[sword-devel] MacSword 1.8.1

[Manfred Bergmann]

Hi.

After half a year of work on the next major release of MacSword I  
would like to release still an early alpha version to the public.
All version numbers lower than 2.0 are considered alpha versions.

The following things are implemented and are considered working except  
many, many minor issues:

- workspace host window which enables tabs for all major views (Bible  
(Combi view), Commentary, Dictionary, Genbook)
- single host window which can hold only one view of the above  
mentioned (tabs can be detached from workspace host and opened in  
single space host)
- combi view that can display bible views in parallel (as many as fit  
on the screen)
- combi view also can host commentaries (and later dictionaries and  
genbooks)
- all views that display module data/text are based on NSTextView  
instead of WebKit. NSTextView and the text processing system of Cocoa  
allows much more posibilities for text editing and processing than  
WebKit. The drawback is that the HTML data has to be converted to  
something which NSTextView can display (internally) which costs some  
time. But displaying 4-5 books at a time should be fast enough.
- all parallel bible and commentary views in combi view are  
synchronized. This means that while scrolling a bible or commentary  
text all other views are synchronizing itself to the currently visible  
verse. ATM the views are synchronized to the verse displayed at the  
top line. More functionality is planned for the future here.
- HUD preview window which shows cross-refs, refs, notes, strongs  
(more will come)
- indexed search based on Apple's SearchKit
- background indexer which automatically indexes all modules types.
- in view search through NSTextView's Find panel
- automatic application updater based on Sparkle open source Cocoa  
framework
- module installer
- bookmarks manager
- session saving and loading (though the session is currently saved  
in /tmp which will be deleted after restart)


There are also many, many things missing that will hopefully be  
implemented next year:
- a wizzard for the first run which guides the user to get some  
modules in
- localization
- personal commentary editing
- improvements on the UI in terms of context menus, images, improving  
overall ease of use
- removing all the rough edges
- display options, fonts, colours
- search options (range search and such, maybe a wizzard for creating  
a query statement)
- interconnection between the data and all the views
- daily devotions
- word statistics
- timeline view


The application will not be made available at SourceForge yet.
For everyone interested in testing and giving feedback please have a  
look at some screenshots or download the application.
The application will only work on Mac OSX 10.5.
It is possible to use MacSword 1.4 (and below) and MacSword 2 in  
parallel. None of your data should get lost but backups of your  
bookmarks and other files would not hurt.

Screenshots:
http://idisk.mac.com/manfred.bergmann-Public/Bibles.png
http://idisk.mac.com/manfred.bergmann-Public/Genbook.png
http://idisk.mac.com/manfred.bergmann-Public/IndexedSearch.png

Application:
http://idisk.mac.com/manfred.bergmann-Public/MacSword-1.8.1.app.zip


Any help for example for finding appropriate images actually for all  
parts of the application, finding bugs or giving opinions are very  
welcome.



Regards,
Manfred