[sword-devel] GRAPHICS help / CSS help / TRANSLATION help / JSP help

[Troy A. Griffitts]

I know that many of you linger on here and have hidden talents which 
aren't requested on a consistent basis.  We would really like to do some 
aesthetic cleanup on swordweb.  Here are some items we could use help with.

1. Design small icons for [NOTE] and [CROSS-REFERENCE] indicators shown 
inline in the text.  See:

http://crosswire.org/study/passagestudy.jsp?Footnotes=On&Cross-references=Off

and notice the superscripted 'n' and 'x'.  We would like to replace 
these with nice little icons.

Notice that swordweb has different 'Styles'.

http://crosswire.org/study/passagestudy.jsp?setStyle=Washed+Out
http://crosswire.org/study/passagestudy.jsp?setStyle=Parchment
http://crosswire.org/study/passagestudy.jsp?setStyle=Sandy+Creek

We could use a set of Note/XRef icons to match each style.

Be fun, stylish, creative, mysterious :)

I just switched from GNOME to the yet-to-be-released Enlightenment E17 
(http://enlightenment.org/Enlightenment/DR17/).  It's so much faster and 
prettier than GNOME-- not to mention more highly configurable.  Though, 
I could just be anesthetized by their sleek graphics.  Let's make our 
study site aesthetically pleasing too!


2. The current CSS for swordweb has evolved into an overly complex 
state.  There are many style classes that are duplicated, and although 
it might give us more control, it's not likely that people will want to 
change many of these independent of each other.  We would like to boil 
the CSS down by consolidating classes with duplicate attributes, and 
which make sense to combine.  This will also involve updating the HTML 
in the .jsp files to reflect the consolidated set of style classes.


3. There is quite a bit of content on the home and FAQ pages which is 
outdated, overly verbose, or site specific.  If we could update some of 
these, and include others with page includes, allowing sites to provide 
their own home page center content, it would allow easier updates for 
sites wishing to stay abreast of the latest features in swordweb without 
having to worry about losing pages they likely have customized for their 
user base.

4. Move many configuration options currently in init.jsp, out to a 
sysConfig.properties file.  Basically, this involves placing code in 
init.jsp similar to:


java.util.Properties sysConfig = (java.util.Properties) session.
                                          getAttribute("sysConfig");
if (sysConfig == null) {
   java.util.Properties sysConfig = new java.util.Properties();
   java.io.File propName = new java.io.File(session.getServletContext()
       .getRealPath("/WEB-INF/sysConfig.properties"));
   if (propName.exists()) {
     try {
       java.io.FileInputStream propFile
           = new java.io.FileInputStream(propName);
       sysConfig.load(propFile);
       propFile.close();
     } catch (Exception e) {}
   }
   session.setAttribute("sysConfig", sysConfig);
}


Then we can move stuff like defaultBible into the sysConfig.properties file.


5. TRANSLATORS: after cleanup in #3 is finished, we need your help to 
translate the user interface.  We have a facility in place which will 
allow you to translate pages for your language.  This work can begin 
right away, but the FAQ/Help/Main pages will need to be translated after 
they've been updated.


Thank you for considering to help.  Sharing with you in service for our 
Lord,

	-Troy A. Griffitts