Technical Documentation
The software implemented for the Ahiqar project is realized with several components, which are mainly the following:
- Website
- back end (all ETL processes / offering TextAPI, AnnotationAPI and SearchAPI)
- TIDO Viewer (a viewer meant to display digital editions - and everything else delivered via TextAPI) and
- Collation
This is the very fist implementation of the TextAPI - a generic API specification to deliver all kinds of texts and related material like images, serializations and annotations. A back end made with eXist-db is meant to provide the TextAPI. A client application within the browser, TIDO, interacts with the TextAPI to present all the data in a well-known order (e.g. synoptic view with image and a transcription converted to HTML).
Beforehand the data is prepared with TextGrid.
Git Repository
All the code used for this project is available at our GitLab: https://gitlab.gwdg.de/subugoe/ahiqar
GitLab CI
Everything is assembled, tested and deployed with the help of GitLab CI. Please see the .gitlab-ci.yaml files in all the repositories.
Editing TEI
For editing, storing and exporting the TEI documents the virtual research environment TextGrid is used. TextGrid offers all facilities to encode, validate, interlink, store and export the data.
Schema
Based on the ODD file a conversion to RNG is used for validating documents during the process of encoding utilizing oXygen XML editor as part of the TextGrid Laboratory. A complementary Schematron files ensures data quality.
Export Interfaces
Communicating with TextGrid's REST interfaces an XQuery client is available to transfer data to eXist-db. The process can be triggered from within the TextGrid Laboratory (requires the “SADE” plug-in) or from eXist-db (manually or programmatically).
eXist-db
The main component for the backend implementation is eXist-db offering a performant XQuery processor. ETL-processes are bound together in our backend application (git repo, Expath Package) as well as the instructions for the REST API created with RESTXQ.
Interfaces Available to End-Users
Most of the interfaces available to end-users are documented with OpenAPI: https://ahiqar.uni-goettingen.de/openapi/
In addition, particulary where a desciption is missing in the OpenAPI descriptor file, more extensive documentation can be found via the following URLs:
A restricted version of eXist-db's REST interface is available via https://ahiqar.uni-goettingen.de/rest/.
Website
This website, offering static content and the user interface to search only, is prepared with Vue.js and VuePress2.
Pages are written in Markdown.
TIDO Viewer
The front end counterpart to the TextAPI is the TIDO Viewer. It is embedded into the website to display the actual digital edition. TIDO Viewer's code is available at our GitLab: https://gitlab.gwdg.de/subugoe/emo/tido)
Collation
Using CollateX with a tokenized version of the manuscripts the output presented at Meta Edition > Collation is prepared.