Text items

Draft. See also Text items.

2022 saw the experimental rolling out of the ‘Text items’ module. It was created to extend the more generic Texts module by developing an infrastructure for describing texts in greater detail, i.e. with richer SMW annotations, item by item as well as for describing the general outline of a text, with the underlying assumption that those two aims could be achieved in tandem.

Methods

Explained here.

Status

Further development of this module is currently put on hold until I've managed to resolve some broader issues.

This project came to a halt when another project emerged that focused on the use of TEI XML through the CETEIcean extension. Not only did the latter absorb much of my time and attention instead, it also potentially called for a revision of the Text Items module. While Text Items does not require the availability of texts in TEI XML, what to do if you do have access? Should we reconcile different methods and can we incorporate relevant passages? How can we distinguish between the particulars of the XML and the complications of textual variance? Is there still a case to be made for semantic annotations (SMW) that are associated more directly with TEI XML in addition to a Text Items module that shares some of that content? And so on.

Another reason I need time to rethink the module is its relative complexity for the user/editor who needs to work with it. Texts can be divided into items and those items can be subdivided into smaller units, but this is a process that depending on the text, may require a lot of scholarly thought before you can even begin setting up a skeletal structure. For short texts with little textual variance, it can be overkill.

To be continued!