Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

My dictionary project started out merely as notes in the margines of my 
printed dictionaries. Now it is a word processor file that is coded according 
to Online Bible, which is an ASCII file.

I use copy and paste and the search function built into the word processor. 
It’s fun to be able to look up words in a fraction of the time needed for 
paper dictionaries. I have also listed according to roots and synonyms, which 
I find helpful. (I don’t know how Online Bible did it, but they managed to 
get Tanakh to write right to left without hard returns except at the end of 
verses, and it looks decent on Macintosh.)

When it is time to translate it to unicode, it would be fairly simple to 
write a translation program to switch it from -> to <- and to the unicode 
encoding. So I have no problem continuing development on the dictionary.

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: Lance Petersen <petersenlance AT yahoo.com>

> I'm not a scholar, and usually I'm a lurker here. But, I've been working on 
> a personal project for the last few years (meant for my eyes only) that 
> will be affected drastically by the changes that were being discussed. I 
> bought an electronic library from a company that is now defunct, but the 
> software was relatively good. I've put the unpointed BHS text in there and 
> it's now searchable. I've also linked quite a few of the words to a digital 
> dictionary. If I'm reading the Hebrew text and I come across a word I'm not 
> familiar with, in less time than it takes to reach over and touch my BDB, I 
> can have the definition in front of me. In less time than it takes to 
> actually look the word up in my "hardcopy" BDB, I can click on a button 
> I've setup and hear the Hebrew passage spoken. I can click on another 
> button and hear the passage sung\chanted. (I'm learnin' what all those 
> other funny little marks are in my Chumash.) I've linked a few place names 
> with maps. I can do anything I ca
 n 
>  imagine
>  within the software's limitations. This is all available to me from inside 
> the document. None of these things are possible with paper documents. (My 
> BDB is *So* two weeks ago!) This helps make for what I would call effective 
> study. We just need to learn to use the tools presented to us. I'm not 
> lashing out at Mr Rea here. If I sound angry you'll find out why in the 
> next paragraph.
>  
> One of the limitations of the software is fatal. It uses ASCII text and 
> left to right reading order. Every line in the Hebrew text has a carriage 
> return that I've put in. If I change screen resolution or simply change the 
> window size, the text suddenly looks like something found in a diaper. I'm 
> limited to a single font, and nobody can view it without that font. (Yeah, 
> I know, I'm the only one that was supposed to see it.) I could go on 
> forever. These were all things Peter Kirk brought up in his side of the 
> discussion. I am all for Peter and his buddies creating fixes for these 
> kinds of problems. I'm also all for people letting the developers know what 
> their needs and objections are. The Unicoders (for lack of a better term) 
> and other developers are far more apt to listen to some members of this 
> list because of their credentials than they are to someone like me. That's 
> why I thought the discussion was vital. Let those problems get hammered out 
> now. That way, I , or someone 
 li
>  ke me,
>  won't see years worth of work on a pet project go up in flames because of 
> a software oversight.
>  
> Lance Petersen
>  
>
-- 
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