New Web Application
Technical Information
The web application for e-codices was rebuilt from the ground up and the new site was first made publicly available on the web in November 2008. All technologies used in this application are open source software:
- PHP — "a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development" (php.net)
- CodeIgniter — "a powerful PHP framework with a very small footprint, built for PHP coders who need a simple and elegant toolkit to create full-featured web applications" (codeigniter.com)
- MySQL — "The world's most popular open source database" (mysql.com)
- XML — "Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a simple, very flexible text format derived from SGML (ISO 8879). Originally designed to meet the challenges of large-scale electronic publishing, XML is also playing an increasingly important role in the exchange of a wide variety of data on the Web and elsewhere." (W3C)
- XSLT — "a language for transforming XML documents into other XML documents" (W3C)
- Lucene — "a high-performance, full-featured text search engine library" (apache.org)
- Solr — "an open source enterprise search server based on the Lucene Java search library" (apache.org)
Requirements for Optimal Performance
For optimal performance and best possible conditions for viewing the e-codices virtual library, JavaScript should not be deactivated (JavaScript is generally activated in the default settings of internet browsers). We also recommend the use of an up to date browser. These include Mozilla Firefox, Safari (pre-installed on Mac Computers), Opera or Internet Explorer Version 7 or later.
Features
- Multi-language Access: the e-codices Virtual Manuscript Library is accessible in German, English, French, and Italian. Scholarly descriptions are, however, presented only in the languages in which they were originally written.
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Page Referencing / Search Engine Friendly URLs:
each manuscript and each individual page in a manuscript can be specifically referenced and linked to using a simple URL.
The URL is composed of domain, language (shortened as "de" for German, "en" for English, "fr" for French, "it" for Italian),
library code, signature (simplified), and page number. So, for example, the complete URL for the first page of Dante's
Divina Commedia (Cod. Bodmer 56) is as follows:
www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/cb/0056/1r. - Selection by Library / Collection: users can choose to display an index list of all digitized manuscripts, or only those included in a particular library or collection.
- Browsing by Various Criteria:
- Shelfmark
- Date of origin
- Place of origin
- Online since: the most recently digitized manuscripts are listed first in this view
- Access by Author:
e-codices follows the most recent specifications published by the German cataloging organization RAK Regelwerk, as stated in
the electronic edition of 2007, "Regeln für die Alphabetische Katalogisierung in wissenschaftlichen Bibliotheken RAK-WB, 2.
überarbeitete Auflage einschliesslich der 4. Ergänzungslieferung von 2002 mit zusätzlichen Aktualisierungen",
Frankfurt a. M. 2007 (cf. http://www.allegro-c.de/regeln/rwb.htm).
According to RAK rules, each author name is listed by the official standard form as well as by many name variants, so that translated and Latinized versions of the name, for example, can be found. Using this standard, the name variants Avicenne, Abitianus, Ibn-Sina, Abu-Ali al-Husain Ibn-Abdallah etc. all lead to Avicenna.
If the user clicks on an author name, all works by that author are displayed with title, incipit and explicit – where available – as well as a direct link to the beginning and ending of each text. - Manuscript Descriptions: together with each manuscript, the most up to date scholarly description can be viewed in HTML format, as an XML (TEI-P5) encoded file, and where available as a PDF.
- Facsimile: all pages of every manuscript, including empty pages and binding, can be viewed at four different resolutions. The highest resolution view actually presents a perspective that is larger than the original manuscript page. (For additional information on resolution and imaging techniques see Image Master Files).
- Rotate Page: all manuscript page images can be rotated by 90, 180 or 270 degrees.
- Send Page: a built-in e-mail form with message box enables users to either send the link to a page image in an e-mail message, or to send the entire page image as an e-mail attachment to any e-mail address.
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Variable Views: in addition to the standard single-page image view there are two multiple-page views:
2x1 and 3x4.
In the 2x1 view two consecutive pages can be viewed together, and the page-turner can be used to advance either one or two
pages at a time. This view is the virtual equivalent of the "real" manuscript, so to speak.
The 3x4 view shows smaller "thumbnail" images of the manuscript pages. Twelve pages are displayed at one time, allowing the user to "page" through the manuscript quickly for a broad overview. - Cooliris Support: Cooliris (formerly "PicLens") is a browser add-on, available for Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari. Users who install this add-on in their browsers will be able to view all the digital page images of one manuscript as posters on a three dimensional wall, which provides even faster "paging" through the manuscript than in the 3x4 view.
- Keyboard Controls: in the various facsimile views the keyboard can be used to "page" through the manuscripts. The left arrow moves one page back, the right arrow moves one page forward. In addition, in the 1x1 (Single Page) view, the up arrow can be used to select the next higher resolution and the down arrow to select the next lower resolution.
- Search: the scholarly manuscript descriptions can be searched either using Full Text or using specific access points (Author, Manuscript title, Text title, Place of origin, Incipit, Explicit, and Decoration). Search results include description text snippets that contain the search term and, depending on the search, either a link to the beginning of the appropriate manuscript or a direct link to the desired location in the text (Incipit or Text title, for example). Results for search by Decoration also include sample page images. The Search function currently supports the following commands and operators:
- * (Wildcard): a search for Gall* will find St. Gallen and Gallus. Wildcards can only be used a the end of a search term. Search terms are currently not highlighted in the text snippets of the search result when a wildcard is used.
- Quotation marks: quotation marks can be used to find entire sentences or groups of search terms in a particular order (exact phrase queries). If multiple search terms are entered without quotation marks, an either-or search is conducted. This means that Freiburger Perikopen will produce many more results than "Freiburger Perikopen".
- Logical Operators: the words AND, OR and NOT can be used as logical operators. For example: Stricker NOT Kleindichtung
- ~ (Fuzzy search, search for similar words): using the ~ (Tilde), all words similar to the search term will also be returned. This means a search for Stricker~ will also find Strickler, Strecker and Strichen.
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