Instructions for using the DigEd Systemk

To use the DigEd System:

Included in this textbook is a zip file called "DigitalEdition" for downloading . It is structured the way that a digital edition folder should be structured in order for the included code to work when your digital edition is online.

Once you have downlaoded and decompressed the zip file, you can open the DigitalEditions folder. Inside it, there are folders and one "index.html" page:

folders inside the digital editions folder

a css folder containing the files that style your digital edition
an HTML folder containing the web pages generated from the TEI documents
images
the index.html page which is the landing page for your site, called the "splash page"
a folder for people lists / biography pages
plain text files generated from your TEI documents
an XML folder containing the TEI masters for each object in your digital edition
an xslt folder containing the XSLT transforms to create HTML and text from your TEI documents

In order for the css and xslt files to work, and for the images to appear in your digital edition, the folders that you create for your own digital edition(s) must be laid out in just this way. Because the tutorials use the DigitalEdition folder, I suggest downloading the Digital Edition folder and copying it, then giving the second folder the name of your digital edition (no spaces in names!). In your own digital edition folder, delete all the documents in each folder EXCEPT the css and the xslt folders. The index.html file in the main folder is a "splash page," and you will want to create your owns (more about that later). When creating your own TEI files and saving them in the XML folder, remember that the key to making your digital edition work is following the instructions for TEI encoding created for this system.

After you have set up this file structure, and after you have placed your properly coded TEI documents into the XML folder, you can run the transform that creates web pages from your TEI/XML:

Open your TEI/XML document, here "Barbauld1804CX.xml," and select the little wrench, in the red circle below:

A "Configure Transformation Scenario" box will appear, and you wish to select a "New" transformation. Once you have set up this scenario, you will be able to run it on multiple documents without having to reconfigure it every time.

Select "XML transformation with XSLT," and a "New Scenario" dialogue box will appear.

Give the transformation scenario any name you wish (here, I have named mine "DigEdWeb"), but it can be any name that you will remember (it will show up as a transformation option for future documents). Next, select the little folder icon next to the bar called "XSL URL," directly under the "XML URL" selection bar which has been automatically configured to run the TEI document that you are in now:

When the folder opens, navigate to the xslt subfolder of the main folder, DigitalEdition, and select the xslt file called "forWeb.xsl", as below:

Once the xsl file has been highlighted by your mouse, click "open" in the lower right-hand corner.

After you have entered the xsl path into your transformation scenario, you should automatically return to the "Edit Scenario" screen, as below. (If not, click on the little wrench again, select the new transformation scenario that you have named, and then click "edit.") Now it is time to select the parameters that describe how your page has been encoded and how it should be displayed.

Parameters (described further in the TEI coding rules)

To edit a parameter, you would highlight the name of the parameter to be changed and then click on "edit" which turns blue once a parameter has been selected.

There are three baseURL parameters:
1. One is the basic, relative path to images such as the illustrations for your edition which should be placed in the "images" folder.
2. The second is the relative path to the "people.html" page -- here, it will be in the same folder as all the other html pages.
3. The third, "basicURLpgFacs," contains the relative path to your pageimages (@facs on the pb tag) which should a) be numbered sequentially; b) placed in the images folder of your digital edition.

The last three parameters are either "yes" or "no": you can decide whether you want page numbers centered, indicate whether you have manually coded pages using the "fw" [formework] tag in your TEI, and decide whether you want lines of poetry automatically numbered.

Now you are ready to run your file: the ouput html file will be placed in the existing HTML folder (or an HTML folder will be generated). The output of this transformation will have the same file name as the TEI document but ending in .html rather than in .xml, as the TEI file does.

After naming your scenario, selecting an XSLT, and editing the parameters, you should be back at the screen below. If not, click on the wrench and select your scenario's name, as here:

If you are not quite ready to run your scenario, click on the "save and close" button, at the bottom left of the image above; if you wish to run it, click on "apply associated" on the bottom right of the image above.

In either case, from now on when you wish to transform this particular document, you can click on the little red "run" button next to the wrench. Other documents can be associated with that scenario by clicking on the wrench, selecting the scenario's name, and then, again, click on "Save and close" or "Apply associated."

Summary and suggestions

Theoretically, after running your own TEI documents through the toWeb transform (provided here), and if those documents were properly placed in the XML subfolder of your digital edition, you should have good looking html pages with no broken links or missing images. That's theoretical: in practice, adjustments may need to be made. The rest of this textbook teaches you the principles behind the TEI, HTML, CSS, and XSLT that are all in play in a scholarly digital edition. Ideally, with this knowledge you can make tweaks to get the visual representation of your digital edition you want.