Our Technology

Mahadurot uses a new software tool stack for preparation of modular critical editions of medieval texts, as well as a novel method for building these editions online, which allow readers to easily make comparisons across manuscript versions and languages. This new technology simplifies the editorial process and expands the information conveyed by the critical edition while preserving its traditional form. This technology:

  • Provides a traditional reading experience with novel comparison components, allowing readers to read any manuscript version in any language alongside all other versions, with a relevant apparatus for each. Where there are commentaries (e.g., in marginalia), these too are placed alongside the relevant manuscript version. It allows the reader to move easily between text and apparatus with a single click and to view the apparatus entries of any particular sentence directly in context, by hovering the mouse over the sentence. Moreover, readers can open different versions of the same text in different browser tabs to compare texts side by side, and copy and paste them as simple text.

  • Makes clear what changes were made by the editor and ensures that editorial decisions do not eclipse the original manuscript versions, owing to the fact that all manuscript versions are preserved in full and can be read as complete texts.
  • Greatly simplifies and accelerates the editing process, allowing experienced scholars and PhD students to edit dozens of manuscripts quickly.
  • Improves the accuracy of the stemma by allowing the editor to construct it as a last step, after examining all manuscript data.

Tool Stack

The Mahadurot tool stack was inspired by the technical documentation methodologies employed in the software development industry. These rely on industry-standard tools that have been customized by developers to meet the specific needs of the project, alongside the formalization of work processes to enable collaboration across large teams. The tool stack includes:

  • Mahadurot Paragraph Editor (MPE), a web editing interface for tagging the variants of a text and marking those to be noted in the apparatus. MPE simplifies processes for the philologists, while producing an XML tagged file with stable metadata.

  • Automatic Apparatus Generator, a plug-in for the creation of a critical apparatus from the XML tagged files. While the critical apparatus appears to be automatically reconfigured when the reader navigates between variant views, in actual fact, the apparatus is built by the plug-in as a static XML file. The plug-in was developed for Madcap Flare by Improvementsoft.

  • Navigational enhancements (CSS and JavaScript) for the websites that allow for smoother navigation between linked elements, such as between the critical apparatus entries and the main text, and between the commentaries and the relevant sentences.

Editorial Process

Entering the manuscript readings to create this kind of edition is straightforward. One first types up a single manuscript. Next one compares it to another manuscript in the MPE, writing only the text that is different and then marking the text that is unique to each manuscript using MPE's tags. After following this procedure for all manuscripts, one then goes back and tags the readings that one wants for the edited version. Finally, one uses the Automatic Apparatus Generator to generate all of the apparatus for all versions and manuscripts with a single click. One can then use the data from the edition to draw up a stemma, and even rename the sigla at a single click should the need arise (e.g., one can identify manuscript "A" after the apparatus has been initially built).

Readers' Experience

The text is designed to appear in a readable format, similar to printed editions and intuitively simple to use:

The automatically reconfigured critical apparatus, which appears after the main text, is also of standard format:

For texts that appear with commentaries or different translations, two texts can be displayed simultaneously on the same screen with two apparatus operating simultaneously:

Readers can also open the text or different texts in different browser windows. The numbering of paragraphs and sentences allows easy comparison between versions and languages.

The Modular Critical Editions on the site have been prepared with MadCap Flare using the Critical Apparatus Plug-In developed by Mattias Sander, Improvementsoft, for this purpose.

Technology Consultant: Sara Halper

Logo design: Zippi Kastanovitch

Interested in making your own Modular Digitial Critical Edition? Contact the editor, Yehuda Halper.