Create a Bible for TheWord

See Costas' spec documentation file here: http://download.theword.gr/bin/get.php/Formatting_tags_recognized_by_TW3.doc

General info on Bible files
Inline Formatting in a Bible file.
Information fields and tags at Bottom of Bible file.
Using the TheWord Importer Utility to create a Bible.
 

General Information on Bible Files.

These are the extensions for Bible files, and the number of lines (which are Scripture text lines, more can be added at the end).

• .ont: for files containing both OT and NT (31102 lines)

• .nt: for files containing NT only (7957 lines)

• .ot: for files containing OT only (23145 lines)

TheWord uses a simple text file for its Bibles. The basic setup of these files are that they are single lines, one for each verse, starting at either Genesis 1:1, or Matthew 1:1, and you count each line/paragraph/hard return as a new verse. Let's look at one as an example.

(This image is from a simple text editor program TOTAL COMMANDER.)

This is Revelation (King James Version). Each verse is on a separate line. Notice that the file will accept some formatting codes <FI> italic text<Fi>, as well as in verse cross references, although that is not recommended. It is better to make a cross reference user file (as per the TheWord manual) and have it available for any Bible Version.

This is all there is to creating a Bible module in THEWORD. There is one extra set of special information at the end of this file.

Inline Formatting in a Bible file.

The following html tags (with no semantic info) can be recognized):

<u></u>
<i></i>
<b></b>
<br>
<p>


<font color=<color> size=<+/-n>></font>
<span style=”<color|background|border-bottom>:<color|solid|dashed|dotted|ridge>”></span>

Use of html tags is heavily DISCOURAGED since they bring no semantic info.

<color>: either a string (e.g. red, blue, etc) or in the form #xxyyzz (html format). Also one of the default TW colors can be used with the notation defclrX where X is:

• 0 for text color

• 1 for italics

• 2 for word of Jesus

• 3 for strong indices

• 4 for morph indices

• 5 for footnotes

• 6 for xrefs

• 7 for headings

• 8 for OT quotes

For example: <font color=defclr5>…</font> can be used if you want the color of the footnotes to be used. (since version 2 is using an html renderer, more html tags are supported, but ver.3 will use an rtf renderer with support for these only)

The following semantically recognized tags are supported:

<FI>…<Fi>: for “added” words (usually shown in italics, words added by translator)

<CL>: for new line

<CM>: for new paragraph. NOTICE for CL and CM tags: there must be AT LEAST one CL or CM tag at the end of one verse for other CL/CM tags that are inline to work properly. If (for any reason) the entire .ont file has CL/CM tags only inline the verses (and none at the end of at least one verse), they will not work. I consider this to be totally improbably, but it is something to be aware of.

<FO>…<Fo>: for Old Testament quotes

<FR>…<Fr>: for Words of Jesus (usually rendered in red color)

<FU>…<Fu>: for underline words (no semantic here yet)

<TSn>…<Ts>: for chapter headings. 3 levels are supported (TS1 which is equivalent to TS, TS2, TS3). This text appears as chapter headings. Chapter headings can be exchanged with other modules. They are supported in the beginning of a verse and in the middle. No other formatting tags should be added for the chapter headings itself

<WGXXX[xs]>: Greek strongs codes: they must follow the word they refer to. XXX is the strong’s number

<WHXXX[xs]>: Hebrew strongs

Some notes on strong tags: notice that after the strong number a ‘x’ or an ‘s’ may appear (e.g. <WG123x> or <WG123s>). These 2 letters has special meanings:

1. The ‘x’ means that this Strong number corresponds to an original word that is not translated. This means that such a strong word will not have a corresponding word in the translation and is probably be exactly after another one. Such a strong word will rendered by default in parenthesis “(123)”. This default rendering can be changed by including a property at the end of the file named 'untranslated.strong.format'. For example, if you want to render these numbers in square brackets, you can add at the end of the file the line (without the quotes): “untranslated.strong.format=[%s]” (notice the %s represent the default rendering).

2. The ‘s’ appears when an original word is translated in 2 words. For example:
   Original: He is a songwriter<STRONGWORD>
   Translation: He is a writer<STRONGWORD> of songs<SAME STRONGWORD>
   
   Notice that the original word ‘strongwrite’ is translated in 2 words. The ‘s’ will be added in the second strong word to show that this is not a separate word in the original but corresponds to the same one (useful when counting strong words).
   
   Such a strong word will rendered by default in bracker “[123]”. This default rendering can be changed by including a property at the end of the file named ‘sameword.strong.format'. For example, if you want to render these numbers in parenthesis, you can add at the end of the file the line (without the quotes): “sameword.strong.format=(%s)” (notice the %s represent the default rendering).

<WTXXX>: Morphology codes: corresponds to Robinson’s Morphological codes

<RF>…<Rf>: footnotes: they can appear anywhere in a verse. No formatting tags for text of footnotes

<RX b.c.v-v [q=<quote>]> (or <Rx>): cross-references. The book/chapter/verse index follows. They can appear anywhere in a verse. A range can be defined either using a dash (‘-‘) or a plus sign (‘+’). Dash denote ending verse, plus denotes interval. For example:

<RX 1.1.1> refers to Gen. 1:1

<RX 1.1.3-4> refers to Gen. 1:3-4

<RX 1.1.3+1> refers to Gen 1:3-4

The q attribute is optional and can be used to denote the quote character, e.g.

<RX 1.1.1 q=a>

<RX 1.1.3-4 q=b>

If the q attribute is present, then instead of the usual numbers for the xrefs (1, 2, 3) the quote characters will appear instead (a, b, etc)

<a href=”url”>….</a>: general type links: the url can contain the following (complete this):

(pattern compiled: 'tw://((bible|cmt|dct|bk|book|map|media)\.)?([^#\?]+)(\?)?([^#]*)(#)?(.*?)')

[strong]: for current strong module

[morph]: for current morph module

The following can be added:

_IGNORE_: to denote this as non-Bible text

_NOLINK_: to avoid a link

popup=[0,1,2]: to specify if content should appear in popup when mouse hovers

t=<topic_id>: the topic-id of the module it refers to.

(Give many examples here)

<NB toggle=footnotes|xrefs|cmts>…<Nb>: non-Bible text (ver. 3.0.0.671+). This tag is used to mark some text in the verse as NOT belonging to the Bible (like notes). This is very useful when you create custom links inline the text and you don’t want the linked text (e.g. a number) to be ‘counted’ as Bible text.
The toggle parameter (optional) can take 3 values: footnotes, xrefs, cmts. This parameter allows the text between to be toggled (shown/hidden) along with the footnotes or xrefs or commentary links. This is very usefule and the choice is up to the module-maker. I believe the ‘footnotes’ is most useful, if these are links to a commentary or another resource.
IMPORTANT: if the text between the NB…Nb tags contains links, then the ‘|_IGNORE_’ directive should be appended to the ‘href’ of the link. If this is not done, highlighting will not work properly.

Example of usage of NB with a verse rule:
verse.rule="<N\s+(.+?)\s*>" "<NB toggle=footnotes><a href=tw://cmt.netnotes?t=[vref]#a$1|_IGNORE_><font color=blue>^$1</font></a><Nb>"

This allows tags in the form: <N 1> in the text that are displayed as foonotes and link to a commentary. Notice the _IGNORE_ directive within the href. Notice also the [vref] that is parsed in the verse rule.

Information Fields and Tags at Bottom of Bible File.

Here are the following information fields at the end of a Bible file from the spec documentation file:

short.title= (abbreviation of the Bible version)

description= (what appears in the tooltip when you mouseover the Bible tab)

about=(what is in the about box when you click on that in the context menu)

version.major=<number> Major version of the module

version.minor=<number> Minor version of the module

requires=a.b.c.d (e.g. 3.0.0.702): minimum program version required to display this module properly

about=<about>
This is an html (or rtf from ver. 3) long description of the Bible module. If there is a copyright, it should go here. If in html format, pls use simple html (no css supported). To span multiple lines, use a backsplash (‘\’) at the end of the line to continue to the next

tag.rule=<tag_starts_with> <tag_regex_search_pattern> <tag_replacement>
Version 3 upwards. Attributes are separated by space or comma. If you need to include spaces in the attributes, enclose the whole attribute in double quotes (to use actual double quotes, write them twice). For example:
The tag.rule attribute may appear more than once: tag rules are applied in the order they appear. The tag rules apply to the tags that start with the <tag_starts_with> letters. The tag.rules are very useful when a module needs to be linked to en external resource (e.g. commentary, dictionary, etc) using the <a href=”url>…</a> format for links

verse.rule=<tag_regex_search_pattern> <tag_replacement>
Attribute follow the same rules as “tag.rule” attribute. These rules are applied to each verse (as a whole) before it is being prepared for rendering. These rules are applied BEFORE the tag.rules! e.g.,
Special notice: the “[vref]” is replaced in the verse rule with the actual verse id (e.g. bi.ci.vi). This is very useful for links that need to dynamically refer to the current verse. An example link that uses this feature would be: “tw://cmt.mynotes?t=[vref]”.
verse.rule="(^|[^>]+)<W([GH](\d+))>" "<a href=""tw://[strong]?t=$2&popup=1"">$1</a>"

notags=1
If this special attribute is present, then ALL not-known tags are treated as simple text. This is useful if a text uses a special font and the character < and > may be used for anything… (there is not way to add tags there). Unfortunately, this is not a perfect implementation. If a combination of < and > (in this order) appear in a verse, the following things will NOT work properly:

Searching of the text between these 2 chars

User highlighting (it will be offsetted to the right).

OK, since this is a very rare attribute to use and ONLY for texts with special font (only Slavonic as of this writing), I hope it doesn’t limit the functionality too much.

Creating Bibles with TW Importer program

There are some options to importing Bible in the TWImporter program.

visits since July 14, 2009