[sword-devel] Question about use of note elements

[Andrew Thule]

Karl, Chris, thanks for your responses.

Karl I appreciate your comments because you have removed some of the
mystique of Xiphos' behavior; which I appreciate.  My tool of choice
for personal bible work happens to be Xiphos (which I wish I could get
working in OSX sometimes).  I run it in a VM from Linux (on OSX).

I generally like OSIS because I'm most familiar with it.  As far as I
can tell though it seems static.  I'm not that familiar with ThML.
With respect to Xiphos development, I hope the *n and *x are
eventually scrapped in favour of n="ABCD".  That seems to make sense
to me, and puts influence of superscript presentation somewhat back in
the hands of the module developer.

Chris, the '%2B' is a bug then.  Is there a bug submission process for
Xiphos I can poke?
As far as notes being in line, that isn't actually my preference.  My
preference presentation-wise, if truth be know, I also the Alkitab
method; same windows, off to the side as a column (with nice font and
background to boot).  Having said that, with modules such as NETnotes
it's awful - the notes dominate the bottom of the frame where the
notes exceed the biblical content.  In that sense the Xiphos /
Bibletime approach seem more pragmatic.

However, this idea of in line notes was from the OSIS Manual which
says "It is customary to include the notes directly within the text,
at the point to which they apply", so I was trying not to fight the
standard in my understanding - go with the flow type of deal.  I don't
think module developers should influence note placement, even if I
think they should be able to influence presentation of 'note markers'
such as superscripts.

With respect to having a specific need, I don't think I do as long as
I understand more or less how each client treats notes (slightly)
differently, in denoting and presenting them.  I will likely have to
revisit when it appropriate to use notes and when to do
cross-references.

~Andrew



On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 3:07 PM, Chris Little <chrislit at crosswire.org> wrote:
> 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
>
>
>
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