21 replies to this topic

[Josh Bond]

Dr. Petter Pett, a retired Baptist minister and college professor (more info on him here), has given us permission to use his materials here to create e-Sword modules. For once, I did not have to ask (and follow up again and again) to receive permission. Instead, Dr. Pett approached us and offered his materials free of charge, provided we do not charge for them and we do not make changes to them. We will acknowledge his copyright in any modules that we make.

At a glance, his materials seem to be organized into a verse by verse commentaries that would convert to e-Sword commentaries and ebooks that would convert nicely into e-Sword topic modules.

As I get caught up, I'll be able to take a closer look at this. If anyone wants to work on this in the mean time, feel free to do so. Just post what you're working on in the Modules In Progress section so that no one duplicates your work.

[APsit190]

Josh,
This is one site that seems to be worthwhile having a serious look at. I've bookmarked it for further reference.

Thanks for the info.

Blessings,
Stephen (Php 1:21)

[Josh Bond]

I'm back on Dr. Pett's commentary after a number of side projects. The e-Sword manual started my sidetrack and then I decided to finish a number of other unfinished projects before returning to this one. It's quite a large project, probably a 70-80 megabyte commentary, easily.

Here's my dilemma. Dr. Pett's content will usually look like:

SECTION 2. The Life Of Solomon, Its Triumphs And Disasters (1ki 2:13-11:43).
{lots of text here}

King Solomon Firmly Establishes His Rule By Removing All known Rebellion From His Kingdom (1Ki 2:13-46).
{lots of text here}

Adonijah, Abiathar And Joab Plot Against Solomon Who Brings Judgment On Them By Removing Them (1Ki 2:13-25).
{lots of text here}

And finally, we have the verse by verse comments like this:

÷1Ki 2:16
“And now I ask one petition of you. Do not deny me.” And she said to him, “Say on.”

Having tried rather clumsily to arouse Bathsheba’s sympathy Adonijah now informed her that he had a favour to ask her, and begged her not to deny him. It says much for Bathsheba that she was happy for him to continue. Note the repeat of ‘say on’. The writer is trying to bring out the slow, careful and long-winded way in which Adonijah was putting forward his request. It makes clear that he was playing on her kindness of heart, but was uncertain as to what her response would be.

Dr. Pett's verse by verse comments are great. But the way e-Sword is structured and the limitations I have in e-Sword, the reader will really have to do a lot of scrolling to get the bottom where the verse by verse comments are. Even worse, I fear some people will look at a few verses and conclude that since each verse contains the same introductory material, those are the extent of the contents--when in fact, the verse by verse comments are buried at the bottom:
 pett.png   68.58K   4 downloads

Option 1: This is shown in the screenshot above. e-Sword lets the content creator have multiple comments per verse (which is what the above amounts to). But e-Sword will not let the content creator decide which comment to show first! Because e-Sword decides how it will display multiple verse comments, this results in long passage comments first, forcing the reader to dig through to the bottom.

Option 2: Then I thought about placing the passage comments in the Chapter comments? But that "buries" it in e-Sword because e-Sword doesn't give the reader a "heads up" that there is a chapter comment. Consequently, 99.95% of e-Sword users never check chapter comments, and people will miss some of Dr. Pett's excellent comments. So if I went this route, I would to insert a blurb at the start of each verse comment: {This verse is referenced in chapter comments that may be of interest}.

This one of the reasons I put this project aside for a while but as I return to it, the answers still aren't very easy.

[APsit190]

Option 1: This is shown in the screenshot above. e-Sword lets the content creator have multiple comments per verse (which is what the above amounts to). But e-Sword will not let the content creator decide which comment to show first! Because e-Sword decides how it will display multiple verse comments, this results in long passage comments first, forcing the reader to dig through to the bottom.

Option 2: Then I thought about placing the passage comments in the Chapter comments? But that "buries" it in e-Sword because e-Sword doesn't give the reader a "heads up" that there is a chapter comment. Consequently, 99.95% of e-Sword users never check chapter comments, and people will miss some of Dr. Pett's excellent comments. So if I went this route, I would to insert a blurb at the start of each verse comment: {This verse is referenced in chapter comments that may be of interest}.

Hi Josh,
Hmmm, here's an idea of what you can do. Do it upside down. Like, put the verse comment on the top, and then the long winded stuff after it. I dunno if that will work or not, but give it a go and see what it looks like, and if it sort of make sense and looks alright, then keep it that way. If it doesn't, Oh well, that's one idea that's hit the wall.

Blessings,

[Josh Bond]

Hi Josh,
Hmmm, here's an idea of what you can do. Do it upside down. Like, put the verse comment on the top, and then the long winded stuff after it. I dunno if that will work or not, but give it a go and see what it looks like, and if it sort of make sense and looks alright, then keep it that way. If it doesn't, Oh well, that's one idea that's hit the wall.

Blessings,

That was my preferred idea. e-Sword doesn't support it with the multiple verse comments feature. I even talked to Rick about how e-Sword sorts multiple verse comments and did not find any other features or hidden options to leverage. e-Sword's sort order is unfortunate. The only way I could force the verses to the top is if I copy and paste the 2:13-46 passage comments to each and every verse in between 2:13-46. That's just not doable on a commentary of this size. And sometimes there's 3 or 4 passages before getting progressively smaller to the verse comments. e-Sword has the right feature (multiple verse comments), but it doesn't let the content creator control the display order.

I also noticed the printed edition reads like this:
1Ki 2:13-46
1Ki 2:13-25
1Ki 2:16

When using multiple verse comments, e-Sword changes the display order to. [Edit I think I can update the database order to force the 2:13-25 below the 2:13-46. But there's nothing I can do to bring 2:16 to the top without a lot of manual copying and pasting.]
1Ki 2:13-25
1Ki 2:13-46
1Ki 2:16

I'm getting a headache again...

Edited by Josh Bond, 22 January 2012 - 02:06 PM.

[APsit190]

The way you have the text layed out is what I mean. If you put the vese comment text as the first paragraph, and then under that you put the long winded stuff as the 2nd, 3rd (or whatever) paragraphs. In other words, move the text around. Cut out a paragraph here, and paste it over there. Manipulate the text. That's what I meant by "do it upside down."

[Josh Bond]

So, my options are to put the (sometimes) long winded passage comments 1) above the verses, 2) in the chapter comments, or 3) *gulp* do a boat load of copying and pasting to force the verses on top of the sometimes long winded passage commentary. It would be a lot of copying and pasting.

[Josh Bond]

The way you have the text layed out is what I mean. If you put the vese comment text as the first paragraph, and then under that you put the long winded stuff as the 2nd, 3rd (or whatever) paragraphs. In other words, move the text around. Cut out a paragraph here, and paste it over there. Manipulate the text. That's what I meant by "do it upside down."

It would be tens of thousands of instances copying and pasting throughout the commentary, to manually paste passage comments below verse comments. That's the reason e-Sword has the multiple comments per verse feature--so you don't have to copy and paste a passage many times. You can force multiple comments to apply to the same verse, ya just can't control the display order.

[exscentric]

Well, how about assigning this one to someone else and cure your headache? On the other hand can you just put it into a topic file or series of them? At the download page just mention due to terrible formatting problems, it was done as a topic. Probably just let you know how little I know of such things :-)

Have thought making a topic file that was divided into smaller chunks would be nice. Example: All of an authors works under a heading instead of all the individual files. If the program could remember your last page when you open the book it wouldn't be to bad to have books like this in topic format.

On the other hand there are commentaries already that are a little funky to deal with (read that lots of scrolling). So why not another???

[JesusLives]

How about this idea? You make your commentary with the long winded comments first since eSword doesn't give you a choice. Then color the header for the verse commentary (1 Kings 2:13 in your example i think), in a different font color. The reader would learn they can scroll past the passage comments until they see the new font color showing a true verse comment.

Edited by JesusLives, 22 January 2012 - 03:08 PM.