[consulting] Seeking both advice and development help

[John Lowe]

Respondents,

Thanks for your many replies (so far).  Yes, a DMS might be more appropriate than a CMS -- though so far, I am still leaning toward the CMS approach, and towards Drupal, for a variety of tentatively held reasons.

I'll be replying in more detail, but let me give people a bit more information:

The site is for the Buddhist Literary Heritage Project, to develop a site creating and holding translations of buddhist texts:

http://www.khyentsefoundation.org/2009_05_buddhist_literary_heritage_project_launched_1.html

The  hundreds of thousands of "documents" will be (mostly) English translations of Tibetan texts.

Many details are still in flux, and the "spec" is still pretty raw, so I'm reluctant to post it publicly at the moment. But I am quite willing to share it with interested and qualified parties who agree to hold it with discretion.

I put the word "document" in scare quotes above because it is not completely clear what the object is that will result from the process of translation. One can imagine something quite simple: a pane with the original text, and a pane with the translation, perhaps with a Download button that would allow one to obtain a formatted rendering of the text.   On the other hand, one can imagine quite an elaborate toolset that includes components to aid with the translation process as well as the rendering of the texts -- indeed, we believe that will eventually be required.

I note, for example, that there is a Translation module for Drupal 7.  This seems like a step in the right direction, but as I read the scant documentation I think it is really only a start.

As an example of the more "elaborate toolset", allow me to point to an language archiving project that I have worked on for some time:

http://lacito.vjf.cnrs.fr/archivage/

(tooting my own horn: http://lacito.vjf.cnrs.fr/archivage/personnel.htm)

This site enables users to listen to field recordings of lesser known languages, and to get a morpheme-by-morpheme analysis (as well as translations in both English and French in many cases).

I should also note that many of the "original texts" seem to be in the form of scanned images (that is, not in Tibetan script in Unicode), and it is not clear if OCR or other conversion to text as part of the translation needs to be in the scope of the project.

Your continued thoughtful remarks are most welcome.

Cheers,

John


On Aug 8, 2010, at 5:09 PM, Eric Goldhagen wrote:

> At 8:01 PM -0400 8/8/10, Marty Landman wrote:
>> I'm wondering what type of documents are to be 'developed over
>> several years'. I'm assuming they are not going to be either typed
>> in, nor all of the same type - or you would've just said what kind they are?
>> 
>> Marty
> 
> Depending on the answer to Marty's question, drupal might or might 
> not be the right tool for you. While drupal is a great content 
> management system, and the upcoming changes in drupal 7 greatly 
> improves its handling of files, it might not be the right tool if you 
> are really looking for a document management system. There are a 
> number of mature Open Source/Free Software Document Management 
> Systems that you might also want to look at depending on the actual 
> requirements of your project. (some of the document management 
> systems can be integrated with drupal, so it's not a simple either/or 
> issue as well).
> 
> --Eric
> 
> -- 
> ---------------------------------------
> Openflows, Inc.
> a technology workers cooperative
> http://openflows.com
> ----------------------------
> _______________________________________________
> consulting mailing list
> consulting at drupal.org
> http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting