How to Use the WWO Interface
The Women Writers Online interface consists of a header navigation bar and four primary panes:
- the Search pane, in which readers can create searches and use filters to select specific parts of the collection
- the Results pane, in which readers can see the aggregated results of those choices (for instance, as a list of texts, or as a timeline), and can select individual texts for closer view
- the Context pane, which provides information for the document displayed in the Reader pane
- the Reader pane, in which readers can read an individual text in detail
When you first open a window showing the WWO interface, you will see the Search pane on the left of the screen, and a full list of Results for the collection in the center pane. When a WWO text is selected, the document is opened for reading, and a Context pane replaces the Results pane.
Searching, Filtering, and Adjusting Preferences
The Search pane offers a way of identifying a set of texts that are particularly interesting or relevant: either because they meet certain criteria (date, author, genre) or because they contain specific words or phrases of interest.
The Search pane offers both a basic and a more advanced search. For a basic search, type your search term into the search field and press Return or click “Search”. Your search results will be displayed in the Results pane.
For a more advanced set of search options, including full text or metadata searches, click “Advanced” and then fill in whatever fields you like. The “proximity” option allows you to specify that your search terms must appear within a certain number of words of one another.
The options you choose (word selections and exclusions) will be displayed in the search pane alongside your results. You can undo each search term individually by clicking on the associated indicator (a large X).
Additional filters permit you to fine-tune a search by selecting specific facets of the found set, including date and genre, each of which has a number of subsets to narrow your search if desired. To select a facet, click on it, or Tab to it. Selected filters are also displayed alongside your results and can be removed in the same manner as search terms.
Results Pane
If no search or selection is made in the Search pane, the Results pane will display a table of contents for the entire WWO collection. This list can be sorted by author, date of original publication, date of publication in WWO, or title by using the “Sort by” drop-down menu.
Accompanying the Results pane is a vertical timeline showing the chronological distribution of texts within the collection, or the selected subset. If no selection or search is made, the timeline will display the entire collection. Following a search, the timeline will display the texts contained in the found set. To view the results for only a given year, click on any dot representing a text in that year.
Selecting and Reading a Work
The Reader pane is the space where individual texts are displayed for reading. To select a text for reading, click on its title in the Results pane.
By default, texts in the Reader pane are formatted so as to provide a consistent and legible reading interface, while conveying the overall meaning of the original formatting and layout. (Read more about the display of the text.) Certain aspects of the original document are preserved, such as italics, capitalization, and indentation in poetry. Other aspects are regularized, such as paragraph indentation, formatting of section headings, prose lineation, treatment of vertical space, and presentation of footnotes and marginal notes. Some features, such as printed page numbers and most forme work, are suppressed altogether in the current view. In addition, some kinds of information (such as indications of gaps in the transcription, or of handwritten annotations) are displayed as inline annotations within curled braces.
In the Preferences pane you can select whether you would like to view either original or regularized typography. By default, Women Writers Online shows regularized, or modernized, typographies. For example, the word “ouer” in the original typography would appear in the regularized interface as “over” and the word “iudge” would appear as “judge” when regularized. The long-s character is also regularized for modern audiences. For example, “againſt” in the original format would be “against” in the regularized interface. To view the texts with their original typography, select the option to “Show original typographical features.”
To view only the full text pane, at the width of your browser window, click on the “toggle full view mode” icon in the upper right of the pane. This will remove the Search and Context panes and display only the selected text. To return to the Results pane, click the icon once again.
Context Pane
When the Reader pane is initially opened, the Context pane automatically opens as well. It contains additional bibliographic information about the work being displayed such as details about the WWO publication and original publication, and navigable keywords-in-context.
