Translation project

This page offers a tool simplifying collaborative translation of The Instruction of Ptahhotep. The discussion is held on the AEL email list.

Participation

If you want to participate in the translation using this tool, and are subscribed to the AEL list, then:

download project.jar,
put it in some otherwise empty folder,
activate it by clicking on it.

This should work on all platforms (Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux), provided you have Java installed on your machine. On Linux and Mac OS X you can also run from the command line: java -jar project.jar.

The first time you run the tool, you will be asked to provide:

the email address with which you're subscribed to the AEL list,
the password that was distributed through the AEL list,
full name,
short name.

The tool will then make local editable copies of the files containing the hieroglyphic and the initially empty translation.

To add transliterations and translations for a phrase:

Enter edit mode (press Mode under Resource). You should now see interlinear text consisting of a number of "sections", each consisting of four "tiers". The first tier is the hieroglyphic, the second tier you should ignore, and the third and fourth are to contain the transliteration and translation.
To add a piece of transliteration/translation (or to modify it), click on the preceding green box. This should then become blue.
Press Edit under Resource. This should open two text fields at the bottom.
Edit these text fields. If the wrong font appears (transliteration font should be in the upper field) select the correct font with a right mouse click (or Ctrl + mouse click if you don't have a right mouse button). For the Egyptological alphabet, use the familiar ASCII encoding.
End editing of a phrase by pressing close under Resource.

When you are ready to upload your translations, press upload under File. When you're done, close the tool with close under File.

Further comments:

There is very little point in uploading new translations unless you also post the same translations on the AEL list, accompanied by a discussion. To do this, open the file PtahhotepTrP.txt using any text editor (but after closing the project.jar tool), and cut-and-paste the relevant lines of translation to your post and extend this with further discussion.
You can also compose translations by manually altering the file PtahhotepTrP.txt (once more: after closing the project.jar tool) but this is not without risk, and you may end up corrupting it. Only recommended for techies.
In any case, make frequent backups of PtahhotepTrP.txt.
You can add footnotes to transliterations/translations. Try a right mouse click on a text field (or Ctrl + mouse click if you don't have a right mouse button). Then click on the note marker to type a footnote.

Existing translations

See existing translations from participants by activating the applet:

Your browser doesn't seem to understand Java. Ask your system administrator for help.

(Be patient, this can be slow.)

The Java applet on some Mac OS X machines seems to be broken. As an alternative, you can browse the PDF. This is however not updated frequently.

Acknowledgements

The Java tool of automatic alignment is by Mark-Jan Nederhof. Much of the web interface is due to Geoffrey Watson. Thanks go to Mark Wilson for contributing to the security of the web interface. The hieroglyphic encoding is originally from Robert Myers.