A valid file is one that conforms to all the rules set out in the LEMDO schema. Our processors are expecting specific elements, attributes, and values in specific
contexts. They also expect xml:ids to be unique, all elements to have opening and
closing tags, and all elements to be hierarchically nested. If your file is not valid when you commit it to the repository, our processors will not be able to generate
a stable build of the LEMDO development site (lemdo-dev). Sorting out a build break
takes time. While the UVic team is fixing the break, people can commit to the repository
but will not be able to see updated versions of their files on the lemdo-dev site.
The error messages that pop up when you make an encoding error are designed to help
you encode your work correctly. The error messages are written by the LEMDO team and
are designed to guide you as you encode. When you validate a file, Oxygen will give
you a list of all the errors in the file along with error messages. The list will help you see if there
is a pattern to the errors, or if all the errors stem from a single error high up
in the document hierarchy.
Validate often! You want to validate your file frequently while you work and fix any encoding errors as they arise. If
you carry on working in an invalid file, you will compound errors to the point where
it can be very difficult to identify and repair the original error.
Benefits of validating often:
You will make fewer minor errors.
You will almost always avoid major errors.
You will spend less time correcting the mistakes you do make.
You will get lots of validation.
If you accidentally commit an invalid file, you can prevent or remedy a build break
by fixing your file and then committing the valid version of your file.
To validate your file, click on the button that resembles a piece of paper with a
checkmark on it (or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+V):
If your file is valid, you will see a reassuring validation message like this at the
bottom of your window:
If you see something like this message instead, stop editing immediately and fix the errors in your file:
When validation fails, you will see a report in a new panel at the bottom of Oxygen.
Each error is listed on a separate line in the report, along with an error message.
To go directly to the point in the file where Oxygen has identified an error, click
on the item in the list of errors. You will see text and/or markup flagged with a
squiggly red line. In most cases, the squiggly red line is the point in the file where
you need to make your fix.
However, the error report will not always point to the spot where you need to implement
a correction. For instance, you may see something like this message:
In this case, the schema is telling you that you have added an opening
<ref>
element somewhere in your file but have failed to add the corresponding closing </ref> tag. Oxygen cannot tell you where you need to put the closing
<ref>
tag because it has no way of knowing the end point of the passage from which you
want to link.
Undo recent changes by typing Ctrl+Z. Oxygenʼs undo history is typically set to remember
the last 200 changes, so you can look back through many changes to find when and where
the error was introduced.
Cut out sections of your file, paste each of them in a separate temporary file, and
validate each temporary file to find the section that is making your file invalid.
Above all, do not start editing again until you have a valid document.
Once you have a valid file, you will be able to commit the file to the repository.
The next logical piece of documentation to read is therefore Commit Files.
Prosopography
Janelle Jenstad
Janelle Jenstad is a Professor of English at the University of
Victoria, Director of The Map
of Early Modern London, and Director of Linked Early Modern Drama
Online. With Jennifer Roberts-Smith and Mark Kaethler, she
co-edited Shakespeare’s Language in Digital Media: Old
Words, New Tools (Routledge). She has edited John Stow’s
A Survey of London (1598 text) for MoEML
and is currently editing The Merchant of Venice
(with Stephen Wittek) and Heywood’s 2 If You Know Not
Me You Know Nobody for DRE. Her articles have appeared in
Digital Humanities Quarterly, Elizabethan Theatre, Early Modern
Literary Studies, Shakespeare
Bulletin, Renaissance and
Reformation, and The Journal of Medieval
and Early Modern Studies. She contributed chapters to Approaches to Teaching Othello (MLA); Teaching Early Modern Literature from the Archives
(MLA); Institutional Culture in Early Modern
England (Brill); Shakespeare, Language, and
the Stage (Arden); Performing Maternity in
Early Modern England (Ashgate); New
Directions in the Geohumanities (Routledge); Early Modern Studies and the Digital Turn (Iter);
Placing Names: Enriching and Integrating
Gazetteers (Indiana); Making Things and
Drawing Boundaries (Minnesota); Rethinking
Shakespeare Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital
Technologies (Routledge); and Civic
Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern
London (Routledge). For more details, see janellejenstad.com.
Joey Takeda
Joey Takeda is LEMDO’s Consulting Programmer and Designer, a role he
assumed in 2020 after three years as the Lead Developer on
LEMDO.
Martin Holmes
Martin Holmes has worked as a developer in the
UVicʼs Humanities Computing and Media Centre for
over two decades, and has been involved with dozens
of Digital Humanities projects. He has served on
the TEI Technical Council and as Managing Editor of
the Journal of the TEI. He took over from Joey Takeda as
lead developer on LEMDO in 2020. He is a collaborator on
the SSHRC Partnership Grant led by Janelle Jenstad.
Navarra Houldin
Project manager 2022–present. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them)
completed their BA in History and Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. During
their degree, they worked as a teaching assistant with the University of Victoriaʼs
Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies. Their primary research was on gender and
sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America.
Nicole Vatcher
Technical Documentation Writer, 2020–2022. Nicole Vatcher completed her BA (Hons.)
in English at the University of Victoria in 2021. Her primary research focus was womenʼs
writing in the modernist period.
Rylyn Christensen
Rylyn Christensen is an English major at the University of Victoria.
Tracey El Hajj
Junior Programmer 2019–2020. Research Associate 2020–2021. Tracey received her PhD
from the Department of English at the University of Victoria in the field of Science
and Technology Studies. Her research focuses on the algorhythmics of networked communications. She was a 2019–2020 President’s Fellow in Research-Enriched
Teaching at UVic, where she taught an advanced course on Artificial Intelligence and Everyday Life. Tracey was also a member of the Map of Early Modern London team, between 2018 and 2021. Between 2020 and 2021, she was a fellow in residence
at the Praxis Studio for Comparative Media Studies, where she investigated the relationships
between artificial intelligence, creativity, health, and justice. As of July 2021,
Tracey has moved into the alt-ac world for a term position, while also teaching in
the English Department at the University of Victoria.
Orgography
LEMDO Team (LEMD1)
The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project
director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators,
encoders, and remediating editors.
Glossary
schema
“A schema is a set of rules governing the use of TEI elements in a particular project.
XML languages are all governed by a small set of shared principles; any document that
follows these principles, even if it makes up its own elements, is well-formed XML.
TEI is a formal language that is designed to comply with the principles of XML. TEI
offers many elements and attributes in its XML-compliant language. But most projects
still need to customize the TEI for their own purposes, by prescribing how and where TEI elements and attributes
are to be used, precluding some elements and attributes, making other elements and
attributes optional, making child elements required or optional, and defining allowed
and required values for attributes. The schema captures the project’s requirements,
prohibitions, and standards. We use a RelaxiNG schema at LEMDO. The main schema for
LEMDO is lemdo-all.rng (where the .rng file extension indicates the schema type).
The schema is responsible for generating the error messages in Oxygen when encoders
break one or more of the rules associated with it. (Read more about schemas in the
TEI Guidelines.)”
validate
“The process you run in Oxygen to check files for errors.”
Metadata
Authority title
Validate Files
Type of text
Documentation
Short title
Publisher
University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform
Released with Linked Early Modern Drama Online 1.0
Encoding description
Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines
Document status
prgGenerated
Funder(s)
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
License/availability
This file is licensed under a CC BY-NC_ND 4.0 license, which means that it is freely
downloadable without permission under the following conditions: (1) credit must be
given to the author and LEMDO in any subsequent use of the files and/or data; (2)
the content cannot be adapted or repurposed (except in quotations for the purposes
of academic review and citation); and (3) commercial uses are not permitted without
the knowledge and consent of the editor and LEMDO. This license allows for pedagogical
use of the documentation in the classroom.
