[mobile-devel] Thoughts re dictionaries integration in And Bible

[Martin Denham]

Hi,

I have started looking into the implementation of Dictionaries and I have
various thoughts regarding the design but I thought that while I am still in
the early stages I would ask if anybody has any particular ideas in this
area.  I have a few questions.

1. Do you use Strongs Greek or Hebrew dictionary on your mobile phone?
Personally I know minimal Greek and Hebrew and would rarely use Strongs.  Do
people analyse Greek and Hebrew definitions on their mobile using Strongs?
 I am just trying to see what the requirement is for this before going
ahead.  I suspect theological students would all say yes but most people who
love to read their bible can't read Greek or Hebrew.
It would be interesting to get Crosswire module download stats for the
different books, epecially Strongs.  Does anybody know if that is possible?

2. Do you use general dictionaries on your mobile phone?
I have often used ISBE in the past but no others.

3. Design of Strongs integration in And Bible.
3.a I was initially planning to add Strongs numbers in pressable links like
most s/w that would take you to a page showing the strongs detail for the
ref pressed.
3.b Another alternative might be to do something similar to the Notes
functionality where all the Strongs numbers in a verse are looked up and
displayed in a long list.  Either the Strongs detail could be pre-loaded
with the numbers or clicking a list item would take you to the detail.  The
advantage of this is that often it is difficult to hit exactly the correct
link in a web page and this completely avoid small links in between words.
 Android and iPhone don't have a stylus and so press accuracy is severely
diminished.
3.c A modification might be NOT to display Strongs numbers in the page
thereby avoiding page clutter but either to use letters (like Notes and
x-refs) or to use different colours for words.  The number would be
displayed after navigation to the Strongs ref.

3. Design of general Dictionary integration in And Bible.
This seems less problematic.  If you select a module that is a dictionary
you show some sort of navigation screen and then show the page selected.  An
alternative would be to go to the last page viewed and allow change by
opening a navigation page but I think most people will view an entry once.
For navigation I am thinking of an expandable tree with a-z at the first
level and words at the second but I need to analyse dictionary keys to check
that is possible.

Any screen prints from Pocket sword would be great.

All thoughts or ideas are welcome.  In the end I am often driven by
implementation issues especially with such small devices as mobile phones,
and the result of experimentation, and change the design several times but I
thought I would at least ask peoples thoughts on the above before I plough
ahead.

Best regards
Martin
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