Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Christopher V. Kimball" <transcriber AT tanach.us>]

Dear Karl,

Thanks for your observations about the Unicode/XML Westminster Leningrad 
Codex site at

http://www.tanach.us/Tanach.xml .

The site is based on a modern and standards-compliant approach, 
Javascript initiated XSL transformations to convert XML data into HTML 
displays. The new server-side processing is an example of the AJAX 
(Asychronous Javascript XML) approach that is common in commercial 
sites.  There's nothing "weird" in the HTML coding that I'm aware of.  
With the free, nearly-universal, standards-compliant browser, Firefox, 
the site operates correctly on Windows, Linux, and Mac systems.

As you know, the Safari browser is currently incapable of Javascript 
initiated XSL transformations.  (It can apparently do one-time 
transformations of the input XML  file to HTML.)

The rendering of Hebrew text in HTML is a completely different problem.  
It's a difficult, system-dependent problem that is beyond my control.  
Apparently (see Robert Holmstedt's mail of 15 Dec)  Mac OS allows font 
specification by language so that the default site font, SBL Hebrew, can 
be overridden if desired.

"Are you using complexity beyond what you need, and that is what is 
causing the problems?" is always a valid question.  Suggestions of 
alternative approaches having at least the same capabilites would be 
appreciated.


Chris Kimball
Redding, CT