[bt-devel] Feature plan

[Chris Marsh]

Joachim,
List looks great.  Haven't yet managed to get KDE2 installed, so haven't got
Bibletime 0.3 running.  Also, been concentrating on learning VB for work, so
I am not in Linux much.

When I get it all running properly, I will add my comments.

At this stage, for 0.4 printing, the ability to layout text using formatting
styles would be a must for me.  A 'preview' mode would also be good as well
as the use of colour.

Chris Marsh

Analyst Programmer
Hansen Corporation
Ph:	(03) 9843 8438
Fax:	(03) 9843 8590


-----Original Message-----
From: Joachim Ansorg [mailto:jockel123@gmx.de]
Sent: Wednesday, 5 July 2000 10:25
To: bt-devel@crosswire.org
Subject: Re: [bt-devel] Feature plan


Hi Martin!

> > Release 0.3:
> > ---------
> > -bug fixes for:
> > 	o Drag&Drop: If you drag a module ina edit widget the whole chapter
of
> > 	"Genesis 1" is inserted. The type of Drah should be checked (and it
> > should be denied if it's a wrong type)
>
> I don't understand this. Now only the first verse is inserted. Should the
> whole chapter be inserted? Why? And which chapter?
> What type of drag should be denied?

Ok, my bad enlish ;-)

I'll try to explain better:
	
If you start dragging a module of the groupmanager around you started a 
"module-drag", but since the edit widget uses dropped verse references it 
shouldn't accept module-drags !
But at te moemnt it does accept module-drags - the first chapter of Genesis 
is inserted. Module-drags should be denied.

Do you understand?

> > 	o Searchdialog: Some problems with the search analysis (my part)
> >
> > 	o Commentary presenter, the combo vboxes are not refreshed if you
drag a
> > 	verse reference on it (my part, maybe a backend bug)
> >
> > 	o Put a QWhatsThis help on every widget
>
> Good! though i didn't manage to see the tips.

Really?
Edit the toolbar and put the WhatsThis button on the bar or press SHIFT+F1 
and click on a widget.

> > Release 0.4:
> > ---------
> > Release 0.4 is the next release after 0.3. It shouldn't take half a year
> > as 0.3 did ;-)
> >
> > -New features of 0.4:
> > 	o Printing: Really necessary for a real usage of BibleTime. Should
use a
> > 	good layouted printdialog (like the oe in 0.2) and should support
useful
> > 	features. The features need discussion.
>
> Yes!

> > 	o Module installer dialog: IMHO it's useful because lots  of newbies
> > ahve problems with bash and it's commands (setting permissions, using
> > groups, unpacking, configuration of SWORD etc.). This will hopefuly
> > reduce the support mails.
>
> Good. Too difficult for me.

I'll try it. A thing I would like to do a very long time! I hope it's not so

difficult as you say ;-)

> > 	o Some improvements of the searchdialog:
> > 		- Better layout
> > 		- Maybe reg-exp widget
> > 		- Improvements to the search analysis (e.g. drawing to an
image and
> > scroll the image)
>
> Good. I suggest displaying solid bars.

Solid bars? Whats this? I'm missing a German translation. Do you mean bars 
like I did in 0.2 ?
Using bars it's difficult to show results for more than one module.

> > -Things that have to be discussed for 0.4:
> > 	o Plugin support
> > 	This is useful for future extensions of BibleTime
>
> ok. needs a perfect interface.

Couldn't we add functions later? I have at the moment no idea of coding 
plugin support.

> > 	o KParts supports
> > 	Use presenters as KParts. Together with plugin support this could
> > introduce user-made presenters or easy extandibilty of BibleTime if new
> > moduletypes are introduced. Memory-Saving because they are only loaded
at
> > runtme if they are required.  Not sure if it's really useful.
>
> It would be useful, but might turn out to be very difficult.

You are right. Very difficult but useful for user extensions.

> > 	o Threading: We should try to tread BibleTime so it's usable even
ehilw
> > 	searching
>
> That would be my part - at least to try it. I didn't get an answer in
> sword-devel to my question if sword is thread safe yet.

I read some pages (Introduction to GNU PTh, a page about threaded KDE 
programs (attached to this mail)). 
IMHO it's possible to use threads in BibleTime if QT/KDE have one thread and

SWORD has an own one.
All queries etc. should be send to the SWORD thread so there are no threads 
accessing SWORD modules at the same time!
But I've no idea.

> > 	o Sermon backend
> > 	Will improve usability. But it's not SWORD related so it may break
> > 	standards.
> > 	Has somebody tested GNOMESword ? I was unable to compile it. Doesn't
it
> > have something like a sermon part?
>
> That might be one with the kparts. could be done as the first plugin -
> since it is not sword related.

Yes, will be difficult. First we would need a kparts plugin support.
But we may also implement a second backend since BibleTime is designed to 
support multiple backends.

> btw, there are still problems with the backend (strong numbers, ...) I'll
> look at this and inform you.

problems?

> > As you can see we have some nice ideas and things to do for 0.4. But we
> > need discussions to improve usability and usage of these features.
> > Otherwise we would break the usability of BT!

> > -Important things:
> > 	o Would you use these things ?
> > 	o How would you improve them for best usability?
> > 	o What's missing in the feature list for 0.3 / 0.4 ?
> >
> >
> > Please post your comments!
> >
> > --Joachim
>
> Martin

--Joachim


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