[sword-devel] Bible in a Year Email app

[Chris Little]

Short answer: no, basically no one else has done this.

Long answer:
You could go about this in a number of different ways, depending on your 
objectives.  I think most of the suggestions people have been posting 
would lead to a very boring app, lacking customization, lacking 
configurability, and generally not worth writing.  That kind of app might 
be a good starting place, but you could build much more interesting 
features into it.

Most suggestions mentioned using a listserv.  The problem with listserv is 
that everyone will get a copy of the same email.  If you hooked this app 
up to a database backend, the database could hold preferences for each 
user and THEN you would have something truly unique and worth writing.

Preferences could include:
-- user-selectable translation(s)
-- per-user start dates, since not everyone will start reading on the 
first day such a service becomes available
-- user-selectable time spans, since some people may want to read the 
whole Bible in only 6 months or may want to take 2 years
-- user-selectable ranges, to allow a user to specify that he only wants 
to read the Gospels, but wants to finish in a month
-- OT/NT alternating vs. OT then NT selection

I think this could be a very valuable service.  You should definitely talk
to David Trotz about his reading planner, since there is a lot of
similarity.  And you may want to consider integrating some of the sign-up
interface with the Sword web interface
(http://www.crosswire.org/sword/biblenew/index.jsp).

--Chris

On Thu, 20 May 2004, Derek Viljoen wrote:

> I was struck by some inspiration to do an application for myself, but I
> wanted to first check if anyone else has done it or not.
> 
> In an attempt to make my devotions more organized, I thought of writing
> an app that can automagically email you the text of a daily reading so
> you can read through the Bible in a year just by keeping up with your
> Inbox.
> 
> I wrote a quick and dirty lookup program using the Sword API, and
> started researching libesmtp to see how to send the mail.  I want a
> command-line app that will read a config file for the scripture
> references for the date, pull the references from sword, and mail them
> to a configured email address.  This can all be setup to run from a cron
> job.
> 
> Before I jump in and write it though, I wanted to check if anyone else
> has done it, or something similar.
> 
> Thanks,
> Derek Viljoen
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Derek Viljoen - (dviljoen at comcast.net) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Operator! Give me the number for 911!" - Homer Simpson 
> 
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