[sword-devel] Print Bible Features

Jimmie Houchin sword-devel@crosswire.org
Tue, 20 May 2003 10:26:14 -0500


Hello Chris,


Chris Little wrote:
> On Mon, 19 May 2003, Jimmie Houchin wrote:
> 
>>Subject Headers
> Got that.

Where?  Besides the ISV?

>>Read-along References
>>Center Column References
> 
> These are the same items I suppose, assuming your meaning of "read-along 
> references" is inline cross-refs.  This is essentially a style issue and 
> I don't see a benefit to supporting both styles as options in the data.  I 
> believe they should be an issue for the front-end to decide, in terms of 
> whether notes are inline or margin.

Yes, presentation is a frontend issue. But is a distilled set of 
cross-references available in Sword or elsewhere?

>>Concordance
> Not possible in Bibles, but, as David stated, search makes it unnecessary.
> 
> 
>>Harmonies of the Gospels
> 
> In what way?  You can print parallel passage information in a note 
> embedded within the section heading, as with the ISV.  Other than that, 
> gospel harmonies are not part of Bibles, they're exterior works (e.g the 
> Fourfold Gospel, which we do have albeit in a different order from its 
> most natural.

Yes they are exterior as is much of what is in Sword.

>>Maps (being discussed)
> Got that (meaning images).  Should work fine in Bible texts as well.

Good.

>>Dictionary (of some Bible terms)
> As separate modules.
> 
>>Book information (at begin of each book)

> aka book introductions: Got that.  (not included in all texts because the
> data was either unavailable or the module was produced before import of
> introductions was possible.

Where?

To me this should be general and not specific to a version of text.
The intro, history, etc of a book doesn't change due to Bible version.

>>Messianic Prophecies, ... fulfilled
> 
> As a form of markup, sure, you could mark this.  When it actually becomes
> and issue and someone marks a text with this data, we can add support to
> the engine very quickly & easily, since it's just presentation markup
> issue.

Do you know of available lists of such references.

>>Many of the names in the text have pronunciation helps.
>>    (I'm phrasing that poorly.) ie: Is'ra-el
>>     (where do they get those anyway?)
> 
> If it's in the text, we can "support" it.  I've only seen these in KJVs.
> Where do they get those?  I don't know, but they're pretty much 
> meaningless since they just give a vague indication of syllable 
> breaks/stress assignment.

Okay. KJV is what I read. I couldn't tell you what is in any of the more 
modern versions.

> (BTW, in OSIS, pronunciation could be indicated with the xlit attribute on 
> <w>.  You might add a namespace indicator like "x-pronun:Is'ra-el".  There 
> are some more complex to set up but ultimately time-saving procedures that 
> might be developed in the future, like tagging each proper noun with topic 
> map PSI then cross-referencing against an index correlating PSIs with 
> pronunciations.  The OSIS Linguistic Annotation Working Group will also 
> probably decide something for phonetic transcription as well, which could 
> be used as a way of indicating pronunciation.)

Thanks for the information. I know I've seen and heard pronunciations 
which vary tremendously.

>>I would like us to be able to reverse the process we have advantaged. 
>>ie: Instead of going from print to electronic, going electronic to 
>>print. Am I alone?
> 
> Yes, I think you're alone. :)

Ahhhhh! :)
I'm okay with that. :)

> Honestly, the means I would suggest for 
> this process would be to export the data from Sword into OSIS format then 
> create an XSLT to convert that into XSL-FO and generate a PDF from that.  
> (Or... Todd Tillinghast posted an OSIS to XSL-FO XSLT at 
> http://www.contentframeworks.com/Resources_XSLT.html which may be a start 
> towards whatever you're aiming to do.)

Thanks for the info.

>>If I were willing/able to scan an ASV, etc. in order to harvest some of 
>>the above items, a few questions.
>>
>>Would it have to come from an out of print, out of copyright (ie: older) 
>>print copy in order to be legal? Or would I be able to harvest the 
>>identical (if it truly is) material from a more recent printing of the 
>>public domain material?
> 
> As was stated, expired copyright applies to anything that hasn't been 
> changed.  More recent printings will undoubtedly include a recent 
> copyright notice that applies to the work as a whole, but not to 
> individual parts (e.g. text, maps, concordance, ...) unless they were 
> created for that edition.  You might check for notices of copyright in 
> those sections, but they may not be indicated, in which case, assume 
> recent copyright.
> 
> Or just get an old edition and remove all doubt.  I highly recommend 
> http://www.abebooks.com/ for finding old books, since most of their 
> booksellers are knowledgable and include information about printing date 
> and book condition.

Good information. Thanks. I am looking for an older ASV. A clean history 
would be best. How old does any book we harvest have to be?

Thanks again for all your help.

Jimmie Houchin