Comments on: Marking Up Names: Part 3 http://www.investigations.4-lom.com/2008/01/23/marking-up-names-part-3/ Failing better at understanding the past Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:32:34 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: Gavin Robinson http://www.investigations.4-lom.com/2008/01/23/marking-up-names-part-3/#comment-13810 Gavin Robinson Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:52:42 +0000 http://www.investigations.4-lom.com/2008/01/23/marking-up-names-part-3/#comment-13810 I've uploaded a new version with chapter titles. It doesn't seem to be any slower than the old version. Introducing extra items for references and chapters (and being merciless with white space!) actually allowed me to save a lot of space in the data file - it's now only 75K. If I add text snippets now it won't add any more records to the database and probably won't take the file above 150K. Now I just have to work out how to do it... I’ve uploaded a new version with chapter titles. It doesn’t seem to be any slower than the old version. Introducing extra items for references and chapters (and being merciless with white space!) actually allowed me to save a lot of space in the data file - it’s now only 75K. If I add text snippets now it won’t add any more records to the database and probably won’t take the file above 150K. Now I just have to work out how to do it…

]]> By: Gavin Robinson http://www.investigations.4-lom.com/2008/01/23/marking-up-names-part-3/#comment-13809 Gavin Robinson Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:45:00 +0000 http://www.investigations.4-lom.com/2008/01/23/marking-up-names-part-3/#comment-13809 Right now I'm working on changing the links from the index to each occurrence so that the text is the chapter title instead of the URL of the occurrence, but that's not ideal as some names occur more than once per chapter. You're right that context would be better. Either way there might be a performance hit because of Exhibit's data model. Their implementation of JSON doesn't allow the nesting of objects within objects or arrays within arrays, so to match the occurrence URL to the chapter title or text snippet means keeping each pair of values as a separate record in the database. That's going to push the number of items from 350 to over 1,000 which might slow things down too much (although at this point I'm not sure exactly what the trade-off between number of items and size of items is). Ideally I'd like to include chapter titles anyway so that the index can be filtered by chapter. I'll be experimenting with it tomorrow so I'll see how it goes. Right now I’m working on changing the links from the index to each occurrence so that the text is the chapter title instead of the URL of the occurrence, but that’s not ideal as some names occur more than once per chapter. You’re right that context would be better. Either way there might be a performance hit because of Exhibit’s data model. Their implementation of JSON doesn’t allow the nesting of objects within objects or arrays within arrays, so to match the occurrence URL to the chapter title or text snippet means keeping each pair of values as a separate record in the database. That’s going to push the number of items from 350 to over 1,000 which might slow things down too much (although at this point I’m not sure exactly what the trade-off between number of items and size of items is). Ideally I’d like to include chapter titles anyway so that the index can be filtered by chapter. I’ll be experimenting with it tomorrow so I’ll see how it goes.

]]> By: Ben Brumfield http://www.investigations.4-lom.com/2008/01/23/marking-up-names-part-3/#comment-13808 Ben Brumfield Wed, 23 Jan 2008 16:12:07 +0000 http://www.investigations.4-lom.com/2008/01/23/marking-up-names-part-3/#comment-13808 It looks really good! I especially like the full name expansion in the tooltip when you hover over a name in the text. The one thing I wish you could change is the presentation of the name's occurences in the index. This is something I'm thinking about for my system as well: what's most effective to present? Since my links happen once per page, I'm just using the page title for reference. But there are alternatives: you could present the umpteen characters on either side of the name as a context, to help the reader get to the event they're interested in. It looks really good! I especially like the full name expansion in the tooltip when you hover over a name in the text.

The one thing I wish you could change is the presentation of the name’s occurences in the index. This is something I’m thinking about for my system as well: what’s most effective to present? Since my links happen once per page, I’m just using the page title for reference. But there are alternatives: you could present the umpteen characters on either side of the name as a context, to help the reader get to the event they’re interested in.

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