[sword-devel] Concerns about Alternate Versification

[Greg Hellings]

On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 11:58 PM, Jonathan Morgan <jonmmorgan at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 3:08 PM, Jonathan Morgan <jonmmorgan at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 2:51 PM, Greg Hellings <greg.hellings at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 4. Bible references from commentaries, etc. use this master versification.
>>>
>>> Then the module creator needs to go through and convert all of their
>>> references to that master versification.  Why would we do that when we
>>> can just tell them they have the right to specify a preferred module?
>>> One front-end might decide that the user is free to over-ride that, to
>>> their own possible confusion, but that allows the module creator to
>>> create the module correctly, instead of having to transfer it to a
>>> master versification.  Think of how confused a user would be if they
>>> click on a reference that says, "Matthew 3:17" and are taken instead
>>> to their favorite Bible module to the key "Matthew 2:27."  Sure, it
>>> might have the right content, but they would think the system was
>>> broken - and I don't blame them.  Likewise if I see a print copy of
>>> Matthew Henry's that refers me to Psalm 150:1 and then open SWORD and
>>> want to read the passage there some other day and it has been changed
>>> to Psalm 151:1 because of the differences in Psalm numbering - I'd be
>>> utterly confused and would report invalid module content.
>>
>> Think how confused they would be likewise if the verse didn't say
>> anything like what the commentary said it did.  Which would you
>> prefer?
>
> Also, it is quite possible to overcome this by displaying a status
> message somewhere informing the user that it has gone to Psalm 151:1
> because it is equivalent to Psalm 150:1 in the other versification.
> The status message could even allow them to go to Psalm 150:1 in that
> module if they decide that is really what they want (it isn't, unless
> the module author encoded it badly, but that's besides the point).
>
> The exact form of such a message is open to debate, but the fact
> remains that this way is the only way to overcome both forms of
> confusion (Psalm 150:1 doesn't say what the commentary said, and I
> didn't want to go to Psalm 151:1).

And I keep advocating that there's lots of untapped potential in the
config files.  You could put this together as the front-end developer,
and communicate to the module developer the config entry to have.