Transformation for <abbr>

[ajaniak]

Dear all,

The Epidoc stylesheets have a display for <abbr> giving raḥ(- - -) 3 for <abbr>raḥ</abbr> <num value="3">3</num>. Can you let me know if you want to keep this possibility and eventually adapt it to your expectations?

Best, Axelle

[danbalogh]

The built-in display solution looks OK to me as a provisional solution, though I would slightly prefer using angle brackets ⟨ ⟩ instead of parentheses, since (I believe) we're tending towards the use of angle brackets for text supplied by the editor, and I think the completion of abbreviations is akin to supplying text. However, if anyone has a specific preference for any particular display, I'm happy to accept it.

[AnneSchmiedchen]

Dear Axelle, I also would prefer the use of angle brackets instead of parentheses.

[arlogriffiths]

sorry, I don't understand the example, where <abbr> and <num> seem to have no connection.

and thus I don't understand Dan's response, because there is nothing being completed about the abbreviation in the example.

since EGD 7.3 does not allow any expansion, I would assume that our transformation should not do anything at all to the contents of for <abbr> elements.

[danbalogh]

Arlo, I think <num> is not relevant to the question and was only included for context. (- - -) is how the pre-built EpiDoc transformation displays an <abbr> that is not expanded, where () is a "tag" for an expansion and - - - is an indicator of the fact that an expansion is not present. (Compare e.g. a(bc) for an expanded abbreviation.) I seem to remember you saying that at a later stage you did want to expand abbreviations, so it seems to me like a good idea to agree on how to display them, and to display unresolved abbreviations in a way analogous to the EpiDoc standard, i.e. displaying - - - within the brackets dedicated to expansions. (But I suggest deviating from the EpiDoc/Leiden standard in using angle brackets instead of round ones for that.) I hope this is clearer than what I said above. Not doing anything to the contents of at this stage is also fine for me.

[arlogriffiths]

I prefer not adding any brackets as long as we are never given expanded abbreviations. If we still have any color available, we could think of marking text enclosed in <abbr> with a color.

[manufrancis]

I concur with Arlo. Abbreviations are not so common that they deserve immediate action. But ... it is true there are some abbreviations used and that we could already expand them. Although I must say, speaking about Tamil epigraphy, that there are no abbreviation (maybe some very rare examples), but symbol instead.

[arlogriffiths]

let me then propose that Axelle set up the transformation to apply a color (brown?) to text enclosed in <abbr> but only when it appears in <div type="edition">

[manufrancis]

I suggest to display, in <div type="edition">, <abbr>raḥ</abbr> as

⟨raḥ⟩

all coloured (brown?)

[danbalogh]

Manu, if angle brackets are associated with editorial intervention (correction and normalisation), as I think they already are and as I feel they should be, then I think it is not a good idea to use angle brackets around anything that is actually present in the text. Enclosing the expansion of an abbreviation (when we come to that) in angle brackets is a good idea, but enclosing the abbreviation itself is not. If you feel that colouring abbreviations (brown or whatever) is not sufficient, then I suggest adding an empty ⟨⟩ after them, meaning that "this could be expanded but it has not been".

[arlogriffiths]

Please, let us keep things simple and just apply brown.

Manu: OK?

[manufrancis]

Fine with me. OK for our provisional hybrid transfo.