When you start CasualConc for the first time, you are in Concord Tool in Simple File Mode and you can use plain text files.  If your corpus consists only of plain text files in UTF-8 or ASCII encoding, you can open a folder or select a file for analysis without changing any settings.

The Mode button should look like this.

Opening text files to analyze

To open a folder or a file, go to Menu -> File -> Open...

or click this icon on the upper left corner of the window.

The open panel shows up.  Select the folder or file you want to analyze and click Open.  If you select a folder, all the files in the selected folder and its sub-folders will be added to the table.

The selected folder/file name will show up on the window.

Now you are ready to use Concord.

Managing text files in File View

If you want to use files from more than one folder or want to add other files, click File tab on the window to switch to File view. 

You will find Add File(s) button on the right.  Click it and select a folder or file.  You can repeat this to add more files.

If the intended function works properly, you should be able to drag & drop the files on the File List table.  

All the plain text files will be added with the selected encoding in Default Encodings.

You can change encoding for each text file after you add the files to the table.

You can also delete files from the list.  Simply select a file and click Delete.

To clear the table, click Clear.

You can also open the selected file with a specified application by clicking Open with Application.  By default, plain text files will open with TextEdit.

Other types of files will open with specified applications.

If you delete or move a file(s) included in the list on the table (or you are not sure about it), you can click Clean to delete file(s) that CasualConc cannot locate.

Managing text file format to use

To enable handling of other file types, go to Menu -> CasualConc -> Preferences

And on the Preferences window, click Files.

Check any of the file types you want to use as your corpus files.

Previewing text file content

You can check the content of each file in File view.  Selecting any of the files will show the content of the file in the text view.  If the content does not show up, change the encoding and re-select it (you need to select another file and re-select it to see the change).

If the text is shown properly, then you chose the correct encoding.  The files encoded in ASCII or files only with ASCII characters should open in any encoding.

When there is trouble and preview text is not properly shown, you can click Refresh Preview to refresh the text in the preview box.