[osis-core] Post-Rome questions

[Patrick Durusau]

Chris,

Replies below:

Chris Little wrote:

>I'm still absorbing all the revisions, but here are a few questions I
>have so far:
>
>1) Now that 1.0 is completed, can we add the emph element & rend
>attribute?  Pretty please?
>
For what use case? If I want to render content, divineName for example, 
as small caps, that is a stylesheet/display matter? Agreed? Actually 
more opposed to rend as an attribute than emph as an element, although I 
can't say I favor either one. Rend was the product of pre-XSLT days and 
was used to prompt software to a proper display. Not really necessary now.

Emph as an element, I would treat the same way, except that you could 
have cases of typographically distinct text where you don't have any 
idea why, structurally or analytically it is rendered differently from 
the other text. Just for consistency, I would suggest that such text be 
marked with the seg element and type listed as unknown. That is actually 
the claim, we don't know why it is distinct, just that it is. If we know 
why, personal name, place name, etc., then we really should mark it as such.

Is there some other case that I am overlooking? (Very possible, recall 
my views are shaped and informed by a very specific set of concerns for 
text encoding, primarily primary materials and to simply punt on a 
textual feature is not quite cricket!)


>
>2) What is ews?  Is this essentially a character encoding identifier for
>people not using Unicode?  Or is this for indicating script when
>multiple scripts may be used for a single language (e.g. Latin/Cyrillic
>for Serbo-Croatian)?  Or....?
>
Should denote the electronic writing system used to encode a text. Latin 
characters used to represent Cyrillic for example. Requires reference to 
a mapping table. Should be optional but I think we will need to issue a 
guide to its use.


>
>3) Do we really need the "amplified" value for transChangeOSIS?  This
>seems to be exclusively for use on the Amplified Bible, but I wouldn't
>use it if I were encoding that translation.  Amp has 4 types of text
>with distinguished markup: italicized words indicating added words
>(transChangeOSIS added), bracketed verse cross-references (notesOSIS
>citation), bracketed words/phrases for clarification (notesOSIS
>explanation or transChangeOSIS added depending on the specific
>occurrence), and parenthesized words/phrases to indicate shades of
>meaning.  This final type is the "amplified" part and would (IMO) best
>be marked with notesOSIS explanation or optionally a new amplified note
>type.  But since the "amplified" text is not part of the text proper, it
>should definitely be put into a note element of some type rather than a
>transChange element.
>
Comments?  

But it is marked as not being part of the text proper by virtue of its 
being marked as transChange is it not? Just as added is not part of the 
text proper, at least in the sense of being part of the original. Or are 
you saying we need to distinguish between the words "added" IN a 
translation but still attempting to represent the original text and 
words that are "added" TO a translation to make the translation more 
clear? Not sure that is a meaningful distinction but I can see it, if 
only dimly.

>
>4) In some instances, passages that would have been marked by the
>otPassage and ntProphecy elements refer to multiple non-continguous
>verses.  Is it possible to allow the reference element's target
>attribute to take multiple IDs?  Similarly, many existing texts do no
>include information about which verses are being referenced, so can we
>either allow target to be empty or optional to make automatic
>translation from other formats possible?
>
Sure, not in latest version that I just sent but ref and outRef probably 
both need to be lists (as per Todd's analysis on an earlier draft) so 
you can have multiple pointers. Will try to fix for the release tomorrow 
morning.


>
>5) Many existing texts in other formats do not specify note types.
>Indeed, most Bibles don't have any distinction between different types
>of notes.  So could the type attribute on note be made optional?
>
Made the note type optional in the lastest release. (Not sure that most 
Bibles don't make the distinction. At least in typography, the few I 
have on hand seem to, footnotes appear at the bottom of the page, 
word/translation notes directly under the column of text, etc.) Not a 
biggie for me.


Patrick

>
>--Chris
>

-- 
Patrick Durusau
Director of Research and Development
Society of Biblical Literature
pdurusau@emory.edu