[sword-devel] Chapter-centric browsing (was: iPhone frontend alpha screenshots)

[Ian Wagner]

On Nov 25, 2008, at 8:27 AM, Daniel Owens wrote:

>
> Sebastien Koechlin wrote:
>> On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 12:50:38PM -0500, Ian Wagner wrote:
>>> Have any of you used the Libronix Digital Library System (previously
>>> known as Logos bible software)? They actually load up the ENTIRE  
>>> book
>>> (whether it be a bible or commentary or whatnot) so you have a
>>> scrollbar indicator about as thick as a credit card :) Just thought
>>> I'd throw that out there. I'll have to think about this idea some  
>>> more.
>
> I use Libronix on occasion myself, and it's a great program. It's a
> memory hog, though, and doesn't run in Linux, so when I am preparing
> sermons I usually PREFER to use a SWORD application. Not being able to
> scroll easily, though, is a substantial headache. It's one I willingly
> put up with, though, for the speed and convenience. As far as I know  
> no
> one has mentioned that BibleDesktop allows for displaying a range of
> verses that cross chapter boundaries. This is particularly useful for
> cross-references or working on passages that cross chapter boundaries.

Interesting. My dad is a pastor and he has been using Libronix since  
it was known as Logos back in the Windows 95 days. Unfortunately, the  
application is only single-platform at the moment so my dad has to run  
it in a VM since he is now a mac user. The Mac betas look promising,  
but still no linux, and as you said, it is a major memory hog. The big  
thing going for it is the massive library. My dad has invested several  
thousand dollars into his Libronix library.

>>
>> Ok, having a scrollbar slider as thick as a credit card is a  
>> mistake. And loading
>> a full book is not necessary the right solution; but you can cheat:
>>
>> - Use a scrollbar relative to full book size, with a decent slider  
>> size.
>> - Get and display just enough text according to display size; and  
>> probably
>>  get a few pages up and down to allow faster scroll.
>>
> I second Sebastien's idea here, though I'm not able to help implement
> it. ;)
>
> Daniel


This would be an interesting idea, but I'm not really sure how you  
would implement that in any of the windowing toolkits I've used (and  
I'm almost certain it wouldn't work on the iPhone). Grabbing text with  
that degree of control would probably also be out for the iPhone. I'm  
thinking that the standard chapter-centric method will have to stick  
for the iPhone version, but that the alternate methods can be explored  
on other platforms. The iPhone version needs to be simple and fast.

Ian
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