Template talk:Gloss4
If we're going to use templates for glosses (which is an excellent idea, thank you!) would it be difficult to arrange them so that the elements of the gloss line and the text line (or the morpheme-break line in Gloss4) were vertically aligned? I suppose it would require adding field separators to the text, so instead of requiring this maybe it could just be an option? (Like, if you add field separators the morphemes in the fields line up, but if you don't, the result is just like what we've currently got?) Or would implementing this be really inconvenient? Radius 10:54, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
- This would probably require a new template, which would have to be based on different HTML elements - table, div or dl.
- TABLES have the advantage that they line up nicely, but the disadvantage that they can't handle line breaks with long sentences in small browser windows.
- DIV elements can do almost anything layout-wise. Zhen Lin's grammars use DIV-based glosses that look really good (e.g. [1]). However, DIVs are not proper semantic XHTML, and they require thinking vertically (that is, morpheme - definition - morpheme - definition etc.) The latter issue might be possible to overcome with the right template structure, but I have no idea currently how to deal with long glosses that have n morphemes...
- I've once tried to implement a gloss layout similar to Zhen Lin's with DL definition lists, which are proper semantic code (see here: [2]). This is tedious in handwritten HTML, but it should be okay in a wiki context. It's my favourite option - I'll have a look into this.
- I'll also have a look whether there is a suitable template somewhere on Wikipedia. Cedh 11:28, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
The following would be an easy table-based example I found on WP. It should be possible to do variable-length glosses with it, but it won't be able to insert line breaks when the browser window is too small. (The example is Georgian, btw.) -- Cedh 12:34, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
čem-i mšobl-eb-i da-sxd-nen my-abs parent-pl-abs pfv-sit(pl)-3pl My parents sat down