Devonshire

Add detailed rendering of the texts and apparatus

Posted by on 02 Feb 2007 in Tasks

NOTE: This task rescheduled because updated MS transcription is not yet available for me to work on.

Elaborate the basic display framework to make the display usable. Use classes for everything, so that Karin can work on the appearance of the site independently using CSS. Use only one CSS file for the whole site. Where elements have ids, carry them through to the XHTML output, and where they don't, but it might be useful (such as individual lines that we might need to jump to), create ids. The texts are relatively short, so we can pack in a lot of useful detail.

Then look at the possibility of making the two scrolling boxes capable of controlling each other through script, so that what's showing in one could cause the other to jump to a linked location if the user wants it to. For instance, a note about line 15 of the text could cause the text to move to line 15. This is not a requirement, but if it turns out to be simple, it should be incorporated.

Build basic display framework

Posted by on 02 Feb 2007 in Tasks

Create the following components of the site:

An Index page listing all the poems, with links to an XHTML rendering.
A basic XHTML rendering of individual poems, comprising two boxes, one with apparatus and one with the text, scrolling independently.

No detail is to be included at this stage; we just want the basic framework to be working.

Build the Cocoon site

Posted by on 02 Feb 2007 in Tasks

Create a Cocoon/eXist environment for the project, a basic front page with a menu, and links to two views (old/Unicode and modern/normalized) of the newly-Unicodized XML displayed with CSS.

COMPLETED TASK: Create a Feature Structure set for the special characters

Posted by on 02 Feb 2007 in Tasks

COMPLETED TASK: Work through the RET documentation and list all the special characters we need to document. Then work with Karin to find, for each character, a Unicode representation as close as possible to the original glyph(s) (if one is available), and a detailed description of the script feature itself. Format these as a feature structure list.

Project Proposal

Posted by on 02 Feb 2007 in Activity log, Announcements

Project proposal, still a work in progress:

Project Title:	Devonshire MS
Objective(s):	For this first phase of the project, the objective is to produce an online electronic edition which presents both a clean version of the text, and the scholarly apparatus that would be found in a conventional print edition. Our model is an edition in which there are two volumes, one containing the text, and one containing the apparatus. We aim to present these side-by-side, both scrolling under the user's control. The text will show line-numbering (every 5 lines), while the apparatus will refer to line numbers. The full MS will be chunked for the purposes of display at the poem level (each poem is a <div> tag in the TEI XML). There is an issue with "special" characters, which are currently represented by parenthetic symbols rather than actually encoded. For display, we want to use Unicode characters, but we also want to generate a normalized option for general readers. Meanwhile, the original XML must not be edited, for the present at least. Therefore, the first task is to use Transformer to create a replace sequence, which finds each special character signal and replaces it by a sequence of elements including the normalized reading and the Unicode character(s). This replace sequence can be run on the XML markup, and the result used for our project, while the original file is untouched. Whenever edits are made to the original, we can run the sequence again in Transformer, until eventually the characters are permanently replaced. The site should also provide access to the original XML file as XML, and plain-readable CSS-rendered versions of the original and the Unicode-ized version, using Karin's CSS. Following this process, we will examine the range and types of annotation in the document, and decide on the various categories of apparatus which will be displayed. Meanwhile, Cara will be producing some data based on collation of other witnesses. This will be in the form of discrete XML files, linked with the poems in the original document using id-based mechanisms, which we will then link into the site in a simple manner. This lays the groundwork for a more research-oriented process which experiments with various ways to display collations. This research work will take place after the goals for this phase of the project have been completed.
Lead(s):	Ray Siemens
Contact email:	karindar@uvic.ca
Team members:	Karin Armstrong Cara Leitch
Benefits:	The first benefit is electronic publication of the Devonshire MS. This may help get a print version published. After that, the work we do on ways to present multiple witnesses will be valuable; few people are working on this, and what has been produced so far is a long way from satisfactory.
Scope:	See the list of Task postings in this blog.
Constraints, risks:	The initial online presentation needs to resemble a conventional edition to some degree, so that it doesn't scare off the press who may want to publish the print edition. See also the notes on encoding and transcription problems here. The ms uses RET conventions for the abbreviated text, this is documented here.
Resources required:	Programming (Martin Holmes) Hosting (TAPoR machines, Greg Newton consulting) Existing tools and software (no new purchases envisaged).
Time line:	Initial site is to be available by April 26 2007. If collation work is in a suitable state to be used in time, then it will be included, using a simple linking mechanism.

[Note: as we work on refining this, I'll increment the minutes spent.]