TLG Workplace 2.0 - An Impression 

Dr. Lucas Siorvanes, Dept. of Philosophy,  
King's College, University of London 
(June 1993) 

John Baima's Silver Mountain Software
has been established for a long time. In
Biblical and Classical software he is known
for the very powerful LBase (in version
6.0). Now he has produced a whole new
range of fast and smart Windows programs
for scholars in Ancient Greek, Coptic, PHI,
and Biblical studies. I have been using the
TLG Workplace. Its purpose is to aid
reading and searching texts of the
CD-ROM D. It is not aimed (directly) at
word-statistics, parsing, or grammatical
concordances (as is LBase).

MSWindows brings a graphical
environment to PC users, and freedom to
display and print non-Latin alphabets such
as Greek across different applications.
TLG Workplace comes with a matching
font called Sgreek: it is a remarkable font
that is set apart from anything comparable
in the market both in Windows and
Macintosh. More on it later.

TLG Workplace once installed occupies a
mere 770 Kbytes, of which the essential
program files occupy some 500 Kbytes.
Such economy underlies its fast
performance. It also makes it highly
suitable for laptop users (provided there is
access to a CD-ROM). Windows users will
be relieved to see a program bucking the
trend towards "Fatware" (cf. leader article
in BYTE Magazine April 1993).

Using it is simplicity itself: Open Thesaurus
Linguae Graecae, pick an author to
browse; or enter the word(s) to Search.
Sophisticated options for searching include
Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT),
limitation or expansion with wildcard,
searching directly from the word Index of
TLG CD-ROM D, and searching by author
Classification and Date range. Custom
author lists can easily be compiled with the
Make list option: just pick the authors one
by one (from the list as is presented when
first opening the TLG) and the Workplace
puts their details in a separate file with the
suffix ".aut". 

For those who prefer only to read through
a text, the Workplace provides the Open At
option. This presents a series of boxes to
enter Volume, Book, page and line
numbers, within the range and convention
of that book (beginning and end references
appear too). Moreover with the "Current
Book..." option, one still has the powerful
search options at hand (viz., logical
operators). 

Where TLG Workplace really flies is in its
ability to turn the computer screen into a
true working desk: a book opened at a
page here, another book there, a list terms
here, a pile of index notes there. It
supports multiple windows, each of which
can be "minimised", expanded, cascaded
or tiled, etc. All these windows carry their
own descriptive title, and it is exceptionally
easy to go from the one to the other. With
a display resolution of 1024x768 or higher,
two pages can fit side-by-side. Size of
letters can quickly be controlled with the
Text larger or smaller options. Further,
several Bookmarks (global and local) can
be set. Do you want to see the full TLG
Canon bibliographical reference? Click on
the "cannon" button, and jump to it. So,
one can have in one window a text opened
for simple browsing; in another window the
list of one lot of search hits; in another, the
list of another lot of search hits; in another,
view of the text surrounding the find of one
of these search lists; and so on. The
paperless desk is a reality.

TLG Workplace itself runs fast: search
speed from the TLG disk is mainly
determined by the capability of the
CD-ROM drive. That the program can
contain frugally so many powerful features
and present them in a simple and intuitive
manner, in a graphical environment
notorious for its sluggishness and size, is
little short of astonishing.

The thoughtfulness that is pervasive in the
program design can be discerned even in
the way that search results are handled. Of
course there is an option to send to printer,
and copy to Windows Clipboard (with or
without hard-return at line end): the latter is
one of the ways Windows can transfer
data from one program to another - say,
from the Workplace to a wordprocessor.
But the copy (to Clipboard) here has *two*
options. Let me explain. The results of a
search are presented in a list
(indicating the authors). But this is no plain
list: every noted hit is the visible tip linked
to the author-work-page-line, that "lies"
underneath. A plain Copy just takes what
is marked on that window and places it the
Clipboard. An Extended Copy takes not
only what is marked but also what is linked
to that hit: viz., the text (no. of lines
determined by the configuration file).
However, even the plain Copy is intelligent:
when used on a screenful of text it also
transfers the full ref. of the extract,
including the start and end line numbers. A
great contribution to the accurate citation
of quoted passages. 

The Workplace comes with a Greek font,
Sgreek, supplied in TrueType and Adobe
ATM (for Postscript). What sets it apart
from all others (both in Windows and
Macintosh) is that it is based entirely on
the TLG's own "Beta" ASCII as it is
implemented on the CD-ROM disk itself.
This is yet another example of the
thoughtful design of the program as a
whole in addressing the needs of those
who will use it. The chief difference is in
the keystrokes for vowel + iota subscript,
because it has so far proved impossible to
place such floating diacritic underneath in
a consistent manner. The other difference
(actually an improvement) is that it does
not employ an asterisk for upper case
letters. Lower case TLG Beta-ASCII
keystrokes produce lower case Sgreek;
upper case TLG Beta, upper case Sgreek.
All other diacritics are floating, so for
example )/ adds smooth breathing+acute
accent on the preceding letter. 

The importance of such a move towards
TLG compatibility in Ancient Greek fonts
cannot be emphasised enough. In the
Macintosh world there are many elegant
Greek fonts, but all of them require
different codes and keystrokes. In the PC,
there is the WordPerfect Table 8, and a
growing number of "international"
wordprocessors and font sets. All of them
lack one essential thing: *compatibility with
the ASCII code of the TLG*. The Beta
ASCII scheme was deliberately devised to
ensure long-term viability of the data, and
readability by diverse hardware and
software. TLG Workplace utilises it now.

Finding programs to cater for scholars in
Ancient Greek studies has always been
difficult: we expect high specifications that
are not standard to software purchasers at
large. Developers have little material profit
to gain. So the good programs tend to be
very expensive. TLG Workplace is an
excellent program, designed with care to
meet the needs of the majority of scholars.
At the price it is value for money; with the
TLG-compatible Sgreek font, it is a
bargain.