[sword-devel] Prototyping node-sword-interface web service

[Fred]

I'm just a lurker here, but... even though I've dabbled in json, I gotta
say that is  horribly verbose! I'd be willing to bet oh, say, fifty cents
that a slow link would perform poorly. since (as I understand it) it is the
remote server sending all that, that there'd be no way to filter out all
the redundant json on each verse, which I'd expect to make it much more
slow-link-friendly.

Fred

On Sun, Aug 11, 2024 at 1:56 AM Aaron Rainbolt <arraybolt3 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Haven't been replying since I'm busy, but this is awesome. Thank you
> for actually giving my idea a shot! I'll have to experiment with it :)
>
> On Sun, 4 Aug 2024 21:00:24 +0200
> Tobias Klein <contact at tklein.info> wrote:
>
> > Hi Aaron & all,
> >
> > so, this whole thread about SWORD over network inspired me to play
> > with existing technology a bit.
> > The goal: Run Ezra Bible App accessing the SWORD modules via a remote
> > server instead of locally.
> >
> > I implemented a small web service API based on node-sword-interface
> > and expressjs.
> > See https://github.com/ezra-bible-app/ezra-bible-app-server
> >
> > Example -
> >
> https://github.com/ezra-bible-app/ezra-bible-app-server/blob/main/routes/module.js
> >
> > // Delivers the text of a chapter via the url
> > /module/<moduleCode>/chaptertext/<bookCode>/<chapterNumber>
> >
> > router.get('/:moduleCode/chaptertext/:bookCode/:chapter', (req, res)
> > => { const moduleCode = req.params.moduleCode;
> >    const bookCode = req.params.bookCode;
> >    const chapter = parseInt(req.params.chapter);
> >
> >    const chapterText = nsi.getChapterText(moduleCode, bookCode,
> > chapter); res.json(chapterText);
> > });
> >
> > See here for example server deployed on some AWS machine I quickly
> > set up. The following URL delivers the KJV text of John 5 as JSON.
> >
> http://ec2-13-48-148-192.eu-north-1.compute.amazonaws.com/module/KJV/chaptertext/John/5
> >
> > Then I made some adjustments in the backend of Ezra Bible App,
> > implementing a "switch" in a few methods that normally access a local
> > node-sword-interface / SWORD installation.
> >
> > The respective example section in the Ezra Bible App backend looks
> > like this:
> >
> https://github.com/ezra-bible-app/ezra-bible-app/blob/web-api/app/backend/ipc/ipc_nsi_handler.js#L243
> >
> >      this._ipcMain.add('nsi_getChapterText', async (moduleCode,
> > bookCode, chapter) => {
> >        if (!this._useWebApi) {
> >          return this._nsi.getChapterText(moduleCode, bookCode,
> > chapter); } else {
> >          return await
> >
> this.getFromWebApi(`/module/${moduleCode}/chaptertext/${bookCode}/${chapter}`);
> >        }
> >      });
> >
> > Based on the switch useWebApi (currently just a constant) I can
> > switch between the "local version" and the "remote version".
> > The interface is compatible, because both the local version and the
> > remote version pull data from node-sword-interface and that already
> > returns JSON as of today.
> >
> > I ended up with a test version of Ezra Bible App that would load
> > module lists and offer the regular browsing capabilities as the
> > normal "offline" variant.
> > The performance in the UI for regular Bible browsing is nearly the
> > same.
> >
> > The use case that I see is to install a bunch of popular modules on
> > the server side for different languages and offer these to the user
> > based on quick "online access" right after installing the app.
> >
> > I am also interested how this behaves when the internet connection is
> > slower. I'll report some findings once I have them. It should be easy
> > to simulate that now based on the developer tools built into Electron.
> >
> > Right now this is an experiment. I'll explore a bit more and if this
> > turns out useful, I may think about integrating this into Ezra.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Tobias
> >
>
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