References - Scope and Convenience

[jonathanrobie]

Treedown uses references for several different purposes:

1. Post-positives:

This is our current syntax:

    cj >
        v.part προεγνωσμένου 
        cj* μὲν 
        + πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου, 
    cj > 
        v.part φανερωθέντος 
        cj* δὲ 
        + ἐπ’ ἐσχάτου τῶν χρόνων δι’ ὑμᾶς 

The > symbol indicates that the referent is found forward in the text. The * indicates a referent. The first referent is chosen.

Other syntaxes proposed use the surface word:

    cj>μὲν
        v.part προεγνωσμένου 
        cj μὲν 
        + πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου, 
    cj>δὲ 
        v.part φανερωθέντος 
        cj δὲ 
        + ἐπ’ ἐσχάτου τῶν χρόνων δι’ ὑμᾶς 

2. Supplying elided parts of a clause - see #7 for an example.

3. Cross-reference in extensions, e.g.

( ref = 'John.20.8!7' )

Some of these have very small scope, e.g. post-positives, and should be done with a convenient syntax. Others have much larger scope, and should probably be done using something like OSIS IDs, which generally require much more effort when creating using a text editor.

Do we need more than one syntax for references? What scopes do we need to support?

[jonathanrobie]

This is also related to #6.

[jtauber]

A third alternative for 1. would be extract the post-positive conjunction but don't repeat it, just have a placeholder.

e.g. something like

    cj> μὲν
        v.part προεγνωσμένου 
        cj<
        + πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου, 
    cj> δὲ 
        v.part φανερωθέντος 
        cj<
        + ἐπ’ ἐσχάτου τῶν χρόνων δι’ ὑμᾶς 

I don't necessarily prefer this but just throwing it out there as another option.

I guess it arguably violates some of the goals in #17 relating to maintaining sentence order.