Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

Looks good. Buttons eh, but looks good. Congrats to you Nathan et al for running still with this.

I'd probably also jump in and say that doing a new(er) app in Qt would be better for the long range use of such an app. After that, making items platform specific becomes easier.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

I just ported it -- I didn't make any "design" changes. I needed to make sure all the underlying libraries worked. :-D


Qt is actually my intention for the version I help work on.

Small update; the issue I said about not being able to compile in Armel has been resolved (Way to go Nokia!) so, once I get upload rights I plan on trying to get everything up so those who have been blessed with a phone can at least use something. :)

Nathan.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

Hi there !

I sort of changed my mind about not going to buy a n900 (thanks to the developer discount ). So on the worst case (nothing happening related to a Sword based application for maemo 5), I will try to port the current Rapier application and push it to maemo5 repository.

Being lazy (it is supposed to be a vertue for a developer, is it not ?), i would be happy to see Nathan or anybody else pushing some more fresh and "opt"ized packages (clucene,swig,sword and the python bindings) to the repository before i try to do so.

I suggest that nothing is pushed to the devel repository before someone has a full working stack.

As Rapier currently fullfill my needs for a Bible reader, I will not add new features or rewrite something else down from scratch.

However, as soon as a Sword/C++/Qt based reader will be available, i will most probably use it (i' m lazy, but i do like proper applications after all) and try to fix some bugs i may hit.

To whoever start such a project, let us know the project garage's name, and please use the garage svn (or git) so everybody can play with the latest development branches.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

Congrats on making the Dev program! The more developers the merrier. ;-)


I have successfully compiled the entire stack (as you might see above picture -- it works great on the VM) -- however I can't seem to duplicate my success with re-compiling the sword <-> clucene link while trying to make sure the armel port works. I'm getting some weird error messages. And the errors seems to actually actually be legit, so I am currently at a loss at how I successfully managed to compiled it in the scratchbox in the first place. I really hate issues like that. Based on the error message and looking into it; I believe it should NOT have compiled in the first place -- but I got it to compile fully, so my question is how.

I'm stumped for the moment and might have to move back to clucene 0.9.21b rather than the clucene 0.9.23 I have installed. I've got a post into the Sword dev list on how -- and I haven't given up hope. ;-)


As in your svn; or somewhere else? I have a fully working rapier (I have one bug that I think I have the solution for today that I haven't applied yet to rapier -- but I can submit it to svn for you (and anyone else to have) so that you don't have to figure out what to fix in it.


Any suggestions to a name. I'm willing to start the garage project and add Hogwash to it so that we both have full access to it. But we need to choose a name. ;-D

- Katana maybe?


Nathan.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

For a name, since this would be made on a Maemo tablet device, and with Qt, why not something simple like Qt-Bible or Verses.

... Katana? Uhmm, sharp, I like that too :)

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

Ok, a small status update.

I have managed to rebuild the entire stack. It does appear that clucence .9.23 has incompatibilities. By reverting back to 0.9.21b I was able to recompile the entire stack of dependencies properly. (It appears my first version of rapier that the above screen shot came from was a version with OUT clucene, when I went back and checked the sword library it was not linked against it; so that is how I got it to compile the first time, and couldn't afterwords. LOL)

I have also fixed several bugs in the Rapier for Fremantle and everything appears to be now working properly on my sdk machine. (Search, Strongs, Modules, Switching) -- I'll have to let one you actually try it on a real device as I do not (nor do I have any idea if/when I may even get one as the retail price is outside of my current ability).

I'm going to start to push the entire stack to the repositories now that I can easily re-compile it fully. I need to check about optifing it and I hope to get this all up by sometime tomorrow or the next day to the extras-testing, for those with devices.

Nathan.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

Hi there !

I meant to push the needed library in the devel repository. According to your next post, you are planning to do that soon. Cool :-)

Please send me by mail the patch you made to have Rapier working on Fremantle. I'll install a sdk, try it out, create a branch for diablo (just in case) and keep the trunk (where the patch will be applyed) to get a Fremantle version so a simple reader will be available while a new one is being developed.


I like katana as it reference both QT and Sword context.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

I'll push the entire stack (except for Rapier) to the repositories.

I do not believe anything that I changed would "not" run on diablo. Basically all the Hildon.Note's needed a newer call (that apparently worked in Diablo also) and apparently the older style of tuple calling is "broken" in fremantle (Bug has been filed and ack'd).

I also fixed a couple of "warnings" that were floating around in the app that wasn't affecting anything (besides the console output) -- I hate seeing warnings for no reason; so most those places now check for "None" before trying to work on the value.

Can you PM me with your email address and I'll email you the new rapier source file. And you can handle the pushing it to extras.


Sweet it appears that we have at least two for it. Hogwash you?

Nathan.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

This may be looking too far ahead, but I am wondering if it would be worth it to partner with one of the older companies that make Bible software for other platforms. For instance, Laridian currently partners with BEIKS to offer their content to the BlackBerry platform. They also announced today that they are partnering with Bits of God Software to make their library available on the Palm Pre.

If a Qt-based Bible reader would have access to a library the size of what Laridian or Olive Tree have to offer, it would be really good. I am not sure how open source you could still keep it though if this path was chosen.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

Wow. You're really rockin' along Nathan. Outstanding!

I'm a bit of a Nihon-o-phile, so "Katana" is cool with me. :)

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

I've said it before - I'm not a religious guy - but I do respect the significance of the religious texts, and would always wish to see this project remain fully open. There's something about locking access away in proprietary closed source that seems....somewhat immoral?

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

I've asked many times (Laridian, Logos, Olive Tree, and others), older companies haven't shown interest in the platform because (simply speaking) they aren't as profitable markets for them.

Bible+ had all kinds of issues using the Message translation because the software was too open for DRM-like protections. The origianl Palm Bible maker took BibleReader to a paid model because the NIV wouldn't have been available for it otherwise.

Open source and profit models have a disagreement where they can be used. Not to say that people aren't worth their wages, but to lock such things away - content should go anywhere, not a dedicated reader IMO - means that you are limited towards whom you can serve. Unfortunately, bible publishers and content makers will be the last to get that message (after market loss and much consolidation amongst the few companies that are there; just watch).

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

I like the name Katana as well.

I have an infinite-scrolling rich text viewer using Qt working. Right now it's in Python for rapid prototyping, but I've to Qt 4.6 installed in scratchbox, so it shouldn't be long before it's working in C++ there. The SWORD C++ api looks really easy to use, so I don't think it should be much work to get that side working.

What I've done so far to get more translations into SWORD is to buy a hardcopy of the translation, then use a script to scrape BibleGateway.com and convert it into the OSIS format (one of the formats that SWORD uses). I'd rather not post the script, since it could be used to violate copyright, but thought I would mention the idea.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

What does this bible application do? What’s for?

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

It's for studying and reading the Bible.

Awesome things going on here. Thanks guys.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

While what you have coded (in terms of the scraping script) might be legal in your region, in many places its not - even if yu own the physical copy of the item.

The editions hosted/created by the Sword project aren't restricted by copyright such that you'd need ot scrape any sites. However, there are regional/international copyright issues that the user of whatever versions would need to be aware of before downloading those versions onto their devices.

Unfortunately, there is not enough time in the day to keep up with what version is legal where, else that list would be available outside of bible deveopment and publishing houses.

Its better, on this wise, that a person gets a notice about possible copyright issues, when using Sword or any other repositories for their Bible use.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

It's possible that it's not technically legal - I guess in my mind, it fulfills the intent of copyright law in my region. I'm paying for the use of one copy of the translation (since I don't use the bible.)

My understanding is that the publicly available SWORD repositories only contain public domain works, so no copyright notice is necessary. Is this incorrect?

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

Not necessarly; some of those are published works with existing copyrights. Different regions have different laws concerning copyrights.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

Yeah, you wouldn't want to be sued by God for breach of copyright. :p

Wouldn't the end-user be able to police what is/isn't legal to d/l in their own area? Like... if you want to read a Bible on an Open Source device, a certain ethical standard would be presumed.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

While the hope is that the user has the ethics to make a wise decsion, the truth is that its easier said than done towards having that information at hand.

I'm making a note of this as a future posting at MMM, with a few copyright bodies that might be able to lend assistance for such items.

Maybe as a part of installing Katana/Rapier that this kind of warning would be a part of the application. Sure, it doesn't stop the person from doing whatever, but then ignorance cannot be blamed.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

I'm interested in this -- what components are you using -- I have not SPENT any time yet looking at the front end at all (except for the Rapier, and all the bug fixing to get it going on fremantle).

In fact right now my computer is compiling ICU in the background as the last test before I submit it as another maemo/optified package to extras. (I've already got clucene up). Once I have all three libraries (still need to upload sword, but it need clucene and icu) installed in extras. I will start looking at front ends. Once I get the sword library up; Pierre will be able to upload the latest rapier (I sent him the fixes) and anyone with a n900 should be able to get it out of extras-testing or extras-devel.


Also, Sword does have some conversion tools to convert from OnlineBible to Sword modules -- I haven't tried them, but I do know the OLB has several commercial Bibles you can purchases. In addition I noticed sword supports encrypted modules; so getting the permission (& collecting royalties) should be coming soon (or might already be present?) from I would guess one of the Bible programs using Sword.

Nathan

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

Oh yeah, the "katana.garage.maemo.org" project has been registered and accepted and I added hogwash to it.

I don't know how his time is; but I know once I get sword up into extras; I will be really busy on some non-maemo stuff that I have to get done.

Hogwash and I still need to decide which of the frontends we want to use as a base (unless we really hate them all and decide to go from scratch -- which I don't think will happen, that seems like a lot of work).

So be patient; Rapier should be on the n900 shortly and it should work as well as it did on the n8x0...

Nathan.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

Nathan, if you decide to use Qt for your framework, I'd be very interested in working with you.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

Actually that is our intent. The only reason I fixed Rapier was because I needed something to make sure that all the dependencies are compiled "properly" and working.

Hence my interest in what you were using. I'm not adverse to you joining at all. The more the merrier -- If you haven't followed the talk on the thread yet;

I raised either using BibleTime (It is a QT app) and revamping its interface for the mobile. Or taking GnomeSword/Xiphos and adding a Qt interface since GS is modular and has the engine separate from the interface making putting a new interface on it easier than any of the others. GS is the more mature product, so it might be worth the more work to make a new interface to use it. But I haven't looked at either yet.

I just got ICU submitted to the builder and it built it (I haven't got the results back on if it was success/failure yet)

Nathan.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

You've really put in a fine effort Nathan, I'm glad to be on your team :)

Now that you've got the building blocks established on the Maemo5 platform, and brought Rapier 'back to life', you really have got us to a great launching point for developing a new GUI.

Regarding time - I am a pro SE, and I'm not getting paid for this, so I tend to squeeze my book-lernin' into lunches and evenings. I've got deadlines as I'm sure Nathan does. I'm extremely impressed that Nathan has got the entire stack including Rapier pushed into devel - he has arguably single-handedly got us to the 'critical mass' point where ongoing dev is progressively easier.

Kudos to Nathan :)

My thoughts regarding an 'attack plan' is to first spend some time exploring Qt and what I can do within the confines of the Maemo5/hildon environment....then (as Nathan suggested) start digging into BibleTime to see where a clean 'split' can be made (hopefully the code isn't so gnarly that this is impossible!). There should be a layer of code that deals with interacting with the Sword API - we can borrow heavily from this - and above this should be some presentation layer code that we can hopefully find a way to 'massage' into a new hildon-style GUI.

Everything I've just typed comes with the caveat "I'm a ***** and could be totally wrong" ;)

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

Hi all,

first of all thanks for the great effort to ease our needs :)

I would agree with the choice of using QT - since in Maemo 6 and onwards (?) QT will be used i don see why we should then port it again once M6 is there...

one curious question - why Katana and not just Sword? are we trying to make it interesting to the japanese users too? ;)

as i mentioned earlier, i would love to help in anyway i can... me no hacking wizard though.. sadly... Might be getting a N900 in the next month.

regards,
wahlau.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

Regarding time: don't sweat guys. The Bible took a long time to write. Those of us wanting this device can wait (we don't have n900s yet, anyway!)

Someone nudge me when there's something to test after the release date.

And thanks to all of you.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

Well, I have both ICU and CLucene submitted successfully and built, also optified. So the next library I am going to try and get up today is sword and the python-sword interface and then Pierre can upload the modified Rapier source I sent him.


Ditto here, this is totally Pro-Se. But at some point in the future when I can convince the wife that I really do "need" the $600 toy, I will want a working Bible program. ;-D


[quote]I've got deadlines as I'm sure Nathan does. I'm extremely impressed that Nathan has got the entire stack including Rapier pushed into devel - he has arguably single-handedly got us to the 'critical mass' point where ongoing dev is progressively easier.

Actually I haven't got the whole stack into extras yet. I have to wait until the dependent libraries are in extras before I can work on the "sword" library. ICU and CLucene are finally now in; so unless I make some mistake the Sword library should up and working later today.

I also have passed all of my changes to make Rapier work back to Pierre since he has decided to maintain it in fremantle. So it will be in his ballpark to upload it to extras once I'm done with the support libraries.

Agreed. It appears joshn53 is ahead of us on this one. He can probably give us some pointers. ;-)


Ditto. My thoughts are really off the cuff -- I haven't looked at BibleTime or GnomeSword. We could find they are a total mess and it would be better to just code to the sword library.

Nathan

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

Well "Sword" is the underlying library and also the name of the Windows interface. It would be in bad taste to take the libraries name that does a lot of the hard work for our application. Now maybe "MaemoSword" would work, but I read somewhere that the recommendation was not to use Maemo in application names any more.

The reason why I suggested Katana was that a several of "Sword" based bible programs uses a type of "Sword" name. Like Rapier, or Xiphos. Katana actually is a lot more known "sword" type than most and it is a "thin/fast" blade. Hopefully our product will be thin and fast where it counts. ;-)


Well, I won't be getting a n900 anytime soon (afaik); so I will be very dependent on testers telling me what is wrong, when we start rolling. So welcome aboard. :D

Nathan

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

If y'all need help I am more than happy to lend a hand. I'm a developer in the daytime, but I wouldn't mind helping out where I can at night.
I have only played around with development for Maemo, but I have worked on some C++ applications using Qt 4 (On Linux).

Btw, I do have the n900 on pre-order so whenever it finally gets here I can do some testing as well. So, until then my development efforts are confined to the sdk and my n800 for now.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

Have you had a look at this? http://thegoan.com/firebible/ It's a Bible add-on for the Firefox browser. I don't know if this would be a good idea for the n900 or not. It doesn't require that you be online though.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

From the Website:
Not a bad idea but the n900 does not currently support Java yet. Also when working inside a browser you are constrained to how the browser works. We have a lot more control over Gestures if we are handling the interface. :)

Thanks for the suggestion though!

Nathan.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

This may well be the best approach. My only concern is that it may be difficult to reuse much code, while having a maemo interface that feels native. The SWORD api is actually pretty good; it's high-level enough that the simple stuff I'm doing now takes a couple dozen lines of code.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

Small status update:
lib-ICU, Swig, LibLucene are all in the repositories.

Sword, and Python-Sword is not yet. The Packaging is DONE and working in my sdk -- but I am having an major issue with the buildbots and the wonderful optification.

I've posted to the dev list to try and figure out how we can get this issue fixed. Once it is fixed I can resubmit the sword library and then Pierre can submit his Rapier shortly afterwords.

Nathan.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

Xiphos, is supposed to have the Interface detached from their code base. Meaning we could get all the "hard" work they have done for effectively free. :-)

They have three layers

Interface
Misc
Sword Glue

If we replace the interface, we should be "good" to go, while getting years of development work for free.

But as I have stated in prior messages; I have not actually looked at the code. So starting from scratch might be better, I have no idea. ;-)

Out of curiosity, if you don't mind my asking what are you using, qt 4.5, 4.6, what controls are you using to do your infinite scrolling?

Nathan

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

Attachment 4464
Here's a quick screenshot of the work I've been doing. A couple of notes:
* Qt isn't quite ready for Fremantle, at least as far as I can tell. I'm using 4.5 from the repositories, but it doesn't look native. I tried the 4.6 alpha, but it crashes on startup. Anyone else have success here?
* I'm using the QTextEdit, and doing modifying the document on the fly to create the illusion of infinite scroll. I'm doing this instead of creating my own view so that finger scrolling works automatically.
* I used the Katana name here because I like it. Nathan, if you want to take your project a different direction, I'm happy to give up the name.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

Wow! That looks So good! I'm amazed at you guys. Kudos all round.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

Update: I figured out why the controls weren't themed correctly - I was running the app directly instead of using the run-standalone.sh script. It looks much better now.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

I have to say I am impressed -- while I have been "playing" with libraries you have already got a early working version. Kudos!

Nathan.

Re: Bible App for Maemo 5 Device(s)
 

I've been playing around with the Sword API. From what i've seen so far, it does seem quite simple as y'all mentioned. I just got the Maemo 5 SDK running, so I'm going to be playing around with Qt4 within Maemo and reviewing the style guide :-D .