Documentation

Getting Started

AyahLab has a two-panel layout: the Qur'an Reader on the left and the Editor Panel on the right.

• A gold chevron button on the divider collapses or expands the editor panel.
• Surah Controls widget floats in the bottom-right corner — click it to expand the control card.
• Editor Tools widget floats in the bottom-left corner — click it to access file management and app settings.

The Qur'an Reader

The reader displays the full Qur'an with morphological annotations on every word.

• Click any Arabic word to open its morphology popover — shows root, lemma, part of speech, and full grammar details.
• Use Prev / Next buttons at the bottom edge to navigate between surahs.
• Font size and family are adjustable via the Surah Controls widget.

Morphology Popover Actions

• Insert to Lexical (＋ square icon) — inserts the word's full morphology as a formatted table into the active Lexical editor tab.
• Highlight with note (magic wand icon) — opens the Highlight dialog to save the word with a colour tag and optional note.
• Pin (pin icon) — locks the popover open so it stays on screen when you click other words.
• Close (✕) — dismisses the popover. Clicking outside also closes it unless pinned.

Buckwalter Script

The Buckwalter transliteration scheme represents Arabic letters and diacritics using ASCII characters. It is used in the Quranic Arabic Corpus for morphological annotation.

Consonants

Diacritics (Harakat)

Manuscript Viewer

Browse high-resolution images of early Qur'anic manuscripts sourced from the Corpus Coranicum project (Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences).

• Opening the viewer — hover any ayah number in the reader. A scroll icon appears. Click it to open the Manuscript Viewer.
• Manuscript list — the left rail lists all manuscripts containing the selected ayah, sorted by estimated date.
• Folio tabs — when a manuscript has multiple folios covering the ayah, tab buttons let you switch between them.
• Metadata panel — below the image, a grid shows date, radiocarbon dating, writing surface, script style, dimensions, and more.
• In-panel zoom — use ＋ / − buttons or scroll the mouse wheel to zoom up to 8×. Drag to pan when zoomed in.
• Fullscreen — click the fullscreen icon to expand to a dark overlay. Press Escape to exit.
• Download — click "Download full" to save a high-resolution version of the current folio.
• Insert to Lexical — click the gold button to embed the current folio image into the active Lexical editor.
• Images are cached — thumbnails are stored locally for instant re-access.

Reader Actions

Three action buttons appear above the reader when hovering the top edge:

• Bookmark (bookmark icon) — save any ayah with an optional note; jump back anytime from the bookmarks list.
• Highlight (magic stick icon) — select Arabic text in the reader, then click "Save Highlight" in the popup.
• Search (magnifier icon) — searches Arabic text or translation. A translator must be selected in Surah Controls for translation search to work.

Recitation Player

To enable audio playback, open Surah Controls and select a reciter. The player appears at the bottom of the reader.

• Tap play / pause, or skip forward / back by ayah.
• Download a surah for offline use via the download icon.
• After a search, the player switches to playlist mode — cycling through all matched ayahs automatically.

Choosing Reciters

The player supports two reciter slots. Click the manage reciters button (person icon) to open the Reciter Select dialog.

Surah & Translation Controls

Click the bottom-right widget to expand the control card:

• Surah picker — scrollable list of all 114 surahs.
• Font — choose Scheherazade New or Amiri Quran; sizes Small / Medium / Large.
• Translator — select from dozens of languages; your choice persists across sessions.
• WBW (Word-by-Word) — shows the meaning of each word beneath the Arabic.
• Transliteration — shows romanized pronunciation under each word.
• Hide Reader toggle — collapses the Qur'an pane to give the editor full width.

The Editor Panel

A multi-tab workspace. Create tabs via Editor Tools → New File, then choose Lexical, Typst, or Julia.

• Tabs are persistent — your work is saved automatically.
• The sidebar collapses with the gold chevron button on the divider.
• Tabs show an italic title in "preview" mode (single-click to open). Double-click to pin a tab permanently.

Lexical — Rich Text Notes

A rich text editor for free-form study notes and commentary.

• Supports headings, bold, italic, bullet lists, numbered lists, and inline links.
• Ideal for capturing translations, research notes, or personal commentary alongside the reader.

Typst — Professional Publishing

A markup-based typesetting language with live preview. Write source in the editor; the rendered document updates in real time.

• Any @preview package used in an #import statement is downloaded automatically from the Typst Universe registry on first use and cached locally.
• Great for structured papers, formatted essays, and printable documents.

Julia — Scientific Computing

AyahLab includes a full Julia terminal — a live coding environment you can use to navigate the Qur'an reader, run calculations, and build data-driven analyses.

• Install Julia via Editor Tools → Julia → Auto-install (or point to an existing binary in Settings).
• Once started, type any command into the terminal and press Enter to run it.

AL.surah( ) — Navigate to a Surah

Type AL.surah(n) and press Enter — the Qur'an reader immediately jumps to that surah.

AL.ayah( ) — Navigate to a Specific Ayah

AL.ayah() takes a surah reference and an ayah number.

Going Further — Loops & Patterns

Because Julia is a full programming language, you can use variables and loops.

Settings & Tour

Open Editor Tools → Settings to:

• Restart the onboarding tour from step 1.
• Toggle Light / Dark mode.
• Re-open the Help panel.
• Toggle the Manuscript Viewer on or off, and clear the local image cache.

Privacy

Data Sources

AyahLab is built on open, scholarly datasets. All data is bundled locally with the app.