Why make it harder than it has to be? Why reinvent the wheel yet again? A simple search for even just three short words such as: "not to be" will get us to Hamlet's soliliquy without much undue odd outragous fortune, and it will get us there very well in just about any edition. If you just add a word or two, it's even faster. . . . Page numbers just get you to the right page, a thousand, even plural thousands of characters might be there. When "not to be" is the right hit, it's also the place a person wants on the "page," not that pages are anything, anything at all, that arbitray publisher distinctions in nearly all cases. . . . On Sun, 17 Oct 2010, Keith J. Schultz wrote:
Hi. I do not understand what you are getting at. First Tractatus is logically number thereby already giving a reference system, namely the Wittgenstein'sche Nummierung! That is statements are already enumerated at can be referenced that way!
If I understand you correctly, you want to have some sort of reference system built into the ebooks so that one may easily find a particular place in an ebook.
Why reinvent the wheel. for many literary works there are already ways of referencing the text. E.g Drama Act I scene II line 5; In poems line number, latin text have there sentences number, etc.
I understand the problem of different edition and have had to deal with them. In the world of acedemica there are rules for proper citation of texts and they include all information right down to the edition used.
Now, for use in the class room there is always the problem of finding a particular text position when the class has different editions. That is why teachers often require that a particular text edition is used, so that in chapter xyz on page 123 JKL writes ... ! I have been in class where the on page 123 did not work. The communication was then "in the beginning/middle/end of chapter xyz" or "in the second paragraph of chapter xyz"! It works. everybody was able to find the text passage in their PRINTED BOOKS.
As mentioned below, if a ebook has a TOC have of this work is done. Jump to the chapter, or search for the chapter heading, or jump to the page given in the TOC. Then ..., I believe you get the idea it is no different than using printed material.
Naturally, in the electronic age it should be simpler. Well, one could always look for the text with find!!
Still not satisfactory. The question would be what kind of reference can be used. Sentence numbering could be one way, but their might be differences in the algorithm, and then there is the problem of those without ebooks.
I do not see this a problem particular to ebooks, but as a problem of the classroom in general. As we all know there are book editions which lend themselves easier for use in the classroom than others. So it comes down to the ebook having the PROPER information in it.
I do not there is any feasible way to do this. I mean how to tell an ebook jump to Matthew 5:9 or Sura 24 Ayat 25 (???) unless you have a link for this.
regards Keith.
Am 17.10.2010 um 08:53 schrieb Karen Lofstrom:
When texts are displayed on various ereaders, the pagination is going to vary depending on the screen size, font chosen, etc. There's no way that you can usefully refer to Tractatus p. 15, say. Page references work ONLY when everyone is using the same deadtree text.
What ebooks need is a software utility that can overlay any text with the same sort of reference system used for works like the Bible or the Qur'an. Matthew 5: 9 or Sura 24 Ayat 25. Only a system like this can cope with books printed/displayed in many editions and formats.
It would have to be written to work with the most common ebook formats, and should be an add-on that could be toggled on or off. Most of the time you wouldn't want it, but when you did need to refer to a certain passage, you could turn it on.
Wouldn't this be simple to code, if the book has a TOC with chapter headings?
-- Karen Lofstrom _______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d
_______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d