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We have just released 0.9.9 <a href="http://www.crosswire.org/jsword">JSword
</a>and <a href="http://www.crosswire.org/bibledesktop">BibleDesktop</a>
for Windows, Linux and Macintosh (and probably any other platform on
which Java runs)<br>
JSword is a Java re-implementation of the Sword API and BibleDesktop is
user application built on top of it. Look <a
href="http://www.crosswire.org/bibledesktop/screenshots.html">here to
see what BibleDesktop looks like</a>.<br>
<br>
You can download BibleDesktop from <a
href="http://www.crosswire.org/bibledesktop/download.html">here</a>.<br>
<br>
With this release the software is almost ready for a 1.0 release and
are nearly free from bugs. This release represents the largest set of
changes to date. Many, many new features. Usability and performance is
greatly improved.<br>
<br>
Here is a list of the major changes:<br>
<ul>
<li>Bug fixes, of course. Otherwise, it would not be beta.</li>
<li>Lots of usability improvements. We answered nearly all user
requests for enhancements.</li>
<li>Improved performance across the board.</li>
<li>Users can now control how passages are displayed.</li>
<li>The installer organizes books first by type and then by language.</li>
<li>The installer automatically gets the list of books from
crosswire.org.</li>
<li>Improved the display of the Book descriptions in the installer.</li>
<li>Full support for NASB, when it is released.</li>
<li>Further reduced size of the executable. (Down from a high of 8.6M
to 1.7M!)</li>
<li>The user now controls when and if indexes are built.</li>
<li>Used Lucene, an open source project, for indexing.</li>
<li>Downloads of Books and Indexes can be canceled.</li>
<li>Books and indexes can now be removed from the program.</li>
</ul>
We need your help to get to 1.0. Use it and let us know what you think.
Make suggestions for improvement. Find bugs.<br>
<br>
What's going in 1.0?<br>
Bug fixes.<br>
Improvements to search.<br>
More performance and usability enhancements.<br>
You can find out more in our issues database, <a
href="http://www.crosswire.org/bugs">here</a>. You will need to
register to gain access but it is a good way to track our progress and
make suggestions. We are the BibleDesktop, JSword and Common entries
(GUI, API and utilities respectively).<br>
<br>
We have much more planned after 1.0. So stay tuned.<br>
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