[bt-devel] Backend Proposal

[Greg Hellings]

Jon,

On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 7:28 AM, Jonathan Morgan <jonmmorgan at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Greg,
>
> On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 7:49 AM, Greg Hellings <greg.hellings at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> http://devel.bibletime.info/wiki/Backend_API
>>
>> In the interest of getting the ball rolling on the discussion we had
>> in IRC today, I have created a wiki page on the implementation of a
>> back end API that could be utilized by BibleTime to serve as
>>
>> 1) A barrier between the application and SWORD.  This would allow us
>> to use the same code base to create a desktop GUI, mobile GUIs,
>> web-based GUIs, etc which can all leverage the work done to bring the
>> data into Qt.
>>
>> 2) A fulcrum to uncouple BibleTime from strict SWORD dependence. This
>> will allow us to leverage other technologies to store, fetch and
>> maniuplate texts to supplement those available from SWORD.
>> Possibilities such as EPub reading, Perseus, specialized web sites all
>> exist and who knows of what others people might come up with.
>
> I think things like this are a good plan because they remove the need for
> someone to get every resource into "a SWORD module" before it can be used by
> an app.  Just one question: are you ever going to want to use versified
> materials outside of SWORD (or even books that reference verses), or will
> you just want to display Genbook style books? (this could have a big impact
> on where you draw the dividing line between SWORD and non-SWORD
> functionality).

The "Bibletime2Backend" (perhaps at this point we should call it
Bibletime3Backend since we are already at Bibletime 2.8+) proposes a
generic mechanism for key/reference that is equally usable by genbooks
and scripture.  The purpose would be to enable ANY text to use its
native format and to allow overlays as well if someone wishes to
provide (especially thinking of scriptures that are BSP with a BCV
overlay but also including extra-canonical works that use similar
referencing schemes, etc).

The purpose would be to allow any text, whether in SWORD format, raw
OSIS/TEI files, custom modules created within the application, web
pages, etc, to be pulled into BibleTime's storage and referenced with
any scheme that the user desired.

--Greg