Re: [edict-jmdict] Entry-wide notes

[Stuart McGraw <smcg6347@***********>]

Jim is the one to speak to the XML issues (although my guess is that a new tag like <e_inf> would be more appropriate than reusing <s_inf>) and other parts of JMdict/Edict/wwwdict tool chain.

Regarding the database itself, there is already a provision for entry-wide notes although it's in primitive form not having had much accessibility or use.  If you're logged in as an editor there is a box down near the bottom of the Edit or New Entry pages labeled "Entr note".  Notes entered there are shown (albeit not very attractively) on the regular Entry page.

I think it could be cleaned up for general use if there is consensus it would be useful and an XML representation is decided on.

As for your suggestion on entering it in the Meanings box, above the sense entries, I took a look at the parser and think it can be modified to accept something like [note="..."] (with brackets required) above the first sense.  Alternatively, we could continue to use a separate input box for it as now, just moved to a more convenient place on the page and present for all users, not just editors.  The original reason for creating the JEL language for editing entries was the large number of input boxes that would be needed on page if every sense/gloss/pos/misc-tag/lsrc-option, etc had its own input box.  But since there will only be one entry note input per entry, having a separate text input box for it doesn't present that problem.  It may be tho that aesthetically it would be nicer to have the entry note entered and parsed as part of the Meanings box input.

In summary, from a database and web page perspective I don't foresee a major problem to implement something like this.

-- Stuart


On 7/4/19 9:19 AM, Marcus Richert superbrightfuture@gmail.com [edict-jmdict] wrote:
> Would it be hard to implement entry-wide notes?
> 
> I think this has been brought up briefly before, but I wanted to give this issue its own topic. In entry 2573910 <https://www.edrdg..org/jmdictdb/cgi-bin/entr.py?svc=jmdict&sid=&q=2573910.1>, I've suggested adding a note saying the expressions とんでもありません and とんでもございません are considered incorrect and that a different form is preferred. This note is about the very construction itself (just like some of our partial ateji-notes) so therefore applies for all 3 senses, despite being inside of just the first one. Normally we don't duplicate these notes but instead hope it's obvious as to what the intended message is, but in many cases, like in this, I think there's an unfortunate amount of ambiguity left in there. I think there's plenty of entries where this holds true, esp. when the note is a comment on the reading or the kanji.
> 
> The xml code as I understand it is basically
> 
>     <entry>
>         <k_ele>
>             kanji stuff
>         </k_ele>
>         <r_ele>
>             reading stuff
>         </r_ele>
>         <sense>
>             <s_inf>contents of note</s_inf>
>             <gloss>contents of gloss</gloss>
>         </sense>
>     </entry>
> 
> Would it be so hard to allow for <s_inf> tags to also appear on the parent level without throwing a syntax error, i.e. inside of <entry> instead of just <gloss>? It wouldn't be hard to deal with from the editor side, if you could just do the note above the first sense in the "Meanings" box.
> 
> Best,
> Marcus