[sword-devel] Tagging verses and verse lists

[Jonathan Morgan]

On Dec 3, 2007 6:06 AM, jhphx <jhphx at cox.net> wrote:
> Jonathan, those are some good suggestions. I would like to suggest that
> if nothing else is done at this time perhaps some additions to the SWORD
> Verse List File .SVL Format could be made. These files are simple text
> files and can be edited in most editors if the .SVL is preserved. At
> lest in BibleCS if you add things that are not recognized as a verse
> reference they are ignored without hurting the list. Passages are taken
> as the first verse of the passage only. This means you can add comments
> and passage references to the list. You can't do them while in BibleCS
> but they can be done and the result can still be used in BibleCS though
> without the improvements showing.

I believe SVL is BibleCS only (correct me if I'm wrong) and is a
fairly obvious format (I would propose import from a format the same
or very similar, just because it's the kind of format people,
commentaries, etc. tend to put verse lists in).  I would prefer such a
thing to be in Sword, so that I can use my verse lists in other
applications that support them.  The BibleCS support is again oriented
to working with a single verse list rather than working with a single
passage and multiple categories.

The idea of comments in the verse list is interesting.  I considered
it, but decided it was probably out of scope for the implementation
(push it too far, and you end up with something like a GenBook.
Figuring out how to display in a logical way adds additional interest
to the mix).

> I don't know how these things are now handled in the other front ends
> but I would like to suggest the following ideas be implemented in the
> .SVL standard.

To best of my knowledge they are not implemented (BibleDesktop allows
you to build a verse list in memory, but doesn't support saving them).

> 1) Title - a title that displays in the in the list, ie, "The Names of God."
>
> 2) Anchors/Sections - a way to designate sections and link to them, ie,
> "References to LORD Provides", "See also LORD"
>
> 3) Comments - Comments display along with the verse lists, ie, "The noun
> form of provide is prevision from Latin for seen beforehand."
>
> 4) Passages

All of these are probably useful features, but I think that they would
be better to be in later revisions (after the first support is there
for verse lists pure and simple).

> I assume these things can and would be done with OSIS. If so, front ends
> could  be encouraged to implement the additions to the standard or
> gracefully ignore what is not implemented, much like BibleCS now ignores
> anything that it does not recognize as a reference. Also, front ends
> should be encouraged to show the file name or title as the name of the
> verse list window instead of the default "Verse List" (BibleCS), if the
> list has been saved or loaded. Other cool front end features are, search
> tool to set the scope of a search to the references in the list, an edit
> tool and a paste or insert tool to insert the clipboard or another verse
> list.

All of these are useful features, but a lot will be dependent on the
particular application and how they choose to display them.

If I implement this feature then I will attempt to choose a format
that best supports the features I want, while still being usable to
others.  However, the format I will choose is extremely likely to be
simple and aimed at doing one task and doing it well.  To my mind,
this means that OSIS is extremely unlikely to be on the cards, as it
is an immensely complex standard (to be fair, it also appears to solve
a complex problem better than most of the other alternatives - but I
do not want to solve a hard problem, so I don't want OSIS).

> This doesn't do all the Tag suggestions but they would be nice features.

True.

Jon