I would be glad to provide input for the user interface.<div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 8:28 AM, mjdenham <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mjdenham@gmail.com">mjdenham@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><br>
Hi Troy,<br>
<br>
I just thought I would mention that I have also been playing around with<br>
Android.<br>
<br>
I have spent the last few weeks creating a prototype bible viewer<br>
application for Android, but I just noticed Troy's messages in this forum.<br>
I took a slightly different technical approach to you and I don't know which<br>
is better and I also came at this project with the aim of creating a mobile<br>
bible viewer I could tweak and improve rather than specifically to write an<br>
Android front end for Sword. By way of information I thought I would<br>
outline my approach and what led me to start.<br>
<br>
I have used Pocket e-Sword for many years but development has now ceased on<br>
Pocket e-Sword and it is already looking a bit old, as is WinMob that it<br>
runs on, so I started thinking what to use in the future. Although I loved<br>
using Pocket e-sword there were one or two things that I would have loved to<br>
change if I had access to the source but the source was closed. Most pocket<br>
bible apps seem to be closed source and many charge money or depend on being<br>
on-line so I began to think about writing my own. I have been writing Java<br>
code for a living since the 90's. I looked at Java ME which unfortunately<br>
is not supported by recent, popular, trend-setting phones like iPhone and<br>
Android and started going that route but there doesn't seem to be much<br>
<a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1414288/j2me-vs-android-vs-iphone-vs-symbian-vs-windows-ce" target="_blank">http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1414288/j2me-vs-android-vs-iphone-vs-symbian-vs-windows-ce</a><br>
buzz around Java ME at the moment. I briefly thought of iPhone but refuse<br>
to learn Objective-C, buy a Mac, and bend over backwards to get the app into<br>
App Store. Then I realised that Google have built Android primarily for<br>
Java Applications and Gartner predict that by 2012 Android will outsell the<br>
iPhone so I downloaded the Android SDK and am impresed by the application<br>
framework Google have put into Android. Incidentally I went to a<br>
fascinating talk on Android by Reto Meier yesterday evening.<br>
<br>
As Android hosts Java apps so well it seemed a good idea to use java front<br>
to back so I downloaded the jSword and sword-Common projects back-end to<br>
serve the OSIS documents and started creating a Java front-end for jsword on<br>
Android so I have now been doing that for the last couple of weeks off and<br>
on. I included the jsword and common jars in my Android app and simplified<br>
the xslt template I found in bible-desktop and now have a basic bible viewer<br>
app.<br>
<br>
Troy, I am interested to see that you use jni to access a C back-end. Is<br>
that right? Does this give better performance or is there another reason.<br>
<br>
In the front end I am currently using a TextView but briefly used a WebView<br>
which has better html support. I may have to switch back to WebView. I<br>
tried to copy the PocketSword verse selection screen but failed so I am just<br>
using 3 combos for now.<br>
<br>
I haven't used Crosswire code before and it took me a while to get used to<br>
OSIS and jsword but the code looks great and I am now familiar enough with<br>
jsword to find my way around the necessary parts.<br>
<br>
Here is a screen print of the current state:<br>
<a href="http://sword-dev.350566.n4.nabble.com/file/n2248754/android-bible1.jpg" target="_blank">http://sword-dev.350566.n4.nabble.com/file/n2248754/android-bible1.jpg</a><br>
<br>
For now I am still happily trying to improve on the prototype but I could<br>
switch and contribute to a central project with others. My only aim is to<br>
create a good open source bible I can tweak and that others may find useful<br>
too.<br>
<br>
Best regards<br>
Martin<br>
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<br>
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