[sword-devel] verse numbering schemes (was: RC4 BUG!)

[Joel Mawhorter]

On September 12, 2002 22:52, Chris Little wrote:
> On Thu, 12 Sep 2002, Joel Mawhorter wrote:
> > Yes, I completely agree! Each module should self describe its numbering
> > scheme. There is no reason to allow users to apply different
> > versifications to the same module since it would have no real meaning and
> > be very confusing.
>
> Actually, Bibles should be displayed by default in their native
> versifications, but it would be nice to allow them to be changed to
> alternate versifications (as a number of other packages, e.g. Logos &
> BibleWorks, allow, at least on some level).  Then when I read the BHS, I
> don't have to deal with the Hebrew versification scheme, which I don't
> know intuitively.  I can just set Sword to display in the KJV scheme, with
> which I am familiar, and read that.

How would this mapping be done? Some translations combine several verses into 
one, delete verses, add verses, and move chunks of verses around. I don't see 
a straightforward way to force these sorts of things into a non-native 
scheme. In the case of combining verses into one, there is nothing that could 
be done about it. In the case of deleting verses these verses obviously can't 
be created. In the case of adding verses that aren't in some other scheme, 
would we have to make run-time modifications to the target versification 
scheme to extend it? The moving verses around might be more doable if it was 
a simple case of moving a few verses as a block to a new location. Even if 
there was a way to do all of this, how would we ever produce the mappings 
between all of the different schemes?

That said, I see your point about it being a useful feature if we could come 
up with a way of doing it that produced understandable results.

> > Likewise, the current method of forcing all modules into the KJV
> > versification scheme is a serious limititation since printed copies of
> > some translations differ from what is in Sword. This could also be
> > confusing to users.
>
> I agree.  Feel free to submit a patch. :)

I suggested to Troy that I start on this and then do the searching 
improvements but he wanted to have a go at it. Perhaps if he still hasn't had 
a chance to get to it by the time I'm done the searching/indexing work, I'll 
ask again.

> --Chris