Write up tips for diagnosing transcript errors on the wiki

[mark-dce]

ISSUE
When I've uploaded and selected a transcript file that isn't properly formatted, I can't tell if the transcript is bad or if something else is going on.

ACCEPTANCE

• If I supply xml that doesn't have the proper structure as a transcript, the system displays the message "The supplied transcript is not formatted properly for playback"

TESTING
As an example, use one of the Fanny Lewald TEI files - they are valid TEI, but don't include the necessary transcript info, so the system should let me upload them and even select them as a transcript.

[jcoyne]

What are the minimum requirements for being a transcript? Just being well formed XML and having a tei:div2[@data-timecodebegin] selector? It's not like there's a well defined standard we're working with.

[mark-dce]

The requirements are whatever is required to display the transcript in the transcript window -i.e. give a message rather than just displaying a blank box if there is a transcript file specified and it can be successfully parsed to display in the viewer.

[jcoyne]

I don't see a way to do this with AblePlayer without forking our own version. Do we want to do that?

https://github.com/ableplayer/ableplayer/blob/f43ef8debf064614e99abd84a3f6c1970f4b1277/scripts/webvtt.js#L21-L22

[mark-dce]

No, I don't think we want to fork AblePlayer.

I was hoping there was some simple way to detect this kind of state: http://wustl.curationexperts.com/concern/videos/nv935323h
on there server side. There's is a transcript set for this work.

Does the transformation that's used to turn WSTLs TEI into something AblePlayer can use get applied on the server or at the client? Is there a way that we could detect when that transformation yields nothing - like the sample I've linked. (it has a node instead of a node)

[jcoyne]

Creating the transcript happens in a differnt request from drawing the page. Then AblePlayer gets that request and determines if its playable or not. We could have the show page call "create the transcript", but that will make the show page that much slower.

[mark-dce]

@jcoyne Looking back at the original issue statement, are there other solutions instead of the acceptance criteria I listed? I didn't know that there were errors in the javascript console that I could look at. That's sort of helpful, but since the transcript has been run through a transformation first, the line and column numbers given for errors don't correspond to the source I'm providing in any clear way.

What are the diagnostic steps a user like Shannon should take if she has uploaded a transcript and the AblePlayer transcript window is blank?

[mark-dce]

Ok, sounds like the solution is to inspect the .vtt of the transcript files and see if it looks right and make corrections as necessary. I've changed the ticket title and assigned it to me to write up instructions on the wiki.