[sword-devel] Unicode Bible program

[Troy A. Griffitts]

> Since SWORD is written in C++, Unicode support would have to be done with a third
> party library. Using a library would allow processing of Unicode text but there
> isn't any consistent way to render Unicode text across platforms. I'm not really
> familiar with the SWORD code; would anyone care to comment on how easy it would
> be to subclass SWText to create a Unicode text class? Does anything in the
> parent classes assume 8 bit chars?

I'm sure we would all love for this project to support unicode.  If I
knew anything technical about unicode I'd comment on if there is
anything that would hinder you from subclassing SWText and creating your
own.  I believe the code is modular enough so that if say, the search
method did ASCII specific things like the call to strstr(...), you may
still override the search method in your own SWText subclass and provide
unicode searching algorithms.

I would love to learn more and take out all 8bit dependencies to help
you, but it's just a question of time.


> Troy, would
> it be possible to include new software like this under the SWORD umbrella?

Of course.  That's what CrossWire is for:  to sponsor opensource
ministry projects.


> I am curious what people think about this. Clearly there is a need for free
> Bible software that handles non-European languages/scripts. What is the best
> way to make it happen?

Again, I would love to see this included in our libraries.  I'd help in
any way I can, but I really need to come up to speed with this
technology.

there is a cvs module: jsword that you can checkout that include many of
the sword classes ported to java.  I've done quite a bit more that I
have not yet checked in.  I was doing it for fun on the bus ride to
comdex last year and have since lost my laptop nic pcmcia card.  I'll
move it to a floppy and check it in if anyone is interested.

	-Troy.