SmART is a web based application, that's why you need a web browser. But that's not the problem, is it? Using Mozilla Firefox is highly recommended! SmART is system independent, that's why it does not matter whether your computer runs under Linux, Mac OSX, or Microsoft Windows.

Starting SmART is quite simple. Just type http://smart.sbronner.com into the address line of your favorite web browser. The result should be like this:

SmART detects your browser's language settings and displays its output and the semantic relations to be chosen from in this language. Presently, English and German are implemented. English is used as a default for all other languages.

When clicking the "New" button a text field will appear. You can input the propositons of your text line by line into the textarea. Copying and Pasting from a Bible Program is a convenient option. If you prefer Greek propositions you can use James Naughton's Unicode Classical Greek Inputter which comes with SmART. A name can be assigned to the SSA being constructed, but this is optional. Clicking on the "Create SSA" button will result in a new screen with distinct proposition fields and the possibility to connect them.

Choosing the "Open" button instead of "New" will result in the file open menu. After having specified a file from one of your last SSA sessions you will have to click the "Create SSA" button to continue your work. The file to open should be of those you have formerly saved with SmART or one of the sample files which you will find in SmART's "examples" directory. (You will find the directory "smart" in the "webapps" subdirectory of your Servlet Container and "examples" as a subdirectory of the former.) Otherwise, an error message will be displayed.

Now let's take off the gloves! During the whole analysis process you can change the propositions in order to insert what is not-literally communicated. Changing the proposition labels is possible as well.

But the essential is connecting and disconnecting propositions. You can connect two or more adjacent propositions by clicking on the "Connect" button after having picked a relation from the select list. Propositions at the outer left border - let's call them "high level propositions" - are marked with a disconnect symbol. Clicking on one of them will detach the semantic relation. The "Connect in reverse" button will create a relation with interchanged prominence of propositions. And if you want to replace a relation by another one just choose the new relation from the list and click on one of the relation branches.

By default, there are two "Concept-Communication Unit Relations": "ITEM-identification" and "ITEM-description". You can use the "Concept" field in order to specify the ITEM part of these relations. E.g., if your text contains the sentence "Jesus cured all who were sick" you might input "ALL" into the "Concept" field and choose the "ITEM-identification" relation. Thus, you will get the relation "ALL-identification", denoting that the concept "ALL" is further specified by the relative clause "who were sick." Please refer to the SSA Examples section for further instances of these special relations.

Saving your analysis is easy. Just click the "Save" button and the web browser will take care of the rest.

When you click the "Export" (or "Save As") button a popup window will appear. You will be asked to choose a graphic format from a list and to specify a scaling factor. Graphic files can be scaled to fit on an A4 sheet in portrait or landscape format. For most analyses with less than ten propositions scaling is not necessary.