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== General == TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) is "a consortium which collectively developsand maintains a standard for the representation of texts in digital form,"to quote [http://www.tei-c.org/index.xml|their own website]. They have developed a series of guidelines forediting texts in a digital form. In their latest form (which is called P5), these guidelines weigh in at a hefty 1350 pages (OK, that's countingthe bibliography and the index too; there are only 1290 pages of realtext). These describe an xml format which is suitable for editingtexts. The TEI guidelines have the advantage of being very welldocumented. There are a number of free resources available that should helpeveryone who is interested in getting started (one extremely helpfulwebsite with lots of tutorials, examples, and tests is [http://tbe.kantl.be/TBE TEI by example]). They are not (and do not aspire to be) an absolute standardthat everyone has to follow, but many academic projects use theseguidelines, and they should be a pretty good way to make sure that yourelectronic edition of a text will be useful in the future.
Since editing texts is something which quite a few users of ConTeXt are involved in, it makes sense to think about ways in which xml documents which follow the TEI guideline can be typeset with ConTeXt. We would invite users to keep a few caveats in mind:
# The TEI guidelines are very detailed because they try to cater to a large number of needs. Most users will only need a small subset of the tags and attributes which the guidelines offer(in fact, TEI is aware of this and have a slimmed down version of their guidelines which is called [http://www.tei-c.org/Guidelines/Customization/Lite TEI Lite]. This is a very good starting place to familiarize yourself with TEI). It would not make sense to try and provide a monolithic solution that defines all TEI tags; instead, localized ConTeXt style sheets are necessary which will define a subset which is relevant for a number of texts with similar features.
# Even with this huge number of tags, TEI does not expect to be sufficient for every text. Users are encouraged to develop their own styles; again, this necessitates special ConTeXt style sheets to process such adaptations.
# Encoding and typesetting texts in xml is an ongoing process. As you go forward in your edition, you realize that you need more tags, that you need to distinguish more special cases, that you want to add more information to your edition. This means that you will have to go back and forth between your xml file and the ConTeXt style and adapt both to your needs.
All of which means that the following paragraphs are just the first step in an ongoing attempt. I (Thomas) have written down a setup for a text that I am editing (for those who are interested: [http://www.livius.org/phi-php/philostratus/philostratus.htm#VS the ''Lives of the Sophists '' by Philostratus]). I fully expect this to be a community effort: as others use TEI xml, they will discover new ways of handling things, will want to add features or add examples for other sorts of texts. My example is meant to start the discussion. Since those who edit texts usually have a background in the humanities, not in programming, I have added lengthy comments which will explain every step. == Our xml file == Philostratus's text is in ancient Greek, but since the text itself doesn't matter much when we talk about structure and typesetting xml, I have replaced it here with a simple lorem ipsum text that is easier to display. So here's what the first paragraphs of the xml file look like:
--[[User:Thomas|Thomas]] 0809:3303, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
