[mobile-devel] Android bible

Mon Jul 5 14:19:58 MST 2010

Hi,
   I think the grid is a good idea.  Other bible readers use this nicely 
for the book, the chapter, and the verse (all accessible from a 
navigation tab or from a menu selection).

Have you considered the use of the XOM toolkit (http://www.xom.nu/) for 
reading the XML?  I've used it for a long time on other Java 
applications and it is much faster and more memory efficient than the 
DOM XML model.    It also is less prone to programming errors.

I have the Android development environment and have developed many Java 
apps over the years, but haven't started developed on the Android yet.   
Perhaps I will look at what you have done and see if there is anything 
sensible I could contribute.

Dave Forslund
On 7/5/2010 1:38 PM, Martin Denham wrote:
> Thanks SonWon,  That is useful input and thanks for encouragement.
>
> 1. I used Pocket e-sword for years and tabs for bible/commentary etc 
> is the approach Pocket e-sword used but it uses a whole row and I 
> found I normally just used 2 tabs (bible & commentary) so I was 
> planning to initially have a bible/commentary button on the main menu 
> bar (as you suggest at the end of point 1).
> 2. I have already switched to using a standard menu on my own local 
> build after playing with Troy's Bishop.  I have only just got an 
> Android phone and never pressed the Menu button!!!
> 3. I am not sure how to best fit book/chapter nav on one screen.  I 
> initially tried and failed to copy Pocket e-sword's nav, but list 
> items are so big on the Android  I have thought of putting the books 
> into a grid, but then that still leaves up to 150 chapters.  All ideas 
> appreciated.  I am currently thinking of 2 tabs - tab 1 containing a 
> grid of books and tab 2 a list of chapters.  Alternatively I could 
> have 3 tabs Document/BibleBook/BibleChapter.  That would also remove 
> the Document button from the menu.
>
> Did you realise you can drop other books from the CrossWire site into 
> the appropriate place under the jsword dir on the sdcard and after 
> restarting AndBible you can view them.
>
> I need to select verses to enable display of the correct commentary 
> verse associated with the currently viewed bible passage and I was 
> considering auto verse calculation based on the current distance 
> scrolled down the ScrollView - that is something I can play around with.
>
> Last weekend I managed to increase speed considerably by bypassing 
> some slow DOM creation code - now I just need to work around a couple 
> of bugs but most docs/chapters display fine.
>
> I am hoping my youngest daughter will create a splash screen for the 
> app to distract users from the slowish start up time.  Also new  name 
> "and-the-word" instead of "AndBible".  What do you think?  It 
> obviously comes from John chapter 1.  I thought AndBible was a bit 
> obvious.
>
> Best Regards
> Martin
>
> On 5 July 2010 19:13, SonWon <sonwon.1 at gmail.com 
> <mailto:sonwon.1 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Got it, when I unzipped SdcardBibles it placed the jsword in a
>     SdcardBibles folder.  I moved jsword to root of the sdcard and all
>     is well.
>
>     Thank you very much.  This is a very good start!
>
>     My first suggestion is to place tabs across the bottom to easily
>     switch between text, like Bible, commentary, dictionary, and etc..
>      Maybe this could be done with the menu button?
>
>     Second suggestion, move the navigation buttons into a
>     menu assessable from the menu button.  This will free up space for
>     the text.
>
>     Third suggestion, make the navigation to a new book, chapter, and
>     verse a table that fits all on one screen so the user doesn't have
>     to scroll.  I have a lot more suggestions to make about this area.
>
>     Thanks again!
>
>
>     On Mon, Jul 5, 2010 at 1:42 PM, Martin Denham <mjdenham at gmail.com
>     <mailto:mjdenham at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>         Hi SonWon,
>
>         Sorry you had problems.  Error handling in the app needs to be
>         greatly improved on.  Did you unzip SdcardBibles.zip to your
>         mobile's sd card and have you now got a directory named jsword
>         in the root of your sdcard?
>
>         To uninstall the application you can go to
>         Settings/Applications/Manage applications/Bible/Uninstall.
>
>         Kind regards
>         Martin
>
>
>         On 5 July 2010 14:27, SonWon <sonwon.1 at gmail.com
>         <mailto:sonwon.1 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>             Hi Martin,
>
>             Bad news, I am unable to run the application.  I get a
>             forced closed error?  I am using Android version
>             2.1-update1 on a Sprint EVO.
>
>             Let me know if there is anything I can do to help solve
>             this problem.
>
>             Also, how do I uninstall the application?
>
>
>             On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 12:11 PM, Caleb Maclennan
>             <caleb at alerque.com <mailto:caleb at alerque.com>> wrote:
>
>                 2010/7/2 Martin Denham <mjdenham at gmail.com
>                 <mailto:mjdenham at gmail.com>>:
>                 > I have built a working prototype of a bible for
>                 Android mobile phones.  The
>                 > prototype uses a slightly modified JSword back-end.
>                  You can download the
>                 > prototype from
>                 http://code.google.com/p/and-bible/downloads/list.
>
>                 Martin,
>
>                 Excellent work, this looks great for a prototype! Keep
>                 it up.
>
>                 I will be following progress closely and perhaps
>                 participating at some point.
>
>                 Caleb
>
>                 _______________________________________________
>
> www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-devel
>    

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