[sword-devel] Logos Personal Book Builder

[Greg Hellings]

On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 8:15 AM, Peter von Kaehne <refdoc at gmx.net> wrote:
> I think the route of a MS Word/OOo -> module is so fraught with difficulties that it is simply pointless to think one can automatise it.

For docx/odt -> Bible, there seems no reasonable way to automate it,
but going to generic book would be much simpler.

>
> What i can see and many people seem to cope just fine with is using some simple markup used in fora software, wikis and blogs. People then can be told - these are the 20 codes we support and please get going.
>
> This is largely semantic markup, but is also easily understood.

Part of the issue there is that we keep pushing people towards a
semantic markup. Which is great for language researchers and people
who understand the concept of markup. But it sucks for publishers and
most of the whole world who doesn't get it - they just want it to look
on screen the way it looks on paper. But CrossWire have made the
decision that Semantic Is King and the module's desire for
presentation be damned - publish your work in OSIS/TEI and no custom
stylesheets or you might foul up our design.  Logos is not hindered in
this task by such a choice, their format is extremely presentationally
focused, making their ability to provide Word/ODT -> module
translation a (slightly) simpler task than ours since they don't have
to answer the question "What semantics did the author intend by
italic, bold, 14pt Helvetica that contrasts it with bold, 14pt
Helvetica?"  Different approaches with the result being that they can
more easily provide this service than we can.  We could do the same,
but it would probably require dumping to a General Book and then
letting the user manipulate from there however they see fit.

--Greg