[sword-devel] companion modules

Tue Nov 4 02:12:14 MST 2008

An interesting example here is the ESV study bible.

If you have a look at http://www.esvstudybible.org/search?q=Matthew+1, you
can see three different "streams" of commentary. The notes that have a
completely grey background are large sections, the notes with the heading
with a grey background are for smaller sections, while there are per-verse
(or a range of verses) notes as well. All of these can overlap. There is
also one note from the per-verse stream here (Matthew 1:2-6a) which overlaps
with another in the per-verse stream (Matthew 1:3). So to encode this well,
what you really need are at least 4 commentary modules here!

In addition to this, the print ESV study bible has diagrams and maps in the
notes section, which don't specifically refer to a range of verses. (BTW,
these in-context maps are really great - I'd love to get something like them
for BPBible)

So it looks like at least 5 modules (in addition to the ESV base text, which
I think it shares - including xrefs and notes) would be needed to do the job
properly.

Being able to have more than one entry for a commentary would be a good
thing.

BTW, Daniel, the continuous scrolling is something I too would like to see
(though especially in the Bible). The reasons I think it is not seen are:
1) It is possibly too much text to load at once for a whole chapter - if you
restrict it to just one chapter.
2) Making it load additional text when scrolling is not easy (for example,
you can't dynamically change the text in the wxHTML control BPBible uses)

An example of a bible which uses a genbook for the introduction is "The
Scriptures" from the Institute for Scripture Research (this module works in
BibleCS only). I'd have to say, though, that this seems to me a clumsy way
to handle it. It would be nice to be able to splice different module types
together in a better way...

God Bless,
Ben
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.
Philippians 4:23 (ESV)

On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 5:06 PM, Daniel Owens <dhowens at pmbx.net> wrote:

>  I am excited about the potential of companion modules because of several
> module issues I have puzzled over.
>
> One is a Catholic translation I am encoding that includes study-Bible-like
> notes. They would not work as notes because of the volume of text involved,
> so I have been working at preparing the notes as a commentary. The notes are
> connected to a particular verse or range of verses, so it would be nice for
> that module to appear automatically when that Bible is accessed.
>
> Second, I am working on another translation that has book introductions,
> and support for those is still limited in Sword. BibleTime displays them in
> a Bible window and maybe BibleCS, though I don't remember for sure. However,
> the book outlines in the introduction are a thorny problem because neither
> lists nor regular paragraphs appear correctly (the outlines become a single
> paragraph--totally unreadable--though they are encoded in proper OSIS). A
> good purpose for a companion volume could be book introductions which would
> appear for the current book (I know the ESV has book introductions too).
>
> Third, the way Sword handles commentaries right now is fine if you're
> looking at a single verse and the commentary is dealing with a single verse,
> but often commentaries give comments on the structure or theology of a
> section or comment on a range of verses in a single paragraph or section. I
> am wondering if there is a way to have a more dynamic and continuous way to
> view commentaries so if you open to Genesis 1:1 you can just scroll down a
> bit to see Genesis 1:2 or scroll up a bit to see the introduction to the
> section or book rather that having to change the verse. Print commentaries
> (and some other Bible software) allow for such natural browsing, but Sword
> (for memory/speed reasons?) is more regimented. I'm just wondering if there
> is a way to view commentaries that is more natural, more akin to working
> with a print book. Maybe this is beyond the scope of the fast/slow
> commentary concept, but it's worth thinking about.
>
> Daniel
>
> Chris Little wrote:
>
> Karl Kleinpaste wrote:
>
>
>  The phrase "companion modules" was coined last January at BibleTech when
> several of us were debating additional capabilities in which Wycliffe
> folks have an interest.
>
> This past Friday, I implemented a beginning of this concept in
> GnomeSword.  The idea is that some modules come as a pair.  The best
> example at hand is NET Bible's NETtext with their NETnotes.  Generally
> speaking, if you open one of these, you also want the other, since the
> footnote indicators in NETtext reference content in NETnotes.
>
>
>  This sounds a bit like what we did with one of the virtual modules that
> has been proposed. The NOTES virtual module (which had a demo
> implementation in BibleCS for a while) would essentially act as a target
> frame for display of the notes in whatever the current Bible is.
>
> It was designed essentially with the NET in mind, but worked with the
> notes in any Bible. It's basically my opinion that the NET Bible and
> Notes belong in a single document and a single module. This is less
> trivial than just making two modules and may not even be compatible with
> the sales model employed for this Bible, but that's how I believe the
> text is best encoded.
>
> This makes giant commentaries like the NET Notes usable where they
> wouldn't be easy to read in the form of note popups, but also makes
> Bibles with modest notesets a bit easier to use since the full text is
> always visible (if the NOTES virtual module is selected). On the other
> hand, there was never any attempt to make the NOTES virtual module be
> auto-focused and it doesn't address fast/slow commentaries, but these
> could be addressed.
>
> Anyway, just food for though.
>
> --Chris
>
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