[be] [ bibledit-Feature Requests-1696608 ] draft editing system

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Feature Requests item #1696608, was opened at 2007-04-09 00:02
Message generated for change (Settings changed) made by teus
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Category: None
Group: None
>Status: Pending
Resolution: None
Priority: 5
Private: No
Submitted By: Oreo Phil (warpok)
Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody)
Summary: draft editing system

Initial Comment:
Hi Teus,

As I look to the future in my various translation projects, I see the need for 
a draft editing system. Here's the language situation we might be looking at:

Let's suppose there is a translation program that is in a major language which 
is spoken with some variation in different areas. Two halves of the country 
will use slightly different pronoun sets (version A and B), and the team is 
looking toward a "green" version for readers of Islamic background (version C). 
The far-flung translation team is starting from one rough draft, but there will 
be editors and checking/revision teams in different provinces working on 
various drafts (prechecking draft, first checking draft, second checking draft, 
trial publication draft).

[I am not sure at what point the various regions may want to separate the 
drafts. It could be that the changes for each region could always be made by 
consistent changes, or it could be that there will be differences that would 
make it better to separate version A, B, and C earlier. (I hope not!) Even if 
an early separation happens, it is certain that suggestions for one version 
should be considered for the others.]

One person will act as the keeper of the current definitive draft (draft 
administrator), and he will often need to compare changes made by an editor to 
an old draft with the current draft as he now has it. It is certain that the 
different editors and checking teams will work at different speeds, so that 
verse xx will often have been changed by different people already when the 
"draft administrator" receives yet another proposal to change the same verse. 
He will need to be able to compare the new suggestion with both the original 
and current version, to evaluate whether he changes the draft again or just 
makes a project note.

I have tried exporting from Bibledit to a nicely-formatted document. My editors 
have made changes directly and then I use the document-compare feature of 
Openoffice. And I have also tried having my editors turn of the 
changes-tracking feature. This causes a confusing mess for the editor to look 
at. Both ways, I am left with a draft containing complicated color patterns, 
and I have to manually compare that with what is on the Bibledit screen. It is 
all too easy to miss changes that the editor intended to make.

Or I can send them the USFM version.  (Footnotes get in the way, and they 
editor cannot directly make a formatted version for his checking team.) While 
editing, the editor will use the Openoffice changes-tracking feature, and I can 
OK changes one by one. After that, I can copy and paste that text, a chapter at 
a time, into Bibledit. But it is all too easy to have things disappear in this 
process. If I am not careful, I may not notice that a \p or a whole footnote 
was mistakenly marked to be deleted. (This is the method I am currently using.)

So I wonder if another program (which we might name for now the 
“VersionEditor”) could be created that would work with Bibledit for the various 
members of a translation team, and if Bibledit could be beefed up to include 
routines for comparing drafts created by those using the VersionEditor. The 
VersionEditor would contain a subset of Bibledit's editing powers. (Hopefully 
this could be variable. Some editors would have permission to add section 
headings, combine verses, or to add paragraph marks, others would just be able 
to change the content of these things.) Bibledit would need to have a routine 
to export single books for the VersionEditor. The VersionEditor would, like 
Bibledit, mark project notes with the author and date, and should be able to 
view project notes from other teams. (Project notes should be exported together 
somehow with the USFM text!) The VersionEditor should be able to export 
formatted copies which could be printed using Openoffice.

Perhaps the VersionEditor would just be Bibledit, except the computer 
administrator would turn certain editing powers on or off depending on whether 
the computer is being used by an editor, consultant, or project administrator.

[There is already a program called Our Word, by John Wimbish of the Seed 
Company. It is designed to be used by MTTs for translating from a front 
translation in a related language into their mother tongue. That program also 
has permissions for various editing tasks that can be turned on or off and some 
kind of version tracking system. It is possible that this program could be used 
with Bibledit in the way I suggested. But I am fairly certain it would not be 
able to make Bibledit project notes. ]

When the project/draft administrator receives a revised draft and chooses to 
integrate it into a project, I envision seeing his current draft (now having 
revisions made by editor A) and the revised draft by team B in two parallel 
panes. In the received-draft pane, he should be able to see the changes that 
were made by team B as compared to the draft that was originally received by 
that team. (So the VersionEditor should keep a copy of the original file that 
it received! Bibledit would then be able to compare that in a way similar to 
the way Openoffice shows deletions and insertions using different colors.) In 
the administrator's current draft pane he should be able to see how the current 
draft would change if he accepts the changes to the current verse as proposed 
in the other pane (unless the two versions have become too different). The 
administrator should be able to make changes by hand to either pane before he 
gives the command to merge the received-draft pane into the Current Draft pane, 
or whether he just gives the command to move on to the next verse or 
comparison. If he makes a change to the received-draft pane that differs from 
the current draft pane, the current draft pane should be updated to reflect 
this.

This is, of course, a huge "feature request." Given the new ways we will need 
to work toward 2025 goals, it is very likely that having a draft editing system 
would be useful in many parts of the world.

In Christ,
Phil




-- 
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One King to rule them all,
One Son to find them,
One Blood to cleanse them all,
And from the dark unbind them.




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