Awhile back I posted a four-part series on the advantages of Unicode for typing out Biblical Greek and Hebrew. I am linking these posts here so those interested have a one-stop shop for the whole series.
These posts provide a detailed but understandable explanation of what Unicode is, how to set up Greek and Hebrew Unicode keyboards, and what Fonts work best for each language. Enjoy.
The following is a set of links that will be useful for those trying to set up Zotero on their computers. (Not sure what Zotero is or why you would want it? Check out their site, and don’t miss the demo video).
Initial Setup
Learning Zotero
Extending Zotero
This now runs as a browser plugin, which installs the Word Processor integration utility automatically. Smooth and easy.
Securing Zotero
- Update: I should mention one issue I have had with the Dropbox solution. Dropbox cannot save open files, which means it will not upload or download your Zotero database until you close Firefox. If you are syncing your Zotero database across two computers, be aware of this limitation. Make sure you close Firefox on both computers, and that Dropbox has finished syncing all the data, before you switch workstations. Dropbox does save conflicting copies of files, so your data should ultimately be safe, but it may be a lot of work to recover it.
Update: This post was modified from the original on Sept. 17 2009 to bring it in line with the current status of the Zotero project.
In addition to its basic word processing power, OpenOffice has fairly robust outling features. Check out a guide on how to use it here. This works very nicely in conjunction with the previously mentioned guide to the navigation panel.
If you use OpenOffice.org you may find this guide helpful, especially if you are a frequent note-taker or outliner (like myself; I how I love a good outline). It tells you how to use the built-in OpenOffice navigator and Heading styles to structure and easily manipulate your documents.
If anybody knows of other good outline solutions, post in the comments!
One of the advantages of using Linux is the ability to tweak everything (everything!) to your individual needs. So if you are not satisfied with the layout of you Greek keyboard, you can change it, or download someone else’s changes.
Vern Poythress has a simplified Greek layout available here, for example, which places the breathing marks over the parentheses keys.
I also recently discovered a layout by Simos Xenitellis, which supports a much larger set of Greek characters all without changing your layout:
This post is about writing Greek Polytonic using a new combined Greek layout that supports Greek, Greek Polytonic/Attic (ᾂᾷᾰᾱᾢᾥ) and Archaic (ͼϾϡϠϲϹϟϞ…).
Follow these instructions to set it up. If you want to tweak your own keyboard layout (in Linux), there is a guide for that too.
If you’re just getting started and want to add Greek to your Linux desktop, follow this guide. For Windows, try this one.
The true advantage of Bible software like Bibleworks and Accordance is its ability to allow researches to do advanced searches based on complex syntax. Rod Decker has recently applied Accordance Bible Software to a particularly interesting problem by looking at the features of complex sentences in Mark’s otherwise paratactic Gospel. His method provides an interesting example of the power and promise of these types of Bible tools. This post describes how to do the same thing in Bibleworks.
Did you know that you can add user created versions to Bibleworks? I made this discovery recently while searching for some OT Pseudepigrapha.
Follow this guide to get things set up.
There is also a list of available versions. Included among them are the OT Pseudepigrapha, the Gospel of Thomas, several Targums, and a number of Classical Greek authors (Herodotus, for example).
Ever wish Gmail had a simple to-do list? Follow this guide, which describes how to add the services provided by Remember the Milk, a web-bsaed to-do list manager, to Gmail’s sidebar.
I have been a user of Remember the Milk since it was released over a year ago, and it’a pretty powerful stuff. You can tag related tasks, set priorities, edit dates and reminders (email, sms, rss), etc. All this is packaged in a very easy to use interface. What is more, RTM provides offline support (through Google Gears), a desktop gadget, an iGoogle gadget, and a Thunderbird add-in.
Combining Google (Gmail and Calendar), Thunderbird (w/ Lightning and the Google Calendar add-in), and Remember the Milk creates an all-in-one Outlook replacement complete with 24/7 web sync and accessibility. I hope to publish a guide to this setup soon.
The “How to Type in Greek” series of posts is designed to help you set-up your computer to type Ancient (Polytonic) Greek using a Unicode Font. Be sure to check out Part I (on Unicode), II (on setting up Windows), and III (on recommended Fonts).
Introduction
This post is designed to show Linux users how to set-up a Polytonic Greek keyboard, with particular attention to Ubuntu. The goal is that our keyboard will function identically regardless of Desktop Environment or application—QT and GTK should each work flawlessly, and both KOffice and OpenOffice.org (as well as any other native Linux applications) should generate identical Greek characters. Once your keyboard is setup you will be able to dynamically switch between Greek and English in any application.
Before getting started you may want to read two previous posts in this series. (1) This post explains the advantages of Unicode and its usefulness (and necessity) for typing in Greek. (2) Once you have your keyboard setup, you will need to read through this post to find an open-source Greek font that implements all the necessary bells and whistles for typing in Ancient Greek (all the fonts listed are compatible with Linux).
A Guide by Vern Poythress
The most important resource for Polytonic Greek in Linux is this guide by Vern Poythress of Westminster Seminary. This is an excellent guide, complete with links and special files that will help you get the perfect setup. The only difficulty is that it is not distribution specific. In general this is a good thing, but I ran into problems with Ubuntu due to their default input method under 8.04, and the setup is much easier in 8.10. If you have problems with the steps below, follow Poythress’s guide.
Ubuntu 8.10
Polytonic Greek works out of the box in Ubuntu 8.10, much to my surprise (see the comments to this post; thanks Simos). To get it working, right click on your panel and add the keyboard indicator. Next, right click on your new keyboard indicator and choose “Keyboard preferences.” 
This will bring up a dialog. Choose the layouts tab, then the Plus button. You choose your layout by Country then by Variant. You want “Greece” and the “Polytonic.”
That’s it. Everything should be working, though you may want to follow Poythress’s guide to tweak your keyboard layout a bit. If your would prefer to use SCIM, which is a different Input Method particularly useful for complex characters (and which might solve problems with compatibility issues), follow the guide below on Ubuntu 8.04.
Ubuntu 8.04: How to Set Up SCIM
Ubuntu, and several other GNOME-heavy distributions (like Fedora), do not use SCIM by default, which is the preferred input method for complex characters (accents and the like). You will therefore have to set it up manually, which is not difficult. Here are the steps I used for Ubuntu:
The latest versions of Ubuntu provide a pretty simple way of doing this. You just need to set a couple of language options. 
You need to allow for complex character creation. System –> Administration –> Language Support. Check the box for “Enable support to Enter Complex Characters.” This tells X.org that you want to use SCIM, rather than the default input method. You do NOT need to install anything else, so ignore any notices that tells you otherwise, and don’t select any languages. You are only concerned about characters and keyboards. Now you will need to restart.
When GNOME boots up again, there will be a little keyboard icon in your taskbar. Right-click on this icon and select SCIM Setup. Go to “Global Setup.” You should see a list of various Input Methods. You need “Other – English/European” . Check that box, Apply, then close out of the dialog. You may need to restart again, but it shouldn’t be necessary. 
You will now be able to use the keyboard icon to select the preferred Input Method. I have English/European set as default, but you can always move between different methods if you like. Just click on the Keyboard icon, and select what you want to use. Whenever you type in Greek you will need to be using “English/European” in order to get all the accents.
Moving to SCIM as the defult input manager may result in a couple of problems
(1) You may loose some shortcut features in Nautilus as a result of certain SCIM implementations. Nautilus allows you to type to select folders and files, and with SCIM this might no longer work. There is an easy fix, however. At the command line, type: im-switch -c . Select scim-immodule. Restart your x-server and you should be good to go.
(2) Regardless of distribution, you will need to install extra software if you use Virtualization technology, such as VirtualBox or VMWare.
For Ubuntu (or other Debian-based distributions) search for and install scim-bridge-client-qt and scim-bridge-client-qt4 in Synaptic, or just type the following in a Terminal:
sudo apt-get install scim-bridge-client-qt scim-bridge-client-qt4
All Distrubutions: Setting up your Keyboard
Now that you have SCIM set up and everything else working, you can install your Greek keyboard. Right click on the gnome panel and select “Add to Panel.” Select “Keyboard Indicator” and close out of the dialog. 
Right click on your new panel item (which probably says something like “USA”) and select the “Preferences” option. Click the “Layout” tab, then add a new layout. You need to add the “Greece” keyboard and the “Polytonic” variant. You can now switch to the Greek Keyboard layout by clicking on this panel dialog, or you can set a keyboard shortcut for alternating between keyboard layouts (I have keyboard-switching set to the Caps Lock key).
These steps provide you with all the necessary fundamentals for enabling Polytonic Greek in Ubuntu (or other distributions). But this is Linux, so the customization options are endless. You can, for example, remap certain keys so that they are more intuitive (such as the breathing marks). For this, and other hand tricks, follow Poythress’s guide, start with the section on “Adding Keymaps.” You can skip the section about the “Compose” file, which is unnecesary once you have SCIM working.
Enjoy all the polytonic goodness!
