[sword-devel] Android SWORD

Tue Sep 7 08:26:49 MST 2010

Also C++/JNI requires use of the Android NDK which only generates code
for ARMv5
or ARMv7-A architectures (see
http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/index.html) so not all Android devices
would be supported.

Regards
Martin

On 7 September 2010 15:40, DM Smith <dmsmith at crosswire.org> wrote:

>  Some thoughts on whether to use JSword or SWORD:
> SWORD will be faster than JSword, but for the most part it won't matter.
> The primary work of a Bible application are:
> a) Convert a reference into a disk read. For a chapter of references, even
> Psalm 119, this is so fast for both that it won't be noticed.
> b) Read each reference from disk. The speed differences between the two are
> dwarfed by the IO costs.
> c) Render into HTML the raw data of a chapter. Here, I'll guess that SWORD
> will seem a bit snappier if Bible Desktop's method of rendering is used. If
> another method of rendering is done, I think it will be a nit. If BD's xslt
> mechanism is used, it is more flexible allowing for different style sheets.
> d) Do a search and get a list of hits. Presuming the use of Lucene, the
> cost will be several fold: Building an index (SWORD will be faster as it
> does less), searching an index (tie, as it is IO bound). JSword has a more
> feature laden index (e.g. verse text, notes, headers, xrefs, stemming, ...).
>
> Basically, I don't think that one needs to measure "between the keystroke"
> differences. One needs to measure user experience.
>
> Another major difference between the two is that JSword lags SWORD in
> module support. E.g. it lacks av11n. And at the moment it requires http
> download of zips.
>
> I have an old Win98 laptop with less than 400M of RAM and Bible Desktop
> runs on it just fine. My impression is that the smart phones are more
> capable than my old laptop.
>
> Of course, if I were to do it, I'd use JSword.
>
> In Him,
>    DM
>
>
>
> On 09/06/2010 05:41 PM, Kenneth Arnold wrote:
>
>> This thread got rather sidetracked by the version control issue;
>> personally I use git daily but usually in a centralized workflow. I
>> think between github and GUIs like TortoiseGit it's not a big burden
>> for new users ("just remember to Push"). Also, many open-source
>> projects I follow have switched from bzr/Launchpad to github. But I
>> have no strong feelings on what direction the various projects here
>> should go. Now back on topic...
>>
>> Once the libsword-JNI bindings are stabilized and the build process is
>> smoothed out, the only significant difference between them and JSword
>> for Android should be speed, so let's measure that. There may also be
>> differences in formatting, so let's go with the one that formats
>> better and is faster. (Caching and prefetch could smooth over most
>> visible speed differences, so maybe it's just which one formats
>> better.) I also once lamented the complexity of doing simple things
>> with the libsword C++ API, but I wrote a Python ztext reader instead
>> of what I should have done, which is: help improve the code :)
>>
>> It doesn't look like the current way and-bible uses WebView allows you
>> to do much with the text besides display it. I'm considering replacing
>> the static page with a Javascript viewer that calls Java methods using
>> addJavascriptInterface [1]. This would theoretically allow accurate
>> verse position information and continuous scrolling (assuming the
>> ability to call Javascript from Java, which may be possible with
>> loadUrl [2]), but would require some significant HTML and Javascript
>> work. Are there any web-based SWORD viewers that might be adaptable to
>> that purpose?
>>
>> Btw, PocketSword users, how do you like the interface? Should we just
>> do the same thing on Android?
>>
>> For those that would prefer to pay now instead of waiting for
>> open-source, CadreBible and Olive Tree's BibleReader both have nice
>> (though not perfect) interfaces.
>>
>> So Martin, enjoy your holidays and see you when you get back.
>>
>> -Ken
>>
>>
>> [1]
>> http://developer.android.com/reference/android/webkit/WebView.html#addJavascriptInterface%28java.lang.Object,%20java.lang.String%29
>> [2]
>> http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/browse_thread/thread/6ed23efa4d22f7e6
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 12:00 PM, Martin Denham<mjdenham at gmail.com>
>>  wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Bishop is real fast but I don't know if that is all due to C++ code or if
>>> it
>>> is not doing as much html processing/formatting as and-bible.  I thought
>>> about switching to the C++ libs but there are various h/w restrictions if
>>> you use the ndk and also it is a long time since I use C++ and I just
>>> can't
>>> understand the Sword C++ code anymore and it seems from Troy's e-mails
>>> that
>>> the packaged ndk lib would need a fair bit more work.  Jsword also needs
>>> some optimisations and tweaks but I am more confident with Java.  So if
>>> you
>>> use C++ then feel free to continue Bishop or branch and-bible, but I
>>> always
>>> planned to create a pure java bible and JSword gave me a really good
>>> start.
>>> There is facade layer in and-bible that acts as an interface to JSword
>>> but
>>> realistically so many helper classes are used in the ui that it would be
>>> difficult to make the back-end switchable.
>>>
>>> Maybe the git idea is a good one and can be put on the list.  What do
>>> others
>>> think?  I chose svn because I thought most developers would be familiar
>>> with
>>> it and it has great eclipse integration.  Personally I have to use PVCS
>>> and
>>> Clearcase at work so even svn provided challenges for me.  Nic recently
>>> transferred PocketSword to Mercurial and seemed very happy.  However, as
>>> everybody keeps commenting there is a whole load of functionality in
>>> and-bible that is missing and that needs improvement so maybe I should
>>> keep
>>> my head down and not be distracted.
>>>
>>> I am on holiday at the moment so don't expect any new releases for a
>>> while.
>>> Why am I typing e-mails while I am on holiday!!!
>>>
>>> btw I just want to share we just heard that my eldest daughter got 5xA*
>>> 4xA
>>> and a B in her GCSEs - the holiday begins.
>>> Best regards
>>> Martin
>>>
>>> On 31 August 2010 19:11, Bill Burton<bburton at mail.com>  wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hello,
>>>>
>>>> On a related note, could this project be hosted on http://github.com?
>>>>  It
>>>> would provide much better ability to collaborate since anyone can fork,
>>>> make
>>>> changes and then push them back for optional inclusion.  The built-in
>>>> wiki
>>>> would make it easy to publish any appropriate docs.
>>>>
>>>> For an example of why this would be helpful, I have some libsword swig
>>>> bindings for Ruby that never got committed because no one who was a
>>>> commiter
>>>> had the time or inclination to step up and look at them.  If I could
>>>> have
>>>> forked the swig bindings, and checked in my changes, then whether or not
>>>> they became incorporated in the official version, they would be readily
>>>> available for anyone to find, evaluate and/or fix.
>>>>
>>>> Just my $0.02.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> -Bill
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 11:33 PM, Kenneth Arnold<kcarnold at alum.mit.edu>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi Martin and Troy,
>>>>>
>>>>> I finally got the AndBible source built; I needed to get the jsword
>>>>> source and also raise the memory limit for Eclipse--it thrashed and
>>>>> eventually crashed in the linker/dex step. There's still a dex warning
>>>>> that
>>>>> floods the Console, but it works on my Droid X. I made a few minor
>>>>> modifications to ensure I could, but nothing serious yet.
>>>>>
>>>>> Major things I'd like to work on as a user are navigation, continuous
>>>>> scrolling, and verse number sync. Also, do you think we should replace
>>>>> the
>>>>> backend with native libsword? That might help formatting and speed, but
>>>>> I
>>>>> don't know how deeply it's woven into the code. The Bishop code could
>>>>> be a
>>>>> useful example if we decide to go that way.
>>>>>
>>>>> Should we continue discussion on this list?
>>>>>
>>>>> -Ken (mobile)
>>>>>
>>>>> On Aug 26, 2010 1:39 AM, "Troy A. Griffitts"<scribe at crosswire.org>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Dear Ken,
>>>>>
>>>>> Thank you for the debug.  I also have had trouble with the installer
>>>>> and
>>>>> haven't had time to look into it.
>>>>>
>>>>> The history is that I build Bishop as a sort of proof of concept for
>>>>> the
>>>>> java-jni bindings for Android.  I mostly work in the engine code.  The
>>>>> jni binding code I kept in SWORD SVN and the Bishop code I just backed
>>>>> up occasionally to our server.  Last year my drive crashed and I lost
>>>>> some work but might have pieced it all back together.  Here is an email
>>>>> I sent to Gary with links to all my stuff.
>>>>>
>>>>> ______________________
>>>>>
>>>>> After last year when I started the work I had a harddrive die on my
>>>>> laptop.  I had been backing up the work regularly, but lost about 2
>>>>> weeks of work in the crash.  I used a recovery tool to salvage many of
>>>>> the files from the bishop project and think I may have close to what is
>>>>> in the apk.  Here are my resources if you want to try to piece things
>>>>> together:
>>>>>
>>>>> Lastest binary when I stopped, dated 11-18-2009:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://crosswire.org/~scribe/bishop.apk
>>>>>
>>>>> Latest backup of source, dated 10-31-2009:
>>>>> http://crosswire.org/~scribe/bishop-20091031.tar.gz
>>>>>
>>>>> Latest binary after reconstructing source and I think some small new
>>>>> work (I think this is built with debug symbols in the native library so
>>>>> it's a little bigger):
>>>>>
>>>>> http://crosswire.org/~scribe/bishop2.apk
>>>>>
>>>>> Current backup of source which built the above:
>>>>> http://crosswire.org/~scribe/bishop-20100804.tar.gz
>>>>>
>>>>> Please excuse my ignorance of Android programming.  I am fumbling
>>>>> through it all.
>>>>>
>>>>> I remember having trouble with the InstallMgr.  It sometimes connects
>>>>> and downloads and other times it does not.  I thought it might be the
>>>>> limited memory on my G1 or some trouble with the timing of the FTP code
>>>>> in the native library.  I've found serious bugs in Android's system
>>>>> calls, (e.g. memccpy) and reported it to them, but they still haven't
>>>>> fixed it.  I use my own version in the ftp lib to avoid the bug.  That
>>>>> is where I stopped-- thinking I needed to debug this ftp intermittent
>>>>> issue.  I didn't compare how well the older .apk works versus the newer
>>>>> .apk.  Maybe the older version worked better?  Or maybe a newer version
>>>>> of Android or new phone works better?
>>>>>
>>>>> Let me know what you find.
>>>>>
>>>>> Troy
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 08/24/2010 09:01 PM, Kenneth Arnold wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I just got an Android phone, and after seeing the...
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>
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