[sword-devel] Cross-references module

[Jonathan Morgan]

On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 4:36 PM, Manfred Bergmann <bergmannmd at web.de> wrote:
>
> Am 24.06.2008 um 03:44 schrieb Jonathan Morgan:
>
>> On 6/24/08, asrael <bergmannmd at web.de> wrote:
>>> IMO cross-references not necessarily need to be encoded in the
>>> bible module
>>> itself. It doesn't help me if some have cross-references and some
>>> don't. For
>>> bible study I need cross-refs everywhere for every module no matter
>>> which
>>> language and for which country it is. In my understanding cross-
>>> references
>>> are not bible translation specific and thus not module specific.
>>> One good source for cross-references would be fully sufficient for
>>> all bible
>>> modules.
>>
>> The ESV gives an example of why you might want cross-references to be
>> version specific - they can be placed in a specific part of the text,
>> giving references for a specific word or phrase, rather than having a
>> list of cross-references for the whole verse.  TSK does similar
>> things, by having a list of references for a particular topic, but
>> this will be language specific (and the wording looks like it is
>> specific to the KJV), and it is further away from the context of the
>> verse you are reading.  You might be able to develop heuristics to put
>> lists of references in the right place in a verse for other versions,
>> but displaying it separately from the verse might be less useful in
>> any case.  I certainly don't see any advantage in lengthy lists of
>> cross-references on particular topics or themes without them being
>> grouped by their theme and labelled as such.
>
> Well, it has the advantage of having cross-references at all for
> modules that doesn't have crossReference tags.
> But you are right, having lengthy lists not grouped is not so good.

That's true.  [I actually tend to use the TSK extensively, even when I
am using the ESV].

However, I'll just take a quote from Jakob Nielsen: "Studies of
content usability typically find that removing half of a website's
words will double the amount of information that users actually get."
Obviously this may not directly apply to this situation, but I feel
users will get more out of a cross-reference module with a "sensible"
number of cross-references (for some value of sensible) than out of a
lengthy list they ignore.  I hope you find a good solution.

Jon