[sword-devel] osis2mod and preverse content

[DM Smith]

Some background:

osis2mod takes all the text in its input, dices it up into verses and 
stores that in the module.

A SWORD module contains only verses, with special verses to hold 
introductions to testament, book and chapters.

There are several kinds of text that can fall before a verse:
1) Testament introduction.
2) Book introduction.
3) Chapter introduction
4) Section introduction

Currently the only kind of section introduction that SWORD and osis2mod 
handles is a heading, aka title.

The material that stands before the first verse in a chapter is handled 
specially as there is some ambiguity as to what is a chapter 
introduction and what is a section introduction.

Inter-verse material, i.e. stuff between verses, is split between the 
prior and the following verse. Typically, all whitespace is appended to 
the prior verse. Titles are attached to the following verse.

So that the SWORD engine can place the verse number in the correct 
location, the title that is attached to the verse is given a type of 
"x-preverse". When rendering the verse number, the SWORD engine puts it 
after the preverse title.

The problem is that as we see more and more OSIS Bibles, we are finding 
more and more pre-verse content. It does not neatly fall into the 
category of <title>. And all of it is very valid and very good OSIS.

The current problem we have encountered in the Wycliffe Bibles (in beta) is:
<reference>...</reference>
<div type="section">
  <title>xxx</title>
  <verse osisID="Matt.5.21">...</verse>
  <verse>...</verse>
....
</div>

osis2mod is improperly throwing the reference in to a title and marking 
it x-preverse.
Then the <div> confuses osis2mod, causing the real title to be put into 
the verse after the number.

I'd like to propose the following change and would like feedback.
All material that is deemed pre-verse, will be put into a <div 
type="x-preverse">....</div> and prefixed to the verse. It will use the 
container form of the element. The current handling of the "canonical" 
attribute would be retained, so that canonical headings would not be 
hidden when headings are turned off.

This would require a change to the SWORD engine, so this would be a 
1.5.12 change.

In Him,
    DM