Genetics with TEI, CSS and Javascript

We organize a regular seminar « Editing Leibniz » on editorial issues in Leibniz, in collaboration with the various Arbeitsstellen from the Akademie Ausgabe.

This page aims to demonstrate the possibilities of displaying multiple versions of the same document in a user friendly way, basing the whole code on the TEI transcription of the text.

Basically :

- The text is transcribed in a TEI XML file (or field in our case).
- It's displayed in a way that focuses on the "main" version, be it the original, the last one, or whatever version is deemed 'main'.
- The interface then allows the user to browse the different versions as easily as possible.

The goal is multifold :

- Having a strict and expressive syntax to retain as much of the document structure as possible.
- Synchronizing the different versions in an automated way without altering the TEI code, thus maintaining its expressivity.
- Make the interface as useful and usable as possible : ideally, we should be able to display the document's versions in various ways (chronological, thematic, or any arbitrary parameter present in the TEI attributes)

This is a TEI forest, composed of two trees.

The first tree represents the 'original' (or master) version, the second one a variation of the first (i.e a resembling text but with modifications.)

The structure opens possiblities for some interesting operations :

comparing different versions of a leaf in different trees
comparing different versions of a branch in different trees (evolution)
visualize 'graphically' the general evolution of the manuscript.

Forest element
 First tree element : Example text
    This is the first sentence.   
         with a subordinate proposition
              and a word inside the proposition
   
   This the second sentence.    
         with another subordinate proposition
             and another word inside the other proposition
    
 Second tree element : Example text variation
    This is the first sentence.   
         with a subordinate proposition
   This the second sentence.
        with another subordinate proposition
             this proposition is new
                 and this word too.

Show similarities
Show additions
Show deletions

Below you can see the TEI source code for the above object.

<forest n="ph1" type="derivation-syntactic"> <label>Forest element</label> <eTree n="State 1" xml:id="s1-original"> <label>First tree element : Example text</label> <eTree xml:id="sentence-1" type="stable"> <label>This is the first sentence.</label> <eTree xml:id="sp-1" type="stable"> <label> with a subordinate proposition</label> <eLeaf type="stable"> <label> and a word inside the proposition</label> </eLeaf> </eTree> <eTree xml:id="sentence-2" type="stable"> <label>This the second sentence.</label> <eTree xml:id="sp-2" type="stable"> <label> with another subordinate proposition</label> <eLeaf id="elem-1" type="deleted"> <label> and another word inside the other proposition</label> </eLeaf> </eTree> </eTree> </eTree> </eTree> <eTree n="Stage 2" xml:id="s2SBAR" corresp="#s1-original"> <label>Second tree element : Example text variation</label> <eTree xml:id="sentence-1-alt" corresp="#sentence-1" type="stable"> <label>This is the first sentence.</label> <eTree xml:id="sp-1-alt" copyOf="#sp-1" type="stable"> <label> with a subordinate proposition</label> </eTree> <eTree xml:id="sentence-2-alt" corresp="#sentence-2" type="stable" id="elem-2"> <label>This the second sentence.</label> <eTree xml:id="sp-2-alt" copyOf="#sp-2" type="stable"> <label> with another subordinate proposition</label> </eTree> <eTree xml:id="sp-3" type="new"> <label> this proposition is new</label> <eLeaf type="new"> <label> and this word too.</label> </eLeaf> </eTree> </eTree> </eTree> </eTree> </forest>