to launch from Eclipse) and then how to process some test text. +After your understand what is going on you will be able to take out the GUIs and process large amounts of clinical text to meet your needs. +In the end that's what this is all about.