EULinksChecker add-in tools

Hristo Konstantinov, APIS

FP7-ICT-2013-SME-DCA

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EULinksChecker profile• Implementation – several applications, but one

service:– Installable add-ins integrated within the most popular

browsers and text editors:o Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chromeo MS Word and OpenOffice Writer,

plus• Web service for PDF documents

• Function:– Assisting legal professionals while editing, browsing or

viewing documents by identifying and establishing links to EU law and EuroVoc thesaurus, and

– Offering them access to EU and national legislation and case law based on identified legal citations and recognised ontology terms

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EULinksChecker main features• Toolbar and menu functions

– Check for links– Remove links– Insert link– Remove links from selection– Save text to XML-file– Settings

• Captured text functions of the host application– Show hint on mouse over– Click on link

• Context menu functions– Show list of referring / indexed documents– Create legal citation

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Check for links function• In MS Word:

• In Open Office Writer:

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Check for links function (cont.)• In Internet Explorer:

• In Mozilla Firefox:

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Check for links function (cont.)• In Google Chrome:

• Description of the function:– After confirmation by the user it identifies the language of the text

opened or viewed and sends it to the front-end web service of the EUCases Linking Platform

– The linking tools and the tools for classification recognise the legal citations to EU law and the EuroVoc terms contained in user’s text

– Information about the recognised citations and terms and their positions within the text is sent back to the add-in

– The user receives the text with highlights (underlines) all recognised citations and terms

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Check for links function: example

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Description of the other menu functions

• Remove links– After confirmation by the user it removes the highlights

(underlining) of all citations and terms recognised with the function “Check for links”

• Insert link– Before using this function user must have selected a portion of

text. When this function is used, the user is prompted to enter a URL to an external resource

– After entering it the selected text is highlighted and converted to a link to the specified resource

• Remove links from selection– Before using this function user must select a portion of text

containing a link or links to a legal citation or term. When this function is used the contained links within the selection are removed

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Description of the other menu functions (cont.)

• Save text to XML-file– When using this function user is required to select path and file

name of the text to be exported– After that the text of the currently opened (viewed) document

together with the found legal citations and terms (in the case the “Check for links” function has been already used) is sent to the Front-end Web Service of the EUCases Linking Platform.

– The service forward it subsequently to the linking tools, the tools for classification and the LT2XML conversion tools in the Back-end.

– Finally, the Front-end Web Service returns back the text in Legal XML format to the EULinksChecker add-in which stores it into previously selected file name and path

• Settings– This function offers the user the option to change the interface

language– The interface languages to choose from are: Bulgarian, English,

French, German and Italian

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Captured text functions of the host application

• Show hint on mouse over:– EULinksChecker add-in captures the “show hint on mouse over” function

of the host application when the user hovers over a legal citation recognised and highlighted with the add-in “Check for links” function

– The add-in shows a hint containing:• The text of the cited legal provision, or• Bibliographic data about the cited legal act, or• A link to the URL of the cited legal document in EUR-Lex portal (if the document

is not available in the EUCases Linking Platform)• Click on link:

– EULinksChecker add-in captures the “click on link” function of the host application when the user clicks on a legal citation or term recognised and highlighted with the add-in “Check for links” function.

– If the click is on a legal citation, a web page in the user’s default browser is opened containing the text of the cited document as published on the EUR-Lex portal.

– If the click is on a term from the EuroVoc thesaurus, the opened web page contains a list of all documents indexed this term.

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Captured text functions of the host application: examples

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Context menu functionsFunction Intended use

Referring or indexed documents: All documents National case law National legislation EU case law EU legislation

By choosing one of these options the user sends a request to the EUCases Linking Platform and in response receives a list of documents from the respective type referring to the same act or provision or indexed with the same legal term. The “All documents” option returns a list of documents from all listed types. The list is opened in a new window of the user’s browser.

Create legal citation: Short citation Full citation.

By choosing one of these options the user sends a request to the EUCases Linking Platform and in response receives in textual form a short, respectively, a full reference to the official publication of an EU legislative instrument or a case of the EU Court of Justice. The received text can be copied and inserted in user’s writing.

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Context menu functions: example

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List of referring documents: example

Link to document text in EUCases Linking Platform

Link to the text of the document published by the source

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Document text delivered by EUCases web service: example

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Document text at the source web page: example

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Create legal citation function• Description:

– The functions “Short citation” and “Full citation” support users in citing EU legislative instruments or judgements of the EU Court of Justice in their writings

– They return in a short or long format the text of a reference to the official publication of an EU legal document (piece of legislation or decision of the EU Court of Justice) so that users can copy the reference and use it in the document they are producing

• Short citation– The Short citation function returns a textual reference to the

publication source only• Full citation

– The Full citation function returns the full title of the legal document and a textual reference to the publication source

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Short citation function: example

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Full citation function: example

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Web service for PDF documents