Thompson Chain Ref. - Margin Notes

[kenwood430]

Hi All,

I had originally posted in a different thread about this project (viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2232&start=15) but figured I would move over here a this is actually a New Module and not seeking help for an existing one.

I have been thinking about/Playing with creating a commentary module to be used "in line" with the Bible window to create a margin notes version of the TCR.
I haver a couple (ok, three actually) screen shots to share along with a few questions (seeking opinions/input).

1st photo shows the mouse over what will be the Index/Topic number. This will link to the TCR dictionary. The pop-up will show the full entry for that topic.
2nd photo shows the mouse over the Sub topic Indicator. This is Alpha-Numeric (Number/Letter/Both).

1st Question. Some Topics have sub topics and even sub-sub topics. How do you think this should be displayed?
The example photo shown has sub-topics A-L and the sub-topic (J) has sub-sub-topics 1-3.

Should I just use (show as text) the higher level topic (J) or should I include the number (J1).
I know either will work but which is more clear? Should I narrow down what is actually shown in the pop-up to Just subtopic 1? "(1) Physical"?

The reason I want to show all of sub-topic (J) is if I were displaying just "(2) Supernatural" I would loose the "(J) Darkness" heading from my pop-up display.
and if you see a pop-up that only says "(2) Supernatural"... supernatural what??? What does Supernational mean ???

I guess that the word Darkness (J2) in front of the link might be a clue, but, what do you think?

3rd photo is of the chain references. I have decided to show both the previous link as well as the next link reference. The photo shows what it looks like at the start of the chain.

123 Start Chain, > Gen 1:2

The others would look something like:

123 Middle Chain, Gen 1:1 <> Gen 1:3
123 End Chain , Gen 1:2 <

From what you see here do any of you have any comments/suggestions?

Thanks,
Roy

[musings]

Roy,

What you're proposing looks good. I'm a long-time believer but only very recently paid much attention to the TCR concept and have a TCR bible on order. In answer to your question, I would think displaying at the J level seems right rather than J1, J2 etc. I also love the idea of showing both the forward and back links in the chain.

Regards, Gary

[csterg]

1st Question. Some Topics have sub topics and even sub-sub topics. How do you think this should be displayed?
The example photo shown has sub-topics A-L and the sub-topic (J) has sub-sub-topics 1-3.

Should I just use (show as text) the higher level topic (J) or should I include the number (J1).
I know either will work but which is more clear? Should I narrow down what is actually shown in the pop-up to Just subtopic 1? "(1) Physical"?

The reason I want to show all of sub-topic (J) is if I were displaying just "(2) Supernatural" I would loose the "(J) Darkness" heading from my pop-up display.
and if you see a pop-up that only says "(2) Supernatural"... supernatural what??? What does Supernational mean ???

I guess that the word Darkness (J2) in front of the link might be a clue, but, what do you think?

I think that it would be good to show the J1, J2, etc since in case of chains with multiple sub-topics, you are not sure to which chain the current verse belongs to.
Concerning the popup: show the whole popup, do not truncate it: as you said in this example, just displaying "(2) Supernatural" makes no sense, show it all. But in the actual commentary text, it may make sense to display the J2 (or J-2 or Darkness->Supernatural)
Costas

[DarrelW]

I like what Costas had to say on this! Those are good points.

Darrel

[kenwood430]

Thanks for the input.

Three screen shots. Which one makes more sense.

All or just Physical.

or should I edit the existing commentary, changing the heading as in pic 3?

I am hoping a picture can explain better than my description.

Thanks!
Roy

(p.s. This is going to take a really long time to do. I can see that now )

[kenwood430]

Hi Everybody,

Ok I've hit a snag and would like some input.

I have put index numbers in front of each topic in the TCR dictionary. There are 1728 of them.
If you look at a printed TCR Bible, you will find that there are 4002 topics (at least according to mine there are).

Why the difference?

It appears that some of the entries in our dictionary have been grouped under a single topic where-as in the printed version they have their own topic numbers.

If you want to see what I mean, take a look at the entry for Abundance-Want

in our dictionary the topics are:

.
.
17 Abstain
18 Abundance-Want
.....(A) ABUNDANCE, SPIRITUAL of God's gifts
.....(B) PLENTY PROMISED to the obedient
.....(C) WANT the result of sin and slothfulness
.....(D) FAMINE
..........(1) Prophesied
..........(2) Examples of
..........(3) Threatened as the Result of Sin
19 Acacia Wood
.
.

where as the printed version has something like this.
.
.
17 Abstain

Abundance-Want
18 (A) ABUNDANCE, SPIRITUAL of God's gifts
19 (B) PLENTY PROMISED to the obedient
20 (C) WANT the result of sin and slothfulness

(D) FAMINE
21 (1) Prophesied
22 (2) Examples of
23 (3) Threatened as the Result of Sin

24 Acacia Wood
.
.

First, for me it would be easier to simply keep the topic structure as it currently is. This would mean that our Index Numbers would *not* match that of a typical TCR Bible.

If we would want them to match I need to take one step back and start editing the dictionary topic structure as well. I would have to add topics and then do a cut-&-paste to move the sections effected. (Thats 2274 additional topic to add to the dictionary ... ouch )

More work for me but I would be willing to do that work if most every one wanted the index numbers to match. (Since the original TCR Bible did not have index numbers (I have a PDF), would our matching those numbers be a copyright issue?)

I'm going to hold for a day or two to see if I get any comments and which direction they go. If I don't hear anything then I will just use the current topic structure and our numbers will *not* match.

Thanks again,
Roy

[csterg]

Hi Roy,
concerning your first question: i would go with the popup that displays the whole note (so the user has context also).

Concerning your second post about editing the current dictionary: sounds like a lot of work: how about adding the original index numbers within the topics (since you will be also adding the bookmarks) ? So you will not need to create the subtopics. An introductory topic can then explain what these numbers are (e.g. they correspond to the index number of the printed Bible...)

The current grouping of the electronic version makes more sense, don't change that.

Costas

[kenwood430]

Hi Costas,

Ok, so if I understand you correctly I would have something like this

.
.
17 Abstain
Abundance-Want
.....18 (A) ABUNDANCE, SPIRITUAL of God's gifts
.....19 (B) PLENTY PROMISED to the obedient
.....20 (C) WANT the result of sin and slothfulness
........ (D) FAMINE
..........21 (1) Prophesied
..........22 (2) Examples of
..........23 (3) Threatened as the Result of Sin
24 Acacia Wood
.
.
(This is how it is more-or-less shown in my printed version) and the topic pane would how something like:
.
.
17 Abstain
18-23 Abundance-Want (it just dawned on me that I can make the index number (in the topic pane) a range of numbers, not just a single number)
24 Acacia Wood
.
.
??? I think this might work. Yea -or- Nay.

Roy

[JG]

Costas, there is a tool that addresses this whole topic, more or less. viewtopic.php?p=11201#p11201

[csterg]

Thanks Jon, i know this tool and understand it.
Roy here tries to make a module that will comply with the exact spirit of the TCR and the printed Bible.
Costas

[Benny]

Hey Roy

It has been a while since I have been here, but I have been looking through the forum posts and ran across this one. I have been working on the same thing you are for a long time but not in the last year or so because I had to take a part time job. You can setup your inline commentary to read exactly as they are displayed in the chain reference margin of your bible. The images below shows how it looks. When you click on the topic reference 2176 Darkness (1), in the margin it will display the 2176 (1) Physical topic as a sub-topic under (J) DARKNESS topic in a generic book. NOTE: This is from the KJV, so I don't know if the other versions use the same as this. My guess is that they don't because the wording would have changed on some chain references in other versions.


You have to create a generic book to do the topics. Here is an image of the way I have done my topics. They are displayed exactly by number and sub-topics listed in the topic section of the TCR bible. You can either search for any topic by number in the generic book or create a hyperlink for any topic number in your inline commentary.

[kenwood430]

Hi Benny,

Thank you for posting.

I had originally posted to see if you were still around working on your project, but when I did not see a reply I just started my own.
(I am curious as to how far along you are on yours)

I am taking a sightly different route than what you appear to have done.
1st I am trying to use the current TCR dictionary with some modifications.
- Adding the Index numbers.
- Adding bookmarks.

I am still not sure what I want to do with the index numbers. As you most likely know, the existing TCR topic dictionary has a number of combined topics under one heading.

The Light - Darkness example you displayed is a good example. Under that one dictionary topic there exists 16 topics that have Index numbers in a paper TCR Bible.

what I have done so far is edit the original topic to show the range ( 2165-2180 Light - Darkness ) and then in the text body add the actual index numbers and put bookmarks on them . I was going to do this in an effort to keep from having to re-create the entire dictionary. But....... I kinda like your idea of using a book module (having the parent-child tree feature available). I had considered doing this but wasn't too sure I wanted to.

I am also changing sightly the way the chained verses are displayed. Instead of showing just the next verse, I am showing both the previous and next verses. This will allow you to navigate the chain in both directions.

Right now I have stopped my edit of the dictionary in favor of getting all of the parallel verses entered first in my margin notes module.
Once that task is complete I'll go back and start again on the dictionary portion.

I guess the real question is... are you far enough along on your project to make mine redundant? I don't want to re-create the wheel here or duplicate your work needlessly.

Let me know.....
Roy

p.s. Pleasure to meet you!

[Doctordavet]

What you two are doing is worth doing; and it is worth doing right. I'm looking forward to your finished versions. It looks to me as if you should swap your work with each other, and let each other see what you're doing. Perhaps the synergy will make the finished product better than either of you alone would have produced.

Thank you, servants of the Lord, for working on this worthy project!

[Benny]

Hey again Roy

In the TCR Topics (generic book I created), I have from 1 - 1777 of the topics completely done. And I also have a lot of topics past 1777 done where I tried to enter the chain references in the commentary starting at Gen 1 and going down the margin just like you are trying to do now. After I done a few of these, I came to the conclusion that this way would take forever. I think I have figured out the fastest way to create the commentary. By entering only the topic numbers in the commentary, I can save a lot of time creating it.



If I enter just the topic number 1 only (without the Aaron text or the verse links that follow) like in the image above, I can search the commentary for 1 to find all the verses that pertain to the topic 1 Aaron only shown below.



Then all I have to do is create the hyperlink which should start in commentary for verse Exod 4.14 in place of the 1. Then copy the hyperlink and paste it in place of the 1 in the other verses followed by the next chain reference link. If the entire commentary was completed this way, an entire topic chain reference can be entered very quickly. It would also take care of the chain references such as 1 Aaron.. that is not listed in the topics but still show up in the chain reference margin of the bible.

There is at least one thing to be considered when creating the commentary. Since the chain references are released as public domain, no chain references above the number 4002 can be used in the commentary or the generic book.

This is the margin numbers written in Exod 4:14 in my bible.



So the number 4307 would have to be left out as shown below.



I like Dave's suggestion to try and work this out together. Since I have over half of the generic book completed, could you create the commentary. Then when we are both done, I could create and paste the hyperlinks pretty quick.

By the way, thanks for your comments Dave.

[kenwood430]

Hi Benny,

And Hi Dave, thanks for your post & suggestion. (And a note from a previous thread on this topic... at some point, yes, this module will make its' way to eSword as well, at least I plan on trying to do so).

Now back to Benny.

I would like to work with you on this. It "should" save from duplicating work.

Let me first let you know how far I am and what my approach is at this time.

I agree, and found out (after just a couple verses that starting at Genesis and trying to go verse by verse was a bad idea.
So..... I modified an approach you yourself suggested in this thread viewtopic.php?f=3&t=509&hilit=tcr.
What I decided to do was go by Topic (again your suggestion) but instead of using the printed TCR Bible Topic Index, I opted to use the TCR dictionary we have theWORD.

I would (in the Margin Notes Commentary I am building) start the entry with

16 Absalom (1), General References to,

Then I would copy/paste from the dictionary the whole chain

16 Absalom (1), General References to, 2Sam 3:3; 2Sam 13:29; 2Sam 13:37; 2Sam 14:25; 2Sam 15:2; 2Sam 15:14; 2Sam 17:1; 2Sam 18:9; 2Sam 18:14; 2Sam 18:33

Once this was done I would Apply the formatting and hyperlinks to the front potrion

16 Absalom (1), General References to, 2Sam 3:3; 2Sam 13:29; 2Sam 13:37; 2Sam 14:25; 2Sam 15:2; 2Sam 15:14; 2Sam 17:1; 2Sam 18:9; 2Sam 18:14; 2Sam 18:33

This approach requires (of course) having the bookmarks already placed in the dictionary. ( I would do this topic by topic as I came to it).

Once this was done I would copy the whole line (already formatted) and follow the chain, pasting the whole line into the commentary as I went.Once each verse in the chain had an entry pasted in place, I would go back to the front of the chain (clicking) and edit out all verses but the ones I wanted to show for that entry.

What I would end up with is:

First entry
16 Absalom (1), General References to, > 2Sam 13:29

Middle entries....
16 Absalom (1), General References to, 2Sam 3:3 <> 2Sam 13:37
16 Absalom (1), General References to, 2Sam 13:29 <> 2Sam 14:25

Last Entry
16 Absalom (1), General References to, 2Sam 18:14 <

I was also hyper-linking BOTH the Major index number (16) *and* the sub topic number/letter (1)

The Major link would show the whole topic in the pop-up and the Sub-link just the specific chain. I felt it would give a better overview.

I did this for a little while (up to dictionary entry 42 Adonijah) and decided I wanted/needed to first enter all of the parallel verses.
Since I wanted the parallel verses listed first I found I was having formatting issues by adding them after the fact, so I stoped the edit on the dictionary and entered the parallel verses.

I just finished doing all of the parallel verses that the TCR lists and now have a decision to make. I find that (of course) some of the parallel verses in the NT refer to OT verses. But the TCR does not have entries as parallel verses for ALL the OT verses quoted in the NT (Matt 3:3 is an example).

I am considering adding these as "o.t." references instead of "p.p.".

Once this was done I was going to go back and pick back up on the dictionary edit.

So that is where I am at. (b.t.w. there are approx 12,102 parallel verse references in the TCR)

It is my feeling that topics module would need to be completed first, so that those links can be cleanly referenced in the margin notes module.

Sorry for rambling so much.... What do you think?

Roy