[sword-devel] Tagging verses and verse lists

[Eeli Kaikkonen]

DM Smith wrote:
> 
> Topic tagging and sub tagging:
> Several users have asked for a way of creating a topical Bible. To them 
> a topic is ultimately a named list of Bible keys. If the topic is large, 
> it might have sub-topics.

This is what I understand by basic "bookmarks".

> Shutdown/Startup:
> Several users have asked for the application to start up at the place 
> where it was last shutdown. I see shutdown as creating a bookmark set 
> representing the state of the application and startup as using that 
> state. Since, the user can have more than one instance of the 
> application running at a time, that has to be managed. (I think Xiphos 
> and BibleTime do something similar).

Yes, BibleTime stores sessions. Here is an example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE DOC>
<BibleTimeProfile syntaxVersion="3" name="_startup_" >
  <MAINWINDOW fullscreen="0" >
   <GEOMETRY width="960" x="474" y="0" height="600" isMaximized="0" />
   <MDI ArrangementMode="1" />
  </MAINWINDOW>
  <BIBLE windowSettings="1" hasFocus="0" writeWindowType="0" >
   <GEOMETRY width="752" x="0" y="0" height="543" isMaximized="1" />
   <MODULES separator="|" list="FinBiblia" />
   <KEY name="Genesis 1:1" />
   <SCROLLBARS vertical="0" horizontal="0" />
  </BIBLE>
</BibleTimeProfile>


> IMHO, in order for it to be useful across platforms, it should have a 
> well defined file layout that allows arbitrary features to be present 
> that are ignored unless understood. I was planning on using XML with 
> it's own schema.
>

This whole topic (bookmarks, verse lists and tagging) seems to be very 
complex. Maybe we should write one or more wiki pages based on the 
knowledge which we have. I think the first step is to describe real use 
cases like you did, as exactly as possible. After that we can discuss 
about possible implementations.

One fundamental design decision is whether to use the sword engine and a 
new API or not. Another one is whether one API/technology/standard is 
enough or do we need more.


--Eeli Kaikkonen