[sword-devel] Future MacSword

[Greg Hellings]

I've been starting to tackle the iPhone/iPod Touch question this past
week, and it doesn't look like it would be terribly difficult.  The
most complicated and tedious portion of the project is getting Sword
to compile in XCode in a manner which would allow it to build for an
iPhone app.  I am not certain which files in which directories are
absolutely imperative to the working of the API and which are
superfluous, and which would be nice.  I have a library compiled
against the SVN HEAD as of 2 days ago, but I haven't yet written an
iPhone app to test it yet.

It seems easiest, to me, if the MacSword UI, etc, were just portions
of the SVN tree, in the same way that BibleCS is.  Minimally, it would
be nice if there was an XCode project included with the Sword API for
just such reasons.  If MacSword was designed to be checked out into a
subdirectory of the Sword project the way that BibleCS is, then
perhaps there could be an XCode Project at the head of the sword
folder which builds the library, and a checkout for the MacSword UI
that built against that library back in the sword folder. (Am I being
clear here?)

Having such would greatly enhance my ability to build for
Aspen/iPhone/iPod Touch.  I have the plan for the basic UI on iPhone
worked out, but I don't yet know how and if apps will have access to
the file system, etc.  My guess is that modules will have to be
installed to the root of the App bundle, which also makes sense for
the behavior of the App in OS X.  And, with the iPhone's constant
connection to EDGE and soon to 3G networks as well, having the install
manager for iPhone would probably be a wise plan, as well.

Leveraging your work on MacSword would be a wonderful springboard for
iSwordTouch (or whatever other whimsical name comes up for the
project) which would cut out most of my guesswork thus far as to
necessary and superfluous files for a front-end to utilize.  I also
have access to both Tiger and Leopard simultaneously, so I can biuld
the system and test on Tiger if you would like to continue supporting
that at least for the time being.

--Greg

On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 2:39 PM, Jon Brisbin <jon at jbrisbin.com> wrote:
> I for one am STOKED about an iPhone/iPod Touch Sword app! :)
>
> I'm okay with Leopard-only for the time being, particularly as some of
> the main apps I'm using these days are Leopard-only...
>
> Thanks!
>
> Jon Brisbin
> http://jbrisbin.com
>
>
>
>
> On Mar 11, 2008, at 12:37 PM, Manfred Bergmann wrote:
>
> > Hi.
> >
> > Although MacSword is quite old and it would be more than time for
> > something new I found that it will still take a good amount of time
> > until something usable is there that can replace MacSword.
> > I'm the only one developing in this area ATM and was quite busy with
> > my daily work the last months/weeks, so it hasn't gotten as far as I
> > would have liked it.
> >
> > I have put many hours of work into refactoring the Sword Objective-C
> > Backend (coming from MacSword) and in a module installer that is now
> > in Eloquent (btw: a new version has been released with some
> > enhancements).
> > My thinking was that until something new is there I would branch
> > MacSword and backport the backend and the module installer into
> > MacSword. The UI would stay the same and it would be a Leopard only
> > application.
> > IIRC the majority of users that had questions about MacSword actually
> > were using Leopard.
> >
> > Altough the UI of MacSword is hardly usable in iPhone, having
> > something Leopard compatible or Leopard only would ease the port to
> > iPhone tremendously.
> >
> > What are your thoughts about this?
> >
> >
> > Regards,
> > Manfred
> >
> >
> >
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