Formats was Re: [sword-devel] Sword, PHP, and PostNuke

[Daniel Glassey]

On 10 Jan 2003 at 8:30, Rev. Michael Paul Johnson sent forth the message:

> At 23:39 08-01-03 -0500, Patrick Narkinsky wrote:
> >I was wondering... I am a bit concerned by this lack (since I am not a big
> >fan of KJV and am a big fan of the apocrypha - at least for research). Would
> >there be an interest in a new file format to overcome the numbering/naming
> >limitations?  I might be willing to put some time into it if there were.
> 
> Yes. I would like to see a format that:
> 
> 1. Directly supports any reasonable versification (i. e. M-Text/WEB,
> NA/UBS, NIV, KJV, REB, etc.) for both the OT/NT Canon and the
> DC/Apocrypha. 
> 2. Supports verse bridges (i. e. two or more verses translated as a
> unit without a clear indication of where one stops and the other
> starts) -- necessary for the Tok Pisin Bible and many others. 
> 3. Supports proper poetry and prose formatting. (It amazes me how many
> people mangle these and see no value in them!) 
> 4. Is open and easy to convert existing texts to and from.
> 5. Supports partial Bible texts (i. e. for Bible translations in progress).

For 1-5 OSIS sounds like it would be good for the core and 'just' 
needs support in the sword library for alternative versifications, 
and support in the frontends for displaying poetry and prose 
correctly and handling verse bridges.

> 6. Supports interlinear texts.
> 7. Supports footnotes, cross-references, and commentary notes (both
> editable personal notes and read-only notes by others). (Commentary
> should be in a separate file.) 

I'm pretty sure OSIS will do these as well, but the OSIS gurus will 
know better.

> Compression and even compactness are not essential. Speed of access is
> important. Indexing can help do that, but it should be done such that
> an index can be built on-the-fly if it doesn't exist. 

can't comment on that offhand.

Regards,
Daniel