Colonial Despatches

This page will list our SVN conundrums and how we solved them! And, should this page miss something, check this website.

• When we need to compare, that is, find the difference between two versions of the same file, or files, I suppose.Use this:

  svn diff -r [version number]:[version number]

  As in this example:

  svn diff -r 460:481 B60001.xml

  This was used to look at two versions of the same file: B60001.xml from version 460 and version 481. The SVN report details, with little plus and minus signs, to indicate lies and content added or removed, respectively.

We use paths for rivers. To make a path, or line, appear on Google Maps you need to override the code that automatically coverts multiple (not single, of course) <geo> coordinates to polygons.

To do this, you need to add a type="path" attribute to the <location> tag, as follows: <location type="path">.

This lists some of the errors that we have encountered, and their respective solutions!

Upon my morning svn update I received this error:

kim@dandelion:~/Desktop/coldesp_xml/xml$ svn update
svn: warning: cannot set LC_CTYPE locale
svn: warning: environment variable LANG is en_CA
svn: warning: please check that your locale name is correct

SOLUTION: type this into terminal

export LC_ALL=C

I found this info here.

Use this to find phrases excluding certain words. For example, if you want to find Hudson's Bay, but without "Company," "House," "Territory," and so on:

• Hudson's Bay (?![Cc]o)(?![Hh]ouse)(?![Tt]er)

This info taken from here: http://www.regular-expressions.info/lookaround.html

The following is a list of maps that we wish to add to the despatches-site map collection:

• co_6_27_00299r.jpg -- "Frazer" River mineral-resources.
• co_6_27_00328r.jpg -- "Railway Communication" and "Extensive System of Colonization."
• co_6_28_00162r.jpg -- "The Grand Trunk Railway and it Connections, 1857" (left of fold-out).
• co_6_28_00162v.jpg -- "The Grand Trunk Railway and it Connections, 1857" (right of fold-out).
• co_6_28_00186r.jpg -- "Tracing A," various east-coast rail line routes.
• co_6_28_00187r.jpg -- Untitled. Appears to be another tracing. Depicts various ship routes and distances across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
• co_6_28_00283r.jpg -- by John Arrowsmith. Depicts various ship routes and distances across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
• co_305_12_00007r.jpg -- Plan of Land reserved for Naval purposes at Esquimalt Vancouvers Island, 25 October 1858.

The images in CO 60 / 4 [found in folder B-080], and possibly more, are photographed in reverse order. For example, page 1 actual is image number B-080-00788.jpg, page 2 actual is B-080-00787.jpg, page 3 is B-080-00786.jpg, and so on.

For the purposes of image processing, I downloaded the Volume 4 files and used KRename to rename them in a more sensible fashion.

This is a set of basic instructions for marking up maps for the Despatches project, using the Image Markup Tool. These instructions will be extended and refined as the process shakes down.

Preparation

• Use the Image Markup Tool version 1.8.
• Load an existing IMT file from a map already marked up, and save it with a new name.
• Delete all the existing annotations.
• Replace the image (File / Load an image
• Go the the <teiHeader> editing area (TEI / Edit teiHeader, and change all the metadata you see to match the image you're working on. Note: For the date of the map, you want to provide (a) a date range using @notBefore and @notAfter, covering all the dates mentioned on the map (from surveys, revisions etc.); and (b) a single date as the text content of the date tag, which should be the date most prominently shown in the map title area. Where there is no useful date at all, you can use "n.d." in the date tag, and make an educated guess for the date range.
• If possible, use Google Earth to discover the coordinates of the four corners of the map (or, if it's not rectangular, all of its corners), and encode these in decimal format (positive number followed by space followed by negative number) in the <geo> tags in the <sourceDesc>/<bibl> element. If that's not possible (because for instance the map is hopelessly inaccurate), then delete the <geo> tags.

Annotation

You'll see that there are three categories for annotations: transcription (areas in green), places (areas in blue), and notes (areas in red)..

Marking up places in the place database

The places category is used to define places which are included in our database of places (in the XML files included in xml/places. Of course, you may decide as you're marking up the map that a place on the map deserves to be in our places database, and add it to one of the XML files to make this happen. Encoding place information is documented in our main guidelines.

To mark up one of these places:

• Select the places category.
• Add an annotation, and size and position it to outline the place.
• In the Annotation Title box, type the "normal" name of the place (the way it is referred to in the places XML file).
• Click on the ID button, and insert the @xml:id attribute which is associated with the place in the places XML file. (You can easily discover this by going to the Places index and hovering your mouse over the name of the place).
• In the Annotation Text box, inside the <p> tag, transcribe any text label which identifies the place on the map, and mark it up based on its appearance on the map.

Here's an example. Imagine that you're marking up Parry Bay on a map.

• You draw a box around Parry Bay on the map.
• You type Parry Bay in the Annotation Title box.
• You set the ID to parry_bay.
• You type PARRY BAY in the Annotation Text box (because on the map, it's labelled in capitals).

Transcribing other placenames on the map

All other text on the map, including placenames which are not in our database, is transcribed using the transcription category. This is how to transcribe placenames appearing on the map:

• Select the transcription category.
• Add an annotation, and position it around the text.
• In the Annotation Title box, type a normalized, unabbreviated form of the text.
• In the Annotation Text box, inside the <p> tag, transcribe and mark up the text as it actually appears on the map.

For example:

• Annotation Title: Ned Point
• Annotation Text: <p>Ned P<hi rend="text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: super; font-size: 80%;">t</hi></p>

Marking up titles, legends etc.

All other text on the map -- titles, publication info, explanatory text etc. -- is also marked up using the transcription category:

• Select the transcription category.
• Add an annotation, and position it around the text.
• In the Annotation Title box, type a descriptive heading which identifies what the text is (Title, Publication information, etc.).
• In the Annotation Text box, transcribe and mark up the text as it appears on the map.

Notes

Sometimes it's necessary to add an editorial note or explanation to something on the map which wouldn't otherwise be marked up. Use the notes category to do this.

Linking to and from maps

A link to a map document on the site looks like this:

<ref type="map" cRef="MPK1-59_10_vancouver_island_1846_detail">[Linked text]</ref>

The @cRef attribute contains the @xml:id (filename without .xml) of the map annotation document.