Mariage

I've implemented a metadata display system that works like this:

• In text documents, a menu item "Métadonnées" is added.
• Below the menu, a hidden div contains metadata.
• Clicking on the menu item hides and shows the div. There's also a little X in the top right of the div which closes it.
• The div contents are generated from the teiHeader.
• Each node or text element in the header is processed. In the case of a node, a div is created, and the node's local-name() is used to look for a possible caption in a specially-configured variable in the project_globals.xsl. If a caption exists, it's used as a label.
• In the case of text, it's simply output as text.
• The encodingDesc node is filtered out, because anyone interested in that information will most likely prefer to see it in full, in the XML itself, while to others it will be confusing.

We have a couple of problems that should be resolved ASAP:

• Our metadata is currently a blend of English and French. It should all be converted to French, I think.
• Some metadata is irrelevant or unnecessary ("An Electronic Edition", or the <extent> tag), and should be removed.
• Some headers are more complete than others.

However, this should encourage us to go back and look again at our headers.

CC and I have come up with this plan for providing document introductions on the site:

• CC will begin adding a new element to the <sourceDesc> in text documents. It will look like this: <bibl type="introduction"> [Detailed intro to the text...] </bibl>
• If that element is present, its contents will be displayed at the head of the document in the black box that's already there. If that element is not present (because it hasn't been added yet), the black box will display any other bibl tag inside sourceDesc (meaning that it will display the same text as is shown as a teaser when you mouse over the title of the document in the TOC page).
• I will implement a method for displaying all the metadata in the teiHeader, based on the way this was done in the ACH code, and as is also done for ScanCan. It will be handy to have that code available for P5 projects anyway. This can appear as a button at the top left of the page.
• The same approach cannot easily be taken with the images, because of screen space issues. We have discussed the possibility of using a special annotation called "Introduction", but I think it might be better to have a link at the top of the page, next to the metadata link, which will pop up the introduction over the top of the image. This has the advantage that all introductory material is encoded in the same way.

For text documents, I'm now displaying the content of the bibl tags in the sourceDesc part of the header. These are the "teasers" currently displayed when you mouseover an item in the TOC. They're currently too short to be useful, in most cases, so we have to decide whether to:

• just expand the ones we have, and see them also expand in the TOC; or
• create a new type of teaser which is longer and intended for the head of the document, and differentiate it from the teaser;

We also have to decide whether or not we want to do something similar with the images. That's problematic because space is at a premium where the images are concerned, so we might not want to insert a static block into the page.

Finally, we should decide whether we want to give access to the entire <teiHeader> information, and if so, how. We could add a "Details..." button to the little info box that would expand it and show all that information.

Both new RAs are now working on server copies of their files rather than local copies, after sysadmin added their netlinks to the mariage group. It took a while to get them set up to be able to access their files on the server, because on both machines, oXygen was running on the OpenJDK, which seems to provide rather impoverished dialog boxes to oXygen; browsing to a network share was impossible. Eventually by a combination of luck and determination, I got xpr files into the folders on the server, and managed to put links on the desktops to those files.

Both contracts and timesheets have now been submitted. I walked them over this afternoon, and was assured that GB's contract will be processed today so that her timesheet gets done in this cycle.

Our two new RAs met with us all today, and we've organized schedules for them.

Today I got the chance to do something I've been meaning to finish for a while. We had a lot of old-style linking code still remaining in the gravure and text markup -- mainly the former -- and it was no longer working, nor is it as effective as a tool for linking as the newer system is. I've now gone through all the image markup files and fixed all existing links -- 15 files were affected -- as well as the text documents, which also had a handful of the old link styles. For linking between documents, we're now using the much better system that looks like this:

<ref xml:id="wifes_lover" target="../../anthology/images/il_cherche.xml#wifes_lover">Il cherche ce qu'il ne voudroit pas trouver</ref>

In other words, each <ref> tag has an @xml:id (so you can link into it from another document or from the same document), a @target (it's best to keep targets singular for the moment), and some text that forms the link. This enables us to write normal expressive prose in notes with links in them, and link the appropriate text to the right target location. The old system was not so simple or flexible.

I haven't done anything with the modernized versions of the texts, because they have already diverged from their originals in both markup and content. We need to devise a proper strategy for embedding modernizations into the original files, I think.

I’ve ordered three religious treatises from the Bibliothèque Nationale (Abbeville, Lindeborn, Maillard).

One other (Le Blanc) has been digitized on the “Gallica” site of the Bnf, and I have Girard de Villethierry in hard copy.

Jeanne de Cambry I’ll only be able to order on site as the electronic system doesn’t allow for enough description of a text that’s part of a larger volume without continuous pagination.

Cordier re-edited in the 19th century, and I’m hoping to get a hold of that volume either through ILL or purchase. This will make a good base of seven religious texts, probably enough if we can add the relevant chapters two from François de Sales Introduction à la vie dévote.

Even if it takes several weeks to receive the Bnf order, there are texts to hand allowing us to begin work on the religious docs. (Leanna, please finish annotating the Cholières text before beginning a new project.)

The “traités mondains” still need to be ordered, as do the more interesting of the legal documents on impotence trials. The medical stuff needs to wait until we see what the Paris medical library will have digitized by the end of the year.

In October, I will have one day at the Bibliothèque Mazarine and one day at the Bnf. At the Mazarine, I want to order or transcribe a bit more 16th century satirical poetry, an important addition to the existing corpus. At the Bnf, I will order the Jeanne de Cambry treatise and take a close look at the 19th-c. edition of Cordier. More plans for that day later...

Met with CC to plan the outline of our expenditure for the grant period. The grant is pretty slim, so the process was quite simple. Now we need to figure out exactly which texts to work on, and what order to do them in.

The original texts often use italics to signify quotes, rather than guillemets, so I've added the option to use this, so that you get italics but not guillemets:

<cit><quote type="italics">...</quote></cit> 

This will be tested over the next couple of days -- I'm using an <i> tag, but I suspect I should be using <emph>.

Just logging time spent over the past week or so debugging little markup issues, answering the odd question, emails, updating the db, backing up, etc. The general churn of the ongoing project.