Getting Started

TEI: a very high-level overview

• TEI: a set of guidelines, but also a community. 4p
• Why you would want to use TEI; explain the term 'encoding'; XML; what encoding entails; using an editor; validation; what you can then do with your document (transform it into other representations, have it searched; create selections). Possibilities for interchange and interoperability. 10p.

What this document does, and what it doesn't

• One paragraph explaining that this getting started document is more elaborate than many other documents with a similar name: that is because learning TEI is similar in effort and in reward to things like learning a new language or mastering a musical instrument: 1p
• Helps you get started, recognising that learning TEI is never going to be easy: 1p
• It is not: a full course in using xml, in tei, in xslt, in html: 1p
• Structure of the document. 2p
• Intended readership: 1p
• The reader is expected to have basic computer skills: create disk folders, move files, run programs, install programs, use unzip software. Not explain these, but just state you need the skills and suggest a way to acquire them. 2p.

Conventions used in this document

• How we label examples, program names, elements and attributes. 1p
• How this document serves users on different platforms. 1p

Should you use TEI?

• Discuss nature of material, desired result, competence of encoder, available technical support, intellectual and practical benefits, effort to be expected, place of TEI in humanities computing: 12p

Technical background

• XML: explain a few basics, then refer to gentle XML introduction: 5p
• The web, web servers, html, browsers. One very simple HTML example, then point to other resources: 5p
• Even gentler intro into creating html from xml using xslt (mention but not discuss: pdf creation and other output formats): 5 p's

Overall structure of a TEI text

• Introduce sample document (without header), explain elements and attributes. 8p
• Add header. 5p

The rationale of declarative markup

• contrast declarative markup with wysiwyg editing: less susceptible to change, easily re-used in other contexts, unambiguous. 6p
• abstract approach towards texts that befits the scholar as it helps understand textual phenomena: 3p
• explain this again based on sample of drama markup. 4p

Choosing and installing an editor

• Point out that XML is application independent. This implies you can select an editor suited to the task at hand. You don't select an editor for the document's lifetime. 2p
• Discuss functions that an editor can handle: syntax highlighting, assisted entry, content completion, validation (dtd, w3c schema, relax ng), validation as you type, run xslt conversions, xslt debugging. Discuss source views: code view, wysiwyg view, tree view. Discussion illustrated with screen shots from multiple applications. 10 p
• Discuss a number of editors: .... Mention, but discourage from, option of using plain text editor. 10 p

Load, modify, validate a complete ready-made document

• This will be a document that we provide, together with a schema. Instructions for download. 2p
• Show number of functions of editor: 18 p (because of multiple editors)
  • different source views (maybe refer to oXygen video to explain editing in oXygen's author mode)
  • different side views: model, outline, attributes
  • find and replace
  • etc...

Running stylesheets

• Explain what XSLT is and what it does. 2p
• Installing XSLT processor, if not included in editor. 3p
• Discuss a simple stylesheet to transform the sample document, and based on this a number of xslt instructions. 10p
• Run the stylesheet and view the output. 2p
• Do some simple modifications. 2p
• Explain standard stylesheets. Download them. 4p
• Customise standard stylesheets: first using Stylebear, then by actually overriding some templates. 5p
• Running standard stylesheets. 1p

Getting this to work on sample of own text

• Preparing text in XML vs. converting prepared text to XML: argue it is better to use structured text from scratch. 3p
• Create an empty TEI document, using a template that we point to. 2p
• Fill in the blanks in the header. 2p
• Create a document snippet in the body. Validate. Generate HTML. 6p
• Urge reader to put up both HTML and XML on web site: is motivating, helps discussion with others, .... 3p

Schema's

• Explain the need for schema's that fit the texts. A few words about TEI conformance and TEI extensions. 4p
• Explain modules, classes, macro's. 6p
• Introducing ODD and Roma. Reference to 'Getting started with P5 ODD's. 6p
• Setting up ODD, (de)selecting elements and attributes. 3p
• Extension: creating a new element. Example: including tune indication for song. 3p
• Add documentation, save customisation, create new schema and use it for validation. 5p

Where to go from here

• What you probably need to do now: do document analysis, enter data, and create or modify a stylesheet that helps you display the data. 2p
• Document analysis: study the appropriate portions of the Guidelines, perhaps sets of local TEI guidelines developed elsewhere, discuss this with others, get help. Urge asking for feedback. 3p
• Enter data: if you have your texts in another format, it may help to learn some regular expressions: reference elsewhere. 2p
• Create or modify stylesheet: serious work on xslt stylesheets is not for everyone. 2p
• Places to look for tuition. 2p

Glossary

ODD 

One Document Does it all: document describing a TEI schema. See ...

HTML 

HyperText Markup Language, the language used to write web pages.

etc...

Literature

• References to other introductory material