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NeDiMAH workshop: Editing texts in a digital world: Text encoding and visualisation

Cluj-Napoca, 27.4.2015 to 2.5.2015

Roman Bleier, Trinity College DublinEmail: bleierr@tcd.ie

What is a markup language and

Introducing the oXygen environment

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Often used example scriptura continua – white

space and punctuation as markup

What is the use of a markup language?

Spring and Fall (1880) by Gerard Manley Hopkins (taken from wikipedia, s.v. Scriptio_continua)

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● For computers plain text is just a series of

whitespace and characters

● We humans understand the following line as

address information. What does a computer

understand?

David G. Curtin Esq.R.D.C Stagmount House Rockchapel

Co. Cork Ireland

Computers do not understand texts in the same way as humans do

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● Markup languages (ML) are not programming

languages

● Tags or elements are used to add information to

content, e.g. HTML to structure text, images, etc.

on a webpage

● These tags or elements have to be interpreted

by processing software (e.g. web browser)

What is a markup language?

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● A ML must specify how markup is to be

distinguished from text/content

● Examples:

● HTML: <h1>This is a heading</h1>

● LaTeX: \begin{document} Text \end{document}

● A ML must specify what markup is allowed and

what is required (e.g. XML root element is

required for XML documents)

What is a markup language?

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● Procedural markup: defines what processing is

to be carried out at particular points in a

document● Descriptive or semantic markup: describes the

content

Different types of markup

Example based on J. Flanders, Descriptive Markup (2007).

Procedural markup says: "center this text"Descriptive markup says "just FYI, this text is a (centered) heading"

7Letters of 1916, letter envelop 1590 (L1916_1590)

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HTML encoding of the address information

<div> <p>David G. Curtin Esq.R.D.C,</p> <p>Stagmount House.</p> <p>Rockchapel.</p> <p>Co. Cork.</p> </div>

HTML elements do not add meaning to the text, proceedureal markup

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Semantic encoding of address information with XML

<div facs="#L1916_1590_img_4"> <ab> <address> <addrLine>David G. Curtin Esq.R.D.C,</addrLine> <addrLine>Stagmount House.</addrLine> <addrLine>Rockchapel.</addrLine> <addrLine>Co. Cork.</addrLine> </address> </ab> </div>

<div facs="#L1916_1590_img_4"> <ab> <address> <persName ref="#P11">David G. Curtin

<roleName type="title">Esq.R.D.C</roleName> </persName>

<street>Stagmount House</street> <settlement>Rockchapel</settlement> <region>Co. Cork</region> </address> </ab></div>

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● Word processing software (Microsoft Word, Libre Office, LaTeX)

● Web authoring (HTML)● For describing graphics (SVG)● Storage, description and exchange of metadata

(Dublin-Core, RDF, MARCXML) ● Modelling of humanities data and digital scholary

editing (TEI, EpiDoc, MENOTA)

Applications of markup languages

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oXygen XML editor: initial setup

● oXygen is a XML editor and development environment with a lot of support for TEI

● Support for XML development

(XSLT, XPath, XQuery, XSL-FO, etc.)● supports many other languages

(HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.)● Download and install the trial version of oXygen:

http://www.oxygenxml.com/download.html

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oXygen XML editor: first project

● Create a project folder somewhere on your harddrive

● Name it 'TEI workshop April 2015' ● In the project folder create the folder 'Intro to

XML' ● Start oXygen and create a new project, name it

'TEIworkshopApril2015'● The following slides show step-by-step how this

is done.

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oXygen XML editor: open Project panel

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oXygen XML editor: create new project

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oXygen XML editor: create new project

In the pop-up window 'New Project', enter the name of your project and select a place where you would like to save the project file.

Project folder name:TEI workshop April 2015

In project folder create another folder:Intro to XML

Give your project file a file name: e.g.TEIworkshopApril2015.xpr

.xpr is the extension for oXygen project files

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oXygen XML editor: add a folder

Add Folder/Add Files:You can add individual folder or files to your projectIf a folder is added the folder content is also added to your projectAdd the folder 'Intro to XML'

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oXygen XML editor: create first XML file

In the pop-up window choose 'XML Document' and give the document the file name: helloWorld.xmlPress the button 'Create'

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oXygen XML editor: create first XML file

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oXygen XML editor: validate XML file

If you validate your XML file you should get an error message:„There is no schema or DTD associated with document...“„A well-formed document requires a root element.“

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oXygen XML editor: add a DTD

Add a simple DOCTYPE declaration:

<!DOCTYPE text [ <!ELEMENT text (#PCDATA)>]>

If you validate your document now you should still get the Error:„A well-formed document requires a root element.“

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oXygen XML editor: add a root element

We will learn this afternoon what a root element is. However, if you add the following line of XML code your document should be valid:

<text>Hello World!</text>

Try to validate your document again. There should be no more error messages and a 'green lights' on bottom an right side will show you that the XML document is indeed valid XML.

Valid XML