[sword-devel] Website: "help" direction + improved blurbs

[Ben Morgan]

On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 2:28 AM, Peter von Kaehne <refdoc at gmx.net> wrote:

> > The primary language of use, no matter how many translations you put in,
> is
> > likely to be English.
>
> That is so wrong, I cannot get my head around it, Ben. Seriously. The
> primary language of use is that which is offered for longest, which in
> turn is usually the language of the main programmer. Which happens to be
> English here. But the need is massive in many other languages. And yes,
> this is a thing CrossWire does fantastically well - basically all our
> software is easily translatable and that is a brilliant feature. It is a
> feature of most open source programming and we should be proud about it.

The primary language for any application (just about) is likely to be
English. I may be wrong, but I don't think so. Certainly to get the most out
of the SWORD project, you need to speak english (which has the most
resources of any language). Once you have that, and a few key other (major)
languages covered, the law of diminishing returns comes and bites you. There
are just too many minority languages to cover.

I'm not saying there isn't need; but what is really important to the user is
to have the Bible in their language. Users can (I think) survive in an
English environment (and they often have to...), but to have the Bible in
their own language is much more important. And the languages for Bibles are
shared between all apps.

Anyway, I don't want to start an argument on this. We've had quite enough of
those lately :)
If you want, you can put my position down to me only knowing one language,
and that English ;)

Personally, I think the features and "user experience" are more important
than the languages it is available in. But you can't really put either in a
90 word summary.

All fine IMO but the "exciting new" - simply to avoid visible bitrot. I
> do not want to make CW website maintenance my main job. everyone's
> application was once exciting and new, but after a few months that
> changes. I am looking into making this bit  of the website somehow more
> accessible to all people with ssh accounts to increase the likelihood of
> remaining up to date, but still - static language is best for a project
> which does not excel at promoting itself.
>
Good point. How about this:
BPBible is Bible software which is flexible and user friendly, and empowers
the user. With a wide variety of available Bibles, dictionaries,
commentaries, and other books, it could easily become your first point of
call for Bible Study. It has features usually found only in expensive
commercial software, such as a word proximity based cross-verse search, and
is available in Vietnamese and English. It works well under both Windows and
Linux, and is also an official PortableApp.

Thanks again for doing this.

God Bless,
Ben
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Multitudes, multitudes,
   in the valley of decision!
For the day of the LORD is near
   in the valley of decision.

Giôên 3:14 (ESV)
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