[sword-devel] JSword and development progress

Sun Aug 27 09:37:18 MST 2006

Hi DM.

Well, I think you have encouraged me to help develop BibleDesktop and  
JSword.

I might not have 20 hours a week but 10 should be possible for me.

Yes, you already talked about some of the features that I miss like  
parallel bible view (which I find very important because I like  
finding differences in translation).
And personal commentaries (but not only commentaries, I think of  
personal dictionaries as well).
There are some other features that I would like to see like a plug-in  
interface for pluging in new views like timelines or graphical things  
(like maps or something).

I had a quick view at the sources and they seem to be "cleaned up".

Due to the fact that I'm a Mac user I would like to improve the Look  
& Feel on the Mac platform. Swing is mostly Windows optimized and the  
Look & Feel on the Mac is not very good. There are however some  
frameworks which can be used to enhance this.
I also would like to see an Application Bundle of BibleDesktop for  
Mac users.

That's all for now here.
I already subscribed to the jsword mailing list and I would like to  
ask some questions there.

Best regards,
Manfred

Am 27.08.2006 um 16:08 schrieb DM Smith:

> Manfred,
> 	I actively develop JSword and BibleDesktop. If you would take a look
> at the releases we make, they are several times a year. There are no
> guarantees in life, but I intend to actively develop JSword as long
> as the Lord wills. I spend around 20 hours a week on CrossWire
> development.
>
> 	I would like to strongly encourage you to help make BibleDesktop
> better rather than creating yet another GUI. BibleDesktop is cross-
> platform already. I think we can reach more by making it better.
>
> 	I bet that BibleDesktop has most of what you want. And that the
> features that it lacks is precisely what should be added. Please join
> us on the jsword-devel mailing list. I will be glad to walk you
> through any feature you would like to add.
>
> 	JSword is a re-implementation of Sword C++ API. It has most features
> that the Sword API has, but notably is missing support for GenBook
> and module writing (i.e. no Personal Commentary). There are some
> other missing features (such as being able to install modules from
> the network) but these have not been requested. If you want to see
> our "wish-list" go to www.crosswire.org/bugs and look under JSword,
> Common and BibleDesktop.
>
> 	The development model is to be responsive to user requests. That is
> if there is strong interest in a new feature, we work on that next.
> Usually, it is because we are personally interested in it ourselves.
> GenBook and Personal Commentary are next on the agenda. GenBook
> because it is the basis of alternate versification and Personal
> Commentary because it is probably the most requested feature next to
> Parallel Bible view.
>
> 	We have deliberately not kept JSword in sync with Sword. Our filter
> architecture is superficially similar but very different. So many
> changes to Sword are unnecessary to replicate in JSword.
>
> 	Lately, I have been working on the KJV and ESV modules and have not
> been making many changes to JSword. The reason for this is that the
> KJV is the most downloaded module and it was encoded so badly that it
> looked terrible in JSword/BibleDesktop. I have also been contributing
> to the Sword C++ API recently.
>
> 	Also, we now have support for compressed dictionaries. We had not
> addressed this earlier because there was only one compressed
> dictionary and the utility of dictionaries in BibleDesktop is weak.
> But we have added it because there are going to be a lot more
> compressed dictionaries in the near future.
>
> 	The next release of BibleDesktop also has a bunch of internal
> changes to JSword related to platform appropriate persistence.
>
> 	Look for a release in the next few days.
>
> In His Service,
> 	DM
>
> 	
> 	
> On Aug 27, 2006, at 8:28 AM, Manfred Bergmann wrote:
>
>> Hi list.
>>
>> I'm planing to develop a new Bible Study tool, Java based to be
>> almost platformindependant so that a lot of peaple can be reached.
>> Why another frontend? Well I do bible study myself and tried some
>> programs like MacSword, Bible Desktop and Accordance. Had a look at
>> Bibletime, too.
>> Although I use Accordance currently I want something that merges
>> the best things of all products and hopefully improve them where
>> they have to be improved. And this something should be freeware or
>> open source.
>> SWORD seemed to be the best solution to have a wide range of bible
>> texts, dictionaries and commentaries available.
>>
>> While using Java I want to use the JSword library for the backend.
>> My question now:
>> What is the development progress on JSword. Has it all functions
>> the SWORD (C++) library has? Does it get updated immidiately when
>> SWORD itself is updated? Is the future development guaranteed
>> (Well, I know there are no guarantees but what is the forecast here)?
>>
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Manfred
>>
>>
>> 	
>>
>> 	
>> 		
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>
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