This is a collection of the Tao Te King of Lao Tse. On the index-page you find the list of full versions. There is also a page of single chapters and one for incomplete versions. You can use several functions to access the text. For any version, use the comparison functions (horizontal, vertical, four-at-once) to compare or the reader to browse them. For the Chinese text, you have a seperate comparison-interface. There, Chinese characters are linked to the dictionary. The dictionary has a main interface, where you can also access statistical functions. Explanations are mostly given, when needed.
Structure
Main page of the collection is the version index. Being a regular reader of the book, not much else than the text itself is interesting, therefore the regular index, indicated by the following icon, leads to plain versions:
One expression of this collection is the variety of interpretations. Being interested in this aspect, the alternative PHP index can be helpful, as it offers tools to easily deal with the respectable number of different versions:
The PHP index leads to modified versions, equiped with these icons:
They all display tool-tips, when pointed at them with the mouse and you can try it with the icons you see right now. The basic use is, that whatever you click, the function behind it will already be equipped with the (chapter of the) version you are currently viewing and, as far as the function allows it, display a Chinese chapter page like this one.
If you are reading a chapter in "a certain way", the icons can be distractive.
Technical issues
You can access any content that is TTK without it, but functions make use of Javascript. I did not check everything in every browser on every system, so if problems occur, please tell me.
Legal issues
Since I don't own any content, I can't give any permissions. If on the other hand, anything in here is yours and I did not ask you for permission, make a contact and it's going to be cleared.
Intentions
There are three:
- Making the text accessable.
- Making the text accessable by the collections functions.
- Saving and storing work, that otherwise might disappear.
Help
is always very welcome. The intention of the collection is to display a text the way it's author intended it, so there should be no spelling errors and the paragraphs should be set, as the author did it. A lot of versions in here are defect, because they were either numbered for easier comparison or digitalized without the deserving care.
All basic information on a version should be there: Name of author, year of origin, language, source-version(s). Forewords, comments and footnotes are also always wanted. So what you can help with, is telling me about:
- errors
- spelling errors (I know some English versions are quite defect)
- false basic information about a version
- false structure of a version (paragraphs, as set by the author)
- false characters in a Chinese version
- missing information
- basic data of a version (author, year, source, weblink)
- foreword, comments and footnotes of a version
There is a tool, that let's you (actually me, though..) edit a version. In case you want to do corrections, you might find this helpful, as it allows to do minor changes very quickly. You can also paste in whole or incomplete new versions or add chapters to the incompletes.
Besides that, I am willing to integrate any interesting information about a Chinese character into the dictionary. That can be a single information (which you might as well post as a comment) or a whole database.
Help, level II
Any idea for a function to deal with either the Chinese or the other languaged text is interesting. The unified structure of the collection allows to access any chapter of any version and do with it whatever a computer can do with a text. A few statistical functions, for instance a Chinese character occurance count or a word-search and -count, have already been created. If you have an idea for anything like that, feel free to let me know.