[sword-devel] MacOS X version development

[Patrick Narkinsky]

Thus spake "David Landrith"> :

> 
> A group of friends and I are interested in creating an open source,
> full featured, and polished Bible reading software for MacOS X using
> SWORD. (We plan to call in "BibleChamp".
> 
> I have perused the archives, and found a few scattered references to
> MacOS X work at various stages.  What is the current status of this
> work?  What would be the best approach to leveraging it?  I.e., would
> it be better to begin creating while leveraging other development? or
> jump on board with a work in progress?

There are actually two mac projects in process.  The more mature is
"MacSword" being developed by Will Thimbleby <wjt100@york.ac.uk>.  The other
is a program I'm calling, for the moment, "Patmos."  Patmos just displayed
its first verse last night, as I've been focusing on user interface rather
than getting something that works quickly.  This has meant a lot of stops
and starts, and a TON of recoding trying to get everything to be as
functional from a UI perspective as possible.

My big goal in developing Patmos (this is the first time I've mentioned it
to anyone by the way) is to develop some UI ideas I've been mushing about
for a Bible program for a long time.  Right now, it is not very useful, but
it is under such rapid development that by Sunday evening it may well be
quite useful.  The next major step for me is the development of my "verse
display" widget, which is probably going to mean another regression in the
code for a few days.  My standards for display are pretty high, because my
main goal is to get a perfect UI.

Not that I'm anywhere close to attaining that.  You can see what I've
developed so far at:

    http://www.wingedpigs.com/patmos-102402.tiff

The key feature I'm going for is that it be possible to display as many
Bible texts as you want, side by side, with verses "rationalized"
(vertically), in a verse window and easily add and remove verses from the
view.

I'll let Will speak for MacSword on a whole, but in terms of actual
usability he's a lot further along than I am.  If some kind of "consensus
Mac Sword front-end" develops, I'll probably throw some effort into it -
including trying to bring my UI ideas along if others like them.

Patrick

-- 
"So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so
painfully as to find some one to worship."

-- Fyodor Doestoevsky