This is an earlier prototype: a Dickens notes page alongside the text of an installment using the Versioning Machine. In addition to the screenshots below, I have now uploaded a very early version of the prototype; you can see it here. Also, here is the XML file. Together with its associated XSLT file, this produces an interface that highlights the connections between the working notes and the installment text for the second installment of Our Mutual Friend. Hover-over critical notes explain the relationship between the working notes and the text, and each of Dickens’s notes can be highlighted to show the corresponding content in the installment text. To create this I adapted the XML and XSLT files from the Versioning Machine. The Versioning Machine is designed as a tool for comparing multiple versions of the same text to highlight similarities and differences or changes over time. I adapted it to highlight connections between texts. (Many thanks to Tanya Clement, Associate Editor of the Versioning Machine, who introduced me to it at DHSI.)
This is very clearly an early, early prototype for the project, which will need its own interface tailored to the needs of the project. My point was merely to use an existing open-source tool to display a prototype and to get me started encoding the text. I still need to do quite a bit of work to encode the notes and the installment according to the TEI guidelines, but this is a start!
(This link opens the above html in the whole window.)
You can try this out for yourself, and here are some annotated screenshots that walk you through how it works (click on the thumbnails to view the gallery, including captions):
The first view offers you four panels; each one can be closed independently. The first panel offers a critical introduction and instructions for use. The middle two panels display the transcription of the left and right pages of the working notes for the installment. The final panel displays the text for the installment (in this case number 2).
Closing the introduction panel allows you to more clearly see the working notes alongside the installment text.
Clicking on the thumbnails of the images at the top right hand corner of the working note panels opens a larger image of the manuscript (for now just a facsimile stand-in). You can drag and move this window around to better view it beside the transcription.
Superscript “n” indicates a critical note. When you hover the mouse over the note it pops up, allowing me to offer a critical commentary of the relationship between the notes and the installment.
Clicking on any of the notes highlights corresponding notes across the working notes and the installment text. Here, for instance, is a simple connection between “Boffin’s Bower,” the title of chapter five, which appears on the right and left of the working notes and in the installment. A note allows me to explain that in the manuscript the title was changed to “Boffin’s Bower” from “Harmony Jail.”
Here I highlight a quotation that appears in the notes. Scrolling down the page we find…
… the corresponding quotations in the installment text
Here I have highlighted a note on the left hand page of the working notes, indicating Dickens plan to offer a picture of the “queer St Giles’s business” (Mr. Venus’s shop). Scrolling down reveals…
… the corresponding description of Mr. Venus’s shop in the installment text.
Although this works for now as a prototype, it has some drawbacks. The most obvious is the space allocated to the installment text, which is far too narrow and requires too much scrolling. We need a feature that allows users to easily navigate to the elements of the installment that correspond to the working notes, which would either require the addition of more panels or a “next” and “previous” feature that jumps between portions of the text. Another problem involves the space allocated to the manuscript, which is currently too small and makes the manuscript secondary to the transcription. Finally, I would prefer an interface that features the interpretive component more prominently (beyond the critical notes). But this is the point of a prototype: to test out and evaluate the idea!
