MELBOURNE: 12 February 2014 -- Salesians from A-Z:
everything you wanted to know and have within easy reach
regarding Salesian language. A compendium, a glossary, a
ready-reference. This has been a personal desire for
many years, and it now looks as if it is pretty much in
place, so why not offer it to the rest of the
English-speaking world.
WHAT IS IT? Salesians from A-Z is
a glossary. It is rather more than that, as it happens. It is
something that did not grow overnight. There is
something like ten years work behind it - Salesian termbase
has already done much of the hard work, but that item is (and
needs to be) somewhat technical, a foundation for other
products, and 'Salesians
from A-Z' is one of these, and it is simple in
concept and in execution.
HOW MIGHT I USE IT? Are you a Provincial
or Delegate about to head off to the General Chapter?
You will already have been swamped with material, and there is
a deluge ahead - most of it written in 'Salesian language',
and you may well need a ready reference at hand to make sense
of some terminology you are faced with. Acronyms for example -
what if the ACSSA and/or ACS crowd want to tell you about
their work - and they will! Salesians
from A-Z also covers a good part of the ground that
GC27 will cover because, well, because it covers a good deal
of the ground we Salesians are standing on wherever we are in
the world!
Are you a novice, or
in postnovitiate or even practical training or theology?
You might be coming to grips with all this new language, and
might have been assigned a topic to write or talk about.
You might have to find out more about the Salesian Family. Salesians from A-Z could
be a useful start.
Do you have to
translate or at least make some sense of a Salesian
document only available in Italian? While Salesians from
A-Z won't do the translation for you, it will alert you to
some of the important words and also some of the tricky ones
(Just look up 'False friends', for example.
Are you a Rector or
Principal or Delegate and need to prepare material
to help local mission partners, lay helpers, whoever, to
understand some aspects of Salesian life and organisation?
Well, Salesians from A-Z
is likely to be a goldmine.
Are you just about
to set out on a tour of the Salesian Holy Places? You
know, with Salesians from
A-Z you
could almost find your way around most of them, and at least
you can look up the main centres there and get some basic
info.
Etc. etc. ...
HOW DO I USE IT?
(1) Unzip both versions to your PC desktop. You will end up
with two separate folders, one called 'sdbglosslisted', the
other 'sdbglosslivesearch'. Just find the index.html file in
either folder and double click it - Salesians from A-Z will open in your
browser. Afterwards, you could put your folders anywhere else
in your computer, then just send the index.html file to your
desktop or make it a 'favourite in your browser.
(2) Depending on which version you use, you have two different
search possibilities (well, three, really).
sdbglosslisted
will give you a vertical list, visible, of all key
terms. You can use the nav bar to go to the letter and
term of your choice - you can also open all terms and
descriptions with a single click (and you could then use
'search' in your browser to find any word you want).
sdbglosslivesearch
just gives you a search box. As you begin to type it will
begin to list anywhere those letters appear. Obviously
it's best to have a term in mind and complete or at least
partly complete that, for efficiency's sake.
You
decide which of the two versions you prefer. Or use either
depending on circumstances.
WILL IT WORK ON A HANDHELD
DEVICE?
Probably. It is not yet built as an App, but it is optimised
for mobile use - not guaranteed however. sdbglosslisted will
possibly work better for you on a mobile.
WILL THERE BE AN APP?
Yes there will be! Does anyone want to help here? In
those folders you have all the basic parts - just the
'app-making' process has to happen. You may be better than me
at that!
BUT IT DOESN'T HAVE THE TERM
I WAS LOOKING FOR! Salesians from A-Z
currently has 551 terms in it to be precise. It could easily
have 551 more, but you would need to let me know if 'your'
term is not there and if you believe it should be. You
have v.01 in hand at the moment. There could easily be a
v.02 if there is need for a few more terms and they are
indicated.
MY VERSION DOESN'T WORK!
Possible, but unlikely to be the fault of the program - it is
merely html and some javascript and css. Can't go wrong there
too much. Different browsers, though do funny things with
javascript. Is yours 'turned on'? If it is turned off,
you'd be having problems with most websites today
anyway. But - nothing is perfect. If yours does
not work, let me know. In the meantime, you can go to: Salesians
from
A-Z v.1 and/or Salesians
from
A-Z v.2
and it will certainly work.
WILL IT BE AVAILABLE IN OTHER
LANGUAGES?
Now, why would you be asking that? But then again, why should
English have all the fun!
CAN I SHARE THIS?
Yes of course! It is 'open source'. In fact do share it, as
widely as possible, if it can help someone. And since it is
fully 'open', anyone may improve on it. It is a CC license
allowing you to copy, distribute, edit, remix and build upon.
Enjoy! Not too sure who to thank for for the partly borrowed
logo! But thanks just the same. If you want acknowledgement,
let me know.
