New version of Manuscript Comparator with multi-comparison

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Weston Ruter

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Feb 6, 2009, 1:03:13 PM2/6/09
to Open Scriptures, LaVonne Ruter
I am very pleased to announce a new version of the Manuscript
Comparator which features the ability to compare more than two
manuscripts at once: http://openscriptures.org/prototypes/manuscript-comparator/

(It takes a few seconds to initially serve requests, but once a
specific request has been processed it is then cached so that it can
be served immediately for the same request in the future.)

There are now six manuscripts in the system:

1. MorphGNT with UBS4
2. Westcott/Hort
3. Nestle-Aland 27th/UBS4
4. Tischendorf 8th ed. v2.5 (Qere)
5. Byzantine/Majority Text (2000)
6. Textus Receptus (1551)

As the Introduction on the page explains:

"Select the manuscripts for comparison and place them in either the
(first) preferred list or the (second) deprecated list; each list must
contain at least one manuscript. In the output, unique content from
preferred manuscripts will appear as insertions, whereas unique
content from deprecated manuscripts will appear as deletions. Where
the (combined) manuscripts from either the preferred list or the
deprecated list don't agree among themselves themselves, the words
will appear in bold regardless of whether they also occur in the other
list. Upon hovering over these bold words, their attesting manuscripts
will be highlighted. In the parallel view, hovering over words
attested to by both preferred and deprecated manuscripts will result
in the equivalent words on either side being highlighted.

"You may also reorder the manuscripts in the two lists to indicate
precedence, so that where manuscripts agree, the equivalent content
from the manuscript with a higher precedence will be displayed instead
of content from a manuscript with lower precedence. This matters
because manuscripts have differences in casing, diacritics, and
punctuation. Likewise, the reference system of the manuscript with
higher precedence will be displayed.

"By hovering over a word, all of the available morphosyntactic
information will be displayed in a raw format. In an upcoming edition,
this information will be presented in a better interface."

Much of the credit for the new form interface goes to my wife who
inspired the fundamental design. I don't recall ever having come
across any UI that intuitively displays a comparison of more than two
texts at a time. I think we've come up with a good interface.

Be sure to try both the Parallel and Unified views. The Unified view
will serve as foundation for the manuscript-side of the tool which
will allow us to link the semantic units between manuscripts and
translations.

Nathan Watkins

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Feb 6, 2009, 4:47:15 PM2/6/09
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Davin Studer

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Feb 6, 2009, 5:30:37 PM2/6/09
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I agree ... you are looking good Weston.  Oh wait, you mean the program ... yeah that too.

Weston Ruter

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Feb 7, 2009, 4:58:48 PM2/7/09
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I just blogged about this released, describing how the application
works and what's next (Translation Comparator). I also wrote the
following regarding an "Open Scriptures Platform":

>> The applications possible with this data are really exciting. Open Scriptures aims not only to be a “comprehensive open-source Web repository for integrated scriptural data,” but also “a general application framework for building internationalized social applications of scripture” which present data “in a translation-neutral and internationalized manner so as to be accessible to the community no matter what language they speak or version they prefer.” Inspiration for this framework comes from the Facebook Platform which provides an API enabling web developers to create applications powered by Facebook’s social network data. What if we had a similar platform and framework which enabled web developers to easily build applications which are powered by interlinked scriptural data? What if these applications were hosted on the Cloud as with Google App Engine? These ideas about a scriptural web application platform have really been exciting me, but they haven’t started cooking yet. The ingredients are only just now being gathered… please join me!

http://weston.ruter.net/2009/02/07/manuscript-comparator-and-open-scriptures-platform/

Weston Ruter

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Feb 16, 2009, 10:53:09 PM2/16/09
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Just a quick note: I just added the 1894 edition of the Textus
Receptus by F. H. A. Scrivener. There are now 7 manuscript editions
that may be compared. I've been working on improving the database
reference system, including the addition of OSIS identifiers in the
ref table. I may shortly add 2 John and 3 John to the tool, and add
the ability to select a single passage instead of displaying the
entire book at once. The next milestone is the tool which will allow
us to link the semantic units in translations to their corresponding
semantic units in the unified manuscript (the merge of all MSS in the
system so it contains all variants attested).

http://openscriptures.org/prototypes/manuscript-comparator/

On Feb 6, 10:03 am, Weston Ruter <WestonRu...@gmail.com> wrote:

ca...@nielsen.uk.net

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Mar 24, 2020, 11:17:38 AM3/24/20
to Open Scriptures
I have been using this wonderful tool for many months. Thank you! However it appears to be no longer available. Can you help? Ta!
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