• Home
• Telč
• Bohosudov
• Methodology
• EVT
• Contact
• De
• Cz

EVT

For the final visualization of the digital edition of the literae annuae we decided to use the open source tool Edition Visualization Technology (EVT) developed at the University of Pisa by a team led by Professor Roberto Rosselli Del Turco. EVT provides a simple and easily modifiable environment for making available digital editions created according to the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) standard. The tool was originally developed as part of a project to digitize the Old English Vercelli Book , but has gradually grown into a general platform for web publishing of various types of documents encoded in the TEI 5 standard.

EVT is a living open-source project that is continuously developing. When applied for the visualization of the Literae annuae edition, certain technical problems can still be encountered, yet we are continuously working on remedial actions.

Instructions for use

• Upper Tool Bar
1. Program menu — information about the project, index browsing,, choice of language, creation of bookmarks, downloading of the XML document
2. Switching of program modes: Image-Text, Text Reading, Collation
3. Content of the document and metadata included in the header and foot of the XML file: information about the project, editorial principles and a encoding decription, bibliography, index browsing
4. Button for returning to the LA home page (left)
• Lower Tool Bar

Displayed only for editions with digital facsimile

1. Previews of all folios
2. Browsing through a document by folios
• Image-Text mode

Available only for the full textually critical edition, if the digital copies of the manuscript can be published. The left window shows images of individual manuscript, the right window shows the text of the edition.
Left window - the images
1. Upper bar — selection of a folio, manuscript description on/off
2. Tools for working with a picture: zoom, original size, full screen, rotation
3. “Magnifier” in the upper right corner (red box) — enables movement across the picture in the selected degree of enlargement.
Right window — the edition text
1. Upper Bar
   
   1. Edition title
   2. Selecting document parts (paragraphs, folios) — not functional yet.
   3. Selecting the type of edition; only the critical edition is available for the LA, but the EVT enables to also work with models of diplomatic and interpretative edition as defined in the TEI standard.
   4. Witness list with a description of individual manuscripts
   5. More detailed information about the document (for instance text genesis, description of scribe hands, all metadata from the part <front> of TEI encoding).
   6. Colored filters on/off function, see highlighting
2. Lower Bar
   
   1. Fulltext search; the button for creating indexes must be used prior to executing the search. As for the critical edition, unfortunately this function has not been implemented yet.
   2. Setting of color filters for the main text of the edition (the so-called lemma filters), see highlighting
   3. Heat map function — enables to mark variant places in the text with different colors; the more intense the color, the more evidenced variants are recorded.
   4. Font size selection
3. Critical apparatus
   
   1. When reading the edition, details about individual items of the critical apparatus (the superscript, alphabetically) can be displayed by clicking, for instance orthographic variants, metadata for editorial interventions, including the display of encoding in the TEI XML and of a hyperlink to the full text of the variant manuscript in the Collation.
   2. Subject notes (the superscript, numbers) can be also displayed interactively (upon clicking a mouse button).
   
   
   3. Functions Pin and Align reading cannot be used in the Image — Text mode. They are intended to be used only in the Reading Text mode, or rather the Pin function shows only after opening the Message Board window in the Text Reading mode.
4. Highlighting
   1. The full textually critical edition  — the color highlighting was chosen according to editorial interventions. In all cases where it was decided to use a different wording in the text of the edition than the wording of the main manuscript, as well as in all cases of editorial emendation, the name of the editor responsible for such intervention was recorded during encoding (resp attribute, i.e. responsibility of the <lem> element). Amendments by individual editors have different colors in the final visualization. By using filters, it is possible for example to highlight only adjustments made by one specific editor. Other text variants are being highlighted dynamically when run over by a mouse.
   2. The interpretative edition all text variants are highlighted by default; further highlighting in color can be selected according to content commentaries, see Working with indexes
• Text Reading Mode


The left part of the screen contains a window with the edition text (identical to the window in the Image-Text mode); the right part contains an independent window with the textually critical apparatus. Upon clicking on a note of the critical apparatus in the text of the edition (superscript), the corresponding item will show up and get highlighted in the right window.

1. Working with the items of the  critical apparatus is similar to the Image-Text mode (displaying of details, metadata, TEI encoding, links to the wording of the particular manuscript in the Collation mode)
2. The Align Reading function serves for aligning items of the critical apparatus with corresponding places in the text of the edition.
3. The Pin function enables to pin individual items of the critical apparatus or content commentaries on the Message Board and have them thus available for further consultation without the need to scroll through the text of the edition.
4. Opening/closing of the Message Board window

• Collation Mode


The left part of the screen again contains a window with the edition text, whereas in the right part, the wordings of individual manuscripts are visualized. Manuscripts for collation can be added as you choose; each manuscript will open in a new window. Similarly as in the main text of the edition, details about items of the critical apparatus can be interactively displayed and moved to analogous places in the individual texts.

1. Adding of a manuscript for collation
2. Upper bar of the collation window
   
   1. Selecting a manuscript
   2. Selecting of manuscript parts (paragraphs, folios) — not functional yet
   3. Description of the manuscript
3. Lower bar of the collation window
   
   1. Setting of colored filters for the wording of individual manuscripts, see highlighting
   2. Font size selection
4. Highlighting
   
   The EVT enables to highlight in color the individual types of changes in the variant manuscripts according to the selected way of encoding of text variants (<RDG> - type, cause, hand).
   
   Their overview can be displayed in the application by switching on the table of colored filters.
   
   When processing the Literae annuae, detailed encoding of text variants is used only in the full textually critical edition.
   
   According to the type (type atribut of the <RDG> element ), the variants are distinguished as follows:
   
   Orthographic (orhtographic)
   Variant reading (variant)
   Corrections by a contemporary hand (correction)
   Annotations by a contemporary hand (marginalia)
   
   For some changes (especially corrections), reasons for the changes and the way there were made are recorded as well (cause atribut of the <RDG>) element :
   
   Trans – transposition (changes in word order)
   Del - deletion
   Add - addition
   Dittography – erroneous doubling of words
   Subst - substitution
   Om - omission
   Supl - supplement
   
   

   For all period interventions in the text, the particular scribe hand is recorded ( hand atribut of the <RDG> element). The individual elements of the color scheme are mutually combined in the final visualization (color gradients). More details on the ways of encoding can be found in the Methodology. An overview of types of text variants and ways of their encoding in TEI is an attachment of the certified Methodology of evidence of references of material culture in narrative sources with a focus on access to cultural and historical information in foreign language sources..

• Working with Indexes

Index entries (content commentaries) are created only in the interpretative edition. You can work with them either directly in the main window of the edition or in the independent index window.

Content commentaries in the text







1. Index entries / content commentaries or explanatory notes (names, places, korporace, buildings, events, objects, terms) either change their color in the text when you run over them by a mouse, or it is possible to turn on their permanent highlighting in the lower bar. Each type of commentaries has its own color. Since commentaries may overlap in the text, some of the highlighting is visible only if the specific category is turned on.

2. When you click on a marked term in the text of the edition, a window with details on the item will open/close (aliases, explanatory notes, links to the BBDR Database, other occurrences in the text, for geographical items the GPS coordinates and displaying on a map). A hypertext link opens a page with information in the BBDR database in a new browser window. The item can also be pinned on the Message Board (see the PIN function) or open in the index browsing mode.
3. The opening of a new window for items from indexes is so far available only for the indexes of places, buildings, names and corporations. As for other indexes, this function is still being developed and it will be added in the future versions of the EVT..

Indexes window



An independent Indexes window can be opened either via individual items in the text of the edition or via tools in the upper bar of the application.

In the left part of the window, you choose the type of index; the right part enables you to scroll through items by clicking on the corresponding letter of the alphabet. Similarly to working in the text of the edition, you can also display details and occurrences or activate a link to the BBDR Database by clicking on an item.



• Message Board Window

It serves for pinning of items of the critical apparatus nebo content commentaris so that they can be quickly used again. It is available only in the Reading text mode, but the PIN function stores the needed items in it in other modes as well.

1. Opening/closing of the Message Board window
2. Filtering of items on the Message Board
• Search Functions

Not functional yet, in preparation…