Presentation Markup v Semantic Markup

All:

In reading the discussion on The Sword Project developers list about The Logos Personal Book Builder, one question struck me:
Should tools that create resources focus on presentation markup or on semantic markup?

Currently, e-Sword is slightly more focused on presentation markup, than semantic markup, but that has been changing over the last two or three years.

OSIS is an example of a markup language that focuses on semantic markup.
RTF is an example of a markup language that focuses on presentation markup.

Rephrased:
Is the meaning of the content more important than the way it looks, or is the way it looks more important than the semantics?


jonathon

Is the meaning of the content more important than the way it looks, or is the way it looks more important than the semantics?

Jonathon,
Both the way it looks is just as important as what is in it. Its pointless if its just all content when it can't be properly read and followed.

I've noticed that in some of the resources I've downloaded from here that the format was so poor that on one hand the fonts were so large it took quite a bit of time to scroll down to what you wanted, and on the other hand that the font was so small you had to have extremely powerful binoculars to be able to read it. Also some of the content was so poor that even tooltips didn't show up simply because of lack of basic editing.

I sometimes wonder if some are just spitting out resources without a glance as to what it looks like, and hope that it works.

Well, that's my soapbox bit done.

Blessings,
Stephen (Php 1:21).

I sometimes wonder if some are just spitting out resources without a glance as to what it looks like, and hope that it works.

Well, that's my soapbox bit done.

Blessings,
Stephen (Php 1:21).

That's a huge pet peeve of mine. We inherited some terribly formatted resources. When I found a replacement for the corrupt Robert Hawker files, I was shocked at the poor formatting. At one time, someone who made e-Sword resources thought they should hit enter at the end of each line, which wreaks havoc on the display of the text.

I've seen resources (and not just for e-Sword, mind you) that used roman numerals for verses that no one bothered to convert, much less tooltip/hyperlink properly. I've seen resources with so many OCR errors that you can't go more than 2 lines without guessing at a word. I've seen text pasted directly from archive.org or from a website and the formatting is just terrible. There have been some resources that I have not converted to e-Sword from other formats because of this reason. I refuse to import junk and so I can watch the file counter increase. What's the point of files if no one will use them because their formatted so badly?

All the files I've been making are properly formatted (as far as I know), and I usually go a step further, such as breaking out long quotes from the text so they display easier. It takes 2-3 times as long to do things right but I feel its well worth it. For files that I convert, the quality is usually a little lower and if it's too bad I will either correct the problems or not convert the resource at all because of the time involved. I encourage anyone who uploads resources to this site to properly format them. This one area where I totally agree with Dr. Dave.

All the files I've been making are properly formatted (as far as I know), and I usually go a step further, such as breaking out long quotes from the text so they display easier. It takes 2-3 times as long to do things right but I feel its well worth it. For files that I convert, the quality is usually a little lower and if it's too bad I will either correct the problems or not convert the resource at all because of the time involved. I encourage anyone who uploads resources to this site to properly format them. This one area where I totally agree with Dr. Dave.

Josh,
I've recently downloaded a couple of files you've uploaded, and I've got to admit the quality of them are really good. One thing I've learned about them is that if they've got the "BibleSupport.com" thingy in it, then I know I've great product.

Where you said, "It takes 2-3 times as long to do things right but I feel its well worth it," I agree with you 100%... it is worth it.

Blessings,
Stephen (Php 1:21).