alternative to highlight ideas

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

I believe it was Keynote. It was also a really older version where the files saved in an older “package” format where moving the file between computers could cause some of the data not to transfer correctly.

 

I haven’t had that problem in a while now that Apple has changed to the newer formats.

 

I do recommend Time Machine backups (I do it with everything) “just in case”. You can never have too many backups. 🙂 

[Sam Freney]

21 hours ago, Kristin said:

 

Do you know which language it was which likely caused the corruption?

 

Most likely Hebrew.

[Kristin]

Hi @Sam Freney,

Ok, that is concerning. Thanks for letting me know though.

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

By the way, concerning user files (such as notes and highlights), we are looking into how we can improve the overall experience. They aren’t simply sitting on a list of requests and not getting addressed. Before we jump into major changes to such files, we first need to evaluate various technical options available to determine what is going to provide ideal performance and reliability, compatibility with seamlessly bringing over existing data into any new formats, etc. This takes time and planning (similar to how we’re also looking into the ideal options for adding new features to our mobile apps). Before we make changes to user file formats, I’d like to first see us rollout additional import/export options on user files, as getting data smoothly in and out of Accordance would to me seem to be a main feature to add, then we can gradually make enhancements to user file formats as we determine what specific technical enhancements we need to make.

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

@Kristin If you have any highlight or user note files that are corrupted, create a ZIP of them and email them to me at nparker[at]accordancebible[dot]com (replace bracketed text with punctuation). We’d like to take a look at the files and try to determine what caused the corruption so we’ll better know how to address changes in the file formats. 

[Kristin]

Hi @Nathan Parker,

I had already done this awhile ago sending it to Silas. Could you check if Silas has them? I could send them again, but it would really just be forwarding what I had already sent.

 

Thanks,

Kristin

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

Silas may have them, but he’s pretty knee-deep in wrapping up the bug reports that came in with 14.0.5 and prepping for 14.1. I’d like to take a look at them and see what I can figure out, plus we have another programmer and consultant I can show these to.

[Kristin]

Hi @Nathan Parker,

Ok, thanks for clarifying. I am short on time at the moment to go track it down, but I should have time before the end of the day. When I find the email I will forward it to you at the email you mentioned.

 

Take care,

Kristin

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

No worries. Take all the time you need. No rush at all. I have nothing but time to look into this for you.

[jlm]

On 5/14/2023 at 11:54 PM, Nathan Parker said:

By the way, concerning user files (such as notes and highlights), we are looking into how we can improve the overall experience. They aren’t simply sitting on a list of requests and not getting addressed. Before we jump into major changes to such files, we first need to evaluate various technical options available to determine what is going to provide ideal performance and reliability, compatibility with seamlessly bringing over existing data into any new formats, etc. This takes time and planning (similar to how we’re also looking into the ideal options for adding new features to our mobile apps). Before we make changes to user file formats, I’d like to first see us rollout additional import/export options on user files, as getting data smoothly in and out of Accordance would to me seem to be a main feature to add, then we can gradually make enhancements to user file formats as we determine what specific technical enhancements we need to make.

This may be out of left field, but one possible option for importing and exporting is to go through pandoc. It has mature and well maintained support for reading and writing dozens of formats, including HTML, .docx, and ePub. Internally, it represents documents as an abstract syntax tree (AST) made up of headings, footnotes, emphasized or strong text, footnotes, tables, etc. The AST is semantic rather than formatting based, so it doesn’t represent things like font sizes and margins, but elements can have classes like in HTML.

 

It is possible to implement readers and writers for custom formats in Lua. So to have a solid HTML/MS Word/… to User Tool import capability, for example, all you have to do is write Lua code to create a binary Accordance User Tool from a pandoc AST. You don’t have to worry about writing parsers for all those formats. Similarly, to convert Accordance User Notes to HTML, MS Word, …, you just write Lua code that reads the binary User Notes file and builds a pandoc AST in memory. Then you bundle pandoc and the Lua readers and/or writers with Accordance, and invoke pandoc from the Accordance GUI.

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

Sounds good. If you want to make a post under “feature requests” about this and explain the technology in some detail, I’ll file it under our “feature requests” document and link to it. Sounds interesting to me!

[Kristin]

I need to respond to this again, since last night was the last straw with the highlights. Since before the corruption my method worked perfectly, and I memorized my own personal notations which express different tenses, if I had addressed a word, if a word needed further research, etc, etc.  I tried to muddle through, as even though the highlights were messed up, it had been better than nothing at all. However, it has gotten to the point that they are truly completely unusable since the highlight corruption highlights words I have NEVER highlighted. 

 

For example, in the attached screenshot in Ps 147:18, it sure looks like I had made a change to the verb "sends out" but I had NEVER put a highlight there and had not addressed these words. Likewise, in v. 14 "and how" and "the" looks crossed out, but you guessed it, I had never addressed these words creating a false impression that I had addressed a word when I have not. It really grieves me to literally turn it to a new blank file and never use the highlights, since I have literally spent years working on this, but it is what it is.  

 

My fundamental need is simply marking if a word had been looked at and addressed yet. Being able to distinguish grammatical points as my highlights had done would be a bonus, but my raw need is just knowing if a word is addressed or not, and for it to not look like I addressed something when I had not. I appreciated the phrasing idea @Sam Freney mentioned, but that unfortunately doesn't work since I am addressing every word. I think the idea @Sam Freney and @darrylmy both had of making markings somewhere else is the best idea. Maybe somehow put the ENTIRE bible in Numbers and then use my color highlights there to mark it?? Would that make Numbers crash? Or maybe a better idea is the text in Text Edit, and then coloring words when I address them? I think Mac Text Edit is safer, but it also sounds chaotic.  Any thoughts about Numbers or Text Edit?

On a different note, I would like to offer a few ideas in case anyone in Tech Support is interested:

1) My recollection is that I had no highlights at all prior to Acc v.13. So whatever bug it is seems to have been introduced during the radical highlight change.

2) Someone on the forums had mentioned that the highlight issues might be connected to being over superscripts and subscripts. That might be, but notice most of the corruption on my screenshots are not connected to either of those.

3) Someone had mentioned in a post about Note corruption that issues can happen if the notes are about more than one text. For example, the ESV and Church Fathers. With that in mind, maybe it is similar with the highlights? My highlights are in the Hebrew and ESV below, and those are two different texts? So that is just a thought. Even without using other languages, the ESV and NIV, for example. I know most people highlight more than one text, but there have been a lot of highlight corruption reports, I am for sure not the only one.

Kristin

 

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

Question: Are you doing everything in one highlight file, or are you doing your work in more than one highlight file?

 

We haven't heard of customers doing quite the extensive highlighting you're doing for your work. 

 

I wonder if the file size is getting to some "large point." There's not any hardcore "limit" on how big the highlight files can get, but at the same time, I've noticed anytime I've worked with too large of files, things can happen. I've even had that happen in iWork files. 

[Kristin]

Hi @Nathan Parker,

No, this didn't just happen on repeated occasions, but also with numerous highlight files. When the corruption first happened a few years ago, tech support told me it had been the size of the file. I had expressed at the time that if there is a size which is risking corruption, that Accordance needs a warning box that a file (note file or highlight), is reaching a certain size so that people know.

 

In any case, so I started another highlight file, and it also got corrupted, despite being smaller, and then another, and you guessed it, it also got corrupted. I then made a radical change to have highlights in the OT and NT to be two different files to keep it even smaller, but I still got corruption, even with small files. I then split the OT into three independent files (which was a pain), but it also got corrupted and tech support eventually came to the conclusion that the issue is not about the size, as even small files received corruption. 

So while I agree the size of the file is important to be mindful of (which is why a warning box is important), I don't think that is the root issue. Also, as you mentioned, it is unique how much work I have done with highlights, but that can't be the problem either since a lot of people on the forum have had highlight corruption, even though they are using them as "normal" highlights.

If I had to guess, I think the issue might be the third point I listed above, but I am not a programer, so I don't know.

Kristin

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

That's useful info. Thanks for that! I'll bring that up at a future meeting and let our programmers know that it's occurring even on smaller/multiple highlight files.