[sword-devel] image support

[Karl Kleinpaste]

I hesitate to ask for much more in the way of new feature support,
considering that Troy has graciously reacted so well to my previous
agitation about a new release, but let me just put a bug in folks' ears
about the need for improvements to image support in Sword Project UIs.

Peter (refdoc) recently aimed me at a wonderful resource for some lovely
and useful image collections.  As a result, I've recently created 6 or 7
new all-image modules.  They can be found on my repository.  The Doré
Woodcuts are simply gorgeous; they're in two formats, one as a genbook
with simple hiearchical keys, and one in commentary format,
verse-range-keyed to the portions referred to by the images.  Be aware
that these modules are huge -- 70Mbytes.  Credit to Peter for doing the
legwork of creating the verse ranges I needed for the module import.

There is also a Lineage module, consisting of some amazingly useful
detail on the lineage of patriarchs and others.  Plus there are a few
other smaller but still interesting and useful modules.  These modules
are all in status combination of public domain, publicly available, or
copyrighted with permission for non-profit distribution.

One thing I see in reviews of Bible software is how much folks like to
see maps and photos, and this is my way of trying to contribute to more
of that kind of content.

One thing that I believe is important is image resizing.  Many images
are much too large to fit even onto one's screen, much less into a
subwindow of a UI that's doing several things at once.  GnomeSword takes
care of this with a preferences setting for auto-resizing, such that GS
will enforce height and width constraints on images so that they fit
proportionally within the containing subwindow.  One can also then click
such an image, which induces GS to spawn an external viewer
(ImageMagick's "display") in order to view the image full-size.

I've asked DM as to the difficulty of doing something similar in
BibleDesktop; also, I am aware that BibleTime does images, but doesn't
offer resizing, which is a feature that I wish that crew would consider.
WinSword, of course, doesn't yet do images at all, and I really think it
needs the ability.

--karl