[tei-council] surfaces, surfaceGrps, etc. [was : minutes/release deadline]

Sebastian Rahtz sebastian.rahtz at oucs.ox.ac.uk
Sun Nov 13 11:15:02 EST 2011


I think my problem is that I don't understand how you thought nested <surface> was ever going
to work. In the given example:

<surface>
   <zone>
      <line>Poem</line>
      <line>As in Visions of — at</line>
      <line>night —</line>
      <line>All sorts of fancies running through</line>
      <line>the head</line>
   </zone>
   <surface type="newsprint" binder="glue" flipping="false">
			  <zone>Spring has
      just set in here, and the weather.... a
			   steamer </zone>

there are no coordinates, but we can imagine that the outer surface might have had
0,0,100,100 and the <zone> with the <line>s might have 10,10,23,42. But
how were we ever going to know where the inner surface _is_? it is all very
well to say you want that <surface> to have a grid of 0,0,10,10, and then talk
about the Spring <zone> within it, but we have no means of anchoring this
surface relative to the outer one.

This _could_ all work if we had _two_ sets of coordinates, one to
declare oneself relative to the outer <surface>, and one to 
set a new new coordinate system relative to the outer one, but I really
cannot see how you can work with one set of coordinates. Lou's
notion that you have a switch which flips between the two uses of coordinates
cannot fly, because you need both.

The example above is just fine to describe the structural relationship
between what we see on the MS, but not the layout. IMHO.

Simplest suggest is to abandon the idea that we'll ever be able to say _where_
the patch is, and just accept that each new <surface> is in its own
little world, with its own coordinate space. 

My next suggestion is that we say that inner <surface> cannot have
coords, and that its simply a way of grouping <zone>s. In which case
perhaps you'd rather call it a <zomeGrp>? in that case, I'd
vote for going back to <patch>...

My last suggestion is that we add a new set of x1,y1,x2,y2 attributes
called rel_llx, rel_lly, rel_ury,rel_urx to <surface>, which allow it
to say where it is relative to its parent <surface>. Ugly as sin, but
it would work.


--
Stormageddon Rahtz      
Head of Information and Support Group, Oxford University Computing Services
13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN. Phone +44 1865 283431

Sólo le pido a Dios
que el futuro no me sea indiferente



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