[sword-devel] various questions

[Chris Little]

> I'm trying to get a level set on what types of file formats the sword
> project will work with,  I have been making some inquiries about a thml
> filter and found that some one had already been working on this.  If
> testers are needed, I should have a working linux system ready to go in
> about a week.

Soon (this week-ish) I should have the ThML filters finished, then I'll send
them over to Troy for inclusion in the next release of SWORD.  I've done a
little testing of them (my CGI at bible.gotjesus.org uses filters to change
everything into ThML then into HTML, so I know it is working partially at
least.  But before I release, I want to be sure that modules produced in
ThML will work themselves and I want to try adding some pictures to modules.

> What are the other formats the sword project can use (please define any
> abbreviations)?  Is anyone working on STEP?

SWORD actually only uses one format: SWORD format.  The ThML, GBF, RTF,
plaintext, etc. are just text markups standards that we use, but the
strorage format is always the same.  Of course, code could be written so
that we could use STEP, OLB, etc. formats natively, but no one has done so.
I think it might be difficult to do such a thing (but not impossible)
because there are all very different formats which had very different design
intentions.  Besides, I believe the STEP SDK costs about $1000 or something
similarly absurd.


abbreviations:
ThML = theological markup language
GBF = general bible format
RTF = rich text format
OLB = online bible


--Chris Little