[sword-devel] Question about use of note elements

[Chris Little]

On 07/20/2012 11:06 AM, Andrew Thule wrote:
> One benefit of having markup is that rendering mark-up is left to the
> client.  Even so, I'm looking at notes in Xiphos, Bibletime and
> Alkitab and each treats them slightly different ways.
>
> For example the following note <note n="+"><reference
> type="source">8:15</reference></note> is rendered in:
> Xiphos as superscript link "*n%2B" (with contents of the note treated
> as footnote)
> Bibletime as hover link "+" (with the contents of the note in a window
> to the left of the main text)
> Alkitab as superscript flat text as "+" (with the contents of the note
> visible in a column to the left of the main text)
>
> Of the three the Alkitab approach seems to be most in line with what
> the OSIS manual says (about keeping notes inline).  The Xiphos
> behavior complete perplexes me - how is *n%2B constructed?  If a
> superscript is going to be generated, how can I influence that in the
> module?

If Xiphos is really rendering '%2B' instead of '+', then this is a bug. 
For some reason, the URL-encoded character is being rendered, rather 
than the intended '*n+'

I don't know why you suggest that the notes should be inline, since 
you're not specifying the note placement in your example. The manual 
doesn't say notes should be rendered inline, just that they are encoded 
inline.

In general, I would guess that every Sword front end will ignore the 
placement attribute anyway, in favor of its default note placement 
location. But I would also guess that no one has ever used the placement 
attribute in a Sword module.

> This note with out a reference  <note type="study">the light from…:
> Heb. between the light and between the darkness</note> is rendered in:
> Xiphos as superscript link "*n2" (with contents of the note treated as footnote)
> Bibletime as hover link * (with the contents of the note in a window
> to the left of the main text)
> Alkitab as a superscript 'a' (with the contents of the note visible in
> a column to the left of the main text)

My (personal) preference would be the Alkitab method, but none of these 
are incorrect since your example does not identify what the footnote 
marker should be, leaving it to the application to do its default.

> The OSIS2 Manual says a little about notes on page 44 section 8.3 but
> points out that notes are not sharply defined.  Certainly the
> treatment of them by clients reflects this.  So this raises a question
> for OSIS module developers: Doesn't this represent somewhat of a
> weakness with the OSIS standard?  What exceptions can we have with
> respect to notes containing other elements, for example references
> with in notes? Doesn't it seems the module developer is at the mercy
> of client program a bit too much because of something of a lack of
> clarity on the part of the standard?

No, the manual states that note type attributes are not sharply 
defined--and proceeds to coarsely define a set of them.

Do you have a specific need for identifying different note types and 
treating them differently? We've never seen the need in Sword, except 
for treating the crossReference type differently from all other types. 
Cross references are separately enumerated and can be toggled 
independent of other notes. All other notes are simply treated as 'notes'.

The schema defines what elements are valid within notes.

--Chris