[sword-devel] Web Interface

[sword-devel@crosswire.org]

In a message dated 2/24/2003 12:59:05 AM Eastern Standard Time, YTang0648 writes:

> In a message dated 2/22/2003 9:16:03 PM Pacific Standard Time, chrislit@crosswire.org writes:
> 
> Okay, my guestimates were off.  I ran statistics on our downloads in the
> last 5 weeks 76% of downloads were of English modules, 17% were of other
> Latin script modules, 4% were of original language modules, and 4% were of
> modules using other scripts that text-mode unix can handle (Hebrew, Greek,
> &Cyrillic), and the remaining 2% were of modules in other 
> scripts
> (Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Thai, &Tamil)

The other thing we need to remember is the number of internet client connection is not equal to the number of people you will impact. For example, I put together a special projection version of my Chinese Bible http://people.netscape.com/ftang/BIBLE/hoc5.html

This version display darker background and lighter and bigger text. The navigation UI is redesign so it could jump not only to a particular chapter, but also a particular verse without people "TYPE" anything- we only use MENU (<SELECT> in <FORM>) . All the chapter number and verses number is sync to the book name and chapter (So the menu will only show 25 verses for Gen 2 but show 31 vers for Gen 1) We also use JavaScript to add book/chapter/verse to a "jump' menu in case the pastor want to show that verse again in the same service. This is used by our worship team to display the Bible by using two color A/V projector. And we display the verse according to whatever the pastor quote in that moment. Althogh there aer only one access for every time they access a page, there are 700+ people in the service every sunday use that. 

This is what really happen every Sunday in our church. (hoc5.org) The fetch is all live from the netscape.com server (my personal home page). I make that page on Internet so all Chinese church that have a AV projector can take advantage of that. 

When I change the implemention from a normal reading software to support this new feature, it onlyt take several hours. The change of appearance is only by adding about 10-20 lines of CSS into the beginning of that page. The special design navigation UI take me about 5 hours to rewrite the html code and then I spend about 4 weeks to enhance it with user's feedback, each week I spend about only 1-2 hours to make it bettter. 

So.. what I want to say is
1. The number of internet access != the number of "users". In our case, every single page access is used by 700+ people in the Sunday.
2. JavaScript implement something you cannot implement without additional server connection which is slower
3. Special case (for example, our projection is a special case) need specail design. And using Style sheet help a lot. Using Perl (or php as I understand) make it very easy to add those special design version. 

Don't try to feed your coffee lover tea. Don't try to make your tea taste like coffee to feed them. That will make both your coffee lover and tea lover angry. Feed your coffee lover good coffee and feed your tea lover good tea.