[sword-devel] New Windows SWORD GUI

[Simon Lagendijk]

Hi all,

A friend an I have the idea of making a new Bible tool, mainly aimed at 
Windows users, because for Linux there are 2 nice Sword-based tools 
available. We want to the program to run on at least Windows and Linux. 
The code will be released under the GNU licence (or another OpenSource 
licence, I don't know the differences between all those licences for 
OpenSource software, so I'd have to figure out that first, before 
choosing one).

Are there any design-diagrams of Sword available, I mean Data Flow 
Diagrams or UML or something like that? That maybe would save us some 
time in the design phase...

I don't know if the auhors of Sword for Windows, BibleTime and 
GnomeSword are reading this, but if they do: Do you mind if we use some 
idea's of your GUI for our program (I'm not very good at designing User 
Interfaces)?

Is it possible to compile the Sword Engine in a DLL?

We are searching for some OpenSource software development tools. I think 
the most likely to use are the GNU C++ Compiler (MinGW) with the 
wxWindows framework, but I haven't worked with wxWindows before, so 
please can someone tell us if it can easely be used for the task we want 
(i.e. creating a professional looking, multiplatform GUI)?

We also want to support OSIS documents (not only Sword-modules 
containing OSIS markup, but real OSIS documents). Is OSIS 2.0, as 
described on http://www.bibletechnologies.net/, the latest version? Will 
future releases of the OSIS specification be backwards compatible?

Some other features that are on our wishlist for the new program are:
- Exporters (PDF/RTF/PlainText)
- Online updating of document library (just like Sword for Windows), 
supporting Sword modules, OSIS documents, and TheoDoc sources
- Possibility to run from CD, without any installing needed

If you have any ideas, suggestions, comments, etc, please let us know!

In Christ,

Simon

PS> I have dropped the OSISEditor project I was working on. I tried to 
use the RichTextBox as an OSIS edit component, but I didn't get it to do 
what I wanted it to do...