[sword-devel] CrossWire website showing all known modules available

[Jonathan Morgan]

On Mon, Nov 8, 2010 at 11:57 PM, Karl Kleinpaste <karl at kleinpaste.org> wrote:
> Jonathan Morgan <jonmmorgan at gmail.com> writes:
>> I tend to dislike software that forces me to search in certain ways:
>> whether it's "You must select the language before we show you what's
>> available" or "You must select the type of book" or "You must select
>> the publisher's repository", there will be some times when this
>> matches the way I want to search and what I'm looking for, and some
>> times when it does not.
>
> I find it an extraordinarily odd perspective, that knowing what type of
> book you're looking for is not a normal, all-the-time prerequisite to
> finding what you want.  Does anyone ever ask a salesclerk, whether human
> or automated, "show me the book selection, but I don't even know what
> I'm looking for, much less the language in which it's printed, least of
> all the author or publisher"?
>
> Since this is Bible study software, how would it ever be, that someone
> looking for new books in our environment would not know if he's looking
> for a Bible, or a commentary, or something else?
>
> If my imagination is insufficient about this problem, feel free to say
> so.  But the idea that you have to specify that you need English or
> Suomi or Caribbean Javanese texts seems to me to be a "level 0" kind of
> requirement.

If I'm looking for the ESV, it's entirely irrelevant which language
it's in (yes, I know it's English, but rather than think it's English
I could just type ESV).   Similarly, if I'm looking for a particular
author I want all books by that author.  They have probably written
only in one language, so the language choice is irrelevant.  If I'm
looking for a particular subject, I may be able to filter down to that
subject and then scan through the results irrespective of whether they
are in multiple languages or book types.

> In any event, as a current use case, Xiphos' module manager provides
> module listings both per-category as well as per-availability (that is,
> updates and yet-uninstalled content).  Under each per-availability case,
> there is only a language distinction, on the idea that you still want to
> hunt down modules in a language you can read, but there is no type
> (Bible, commentary, genbook, ...) distinction.  Users have found it
> productive to have the ability to locate everything available in
> English, for example.

Indeed.

>> Interesting thoughts.  However, my expectation comes not from Amazon,
>> but from other Bible software I have used.  If I want to know which
>> books are available for e-Sword, I go to the e-Sword website.  If I
>> want to know which books are available for Logos, I go to the Logos
>> website.  If I want to know which books are available for CrossWire, I
>> go to the CrossWire website.  It doesn't list Dore Woodcuts, so I know
>> it doesn't support it.  [I do actually know that both e-Sword and
>> Logos have resources which aren't sold by the respective company, but
>> with Logos it's a minority and with e-Sword my impression is that they
>> are mostly breaking copyright so I don't bother looking].  Because I'm
>> interested in Bible software, I'm usually willing to spend the time
>> looking.  I'm not sure that everyone is.
>
> I think the problem is that the model breaks down in the face of our
> intent for multiple publishers.  Amazon gives us the
> one-place-in-the-world model.  You describe Logos and eSword in the same
> motif.  But that's expressly not what we're up against.  We're trying to
> create an MxN crossbar, users x publishers.  We're not (and never will
> be) in bed with publishers in the same way that Logos and eSword are.
>
> We may need another model entirely.

Agreed, which is why I suggest such a different model which aims to
still have as many of the advantages of the one publisher model as it
can.

Jon