[sword-devel] genbook lexicons - example problem and potential solutions

[Chris Little]

On 10/11/2012 6:39 PM, Daniel Owens wrote:
> I am still working on the Abbott-Smith markup project (over 300 entries
> and counting). We have four contributors right now, so the pace is
> picking up. Creating a module is another story. Chris made a lexicon
> module after the first release, but . . .
>
> I would like the module to look like this:
> http://www.textonline.org/files/abbott-smith/abbott-smith.current_release.html.
> To do that in SWORD, it needs to be a genbook in order to support:
> - front- and backmatter
> - page numbers
> - a hierarchical structure (In the original TEI it has at least one
> superEntry, but it is also divided into <div>'s by letter heading [Α, Β,
> Γ, Δ, Ε, Ζ, Η, Θ, etc.])
>
> The good news is that an OSIS genbook supports the bare-bones essentials
> of entries. And thankfully BPBible and BibleTime both display entries
> together in the same view, thanks to BPBible's continuous scrolling and
> *perhaps* BibleTime not recognizing <div type="x-entry">.
>
> Unfortunately various features of valid OSIS genbooks are inconsistently
> supported by front-ends. I created a module for testing. You can find it
> at
> https://github.com/translatable-exegetical-tools/Abbott-Smith/tree/master/releases/sword,
> including a valid OSIS file. Issues include:
> - Some front-ends recognize <lb/>, others <p>, but the lexicon uses both
> (and both are valid OSIS) in various contexts.
> - Tables are inconsistently supported (mostly not)
> - Titles should be centered, but there is no way to do that in OSIS, as
> far as I can tell. I wonder if this is a great example use case of
> per-module CSS...
> - Parts of speech should be green and page numbers red, but you can't do
> color in OSIS (another use case of per-module CSS?)
>
> Some of these like <p>, <lb>, and tables should just work, I think.
> Perhaps I will file bug reports. But the other display issues cannot be
> resolved by OSIS alone.
>
> Should TEI be a supported genbook format? I would think the TEI filter
> (as it evolves) could be pressed into use for genbooks. If that were
> done, certain lexicon-specific features as well as real book features
> such as page numbers could be consistently supported and displayed. On
> the other hand, I could see the value of having per-module CSS in the
> conf file so that the module developer could have some control over
> display.
>
> Any thoughts?

I think your email boils down to wanting to use TEI for genbooks. You're 
absolutely welcome to do that, and there's nothing in the engine 
preventing you from doing that.

There isn't currently an importer set up to parse TEI files and generate 
genbooks, but I would probably recommend writing a script to generate 
IMP files from TEI so that you have precise control over what goes into 
each leaf of the genbook tree. Down the road, xml2gbs will accommodate 
TEI. I started work on it a couple months ago, but haven't had the time 
to work on it seriously.

--Chris