e-Sword Validation Checker

In trying to find out why the resources from Bible.org do not display correctly on my system, I realized that tools for sanity checking, content validation, and content verification for e-Sword 9.x were still not publicly available.

This tool will do the following:
* Walk through the Description Table, ensuring that the data there is correct:
** Boolean values reflect what e-Sword expects to see for a boolean value;
** Version number correctly reflects the e-Sword Resource Format Specification Version number;
** The resource abbreviation does not conflict with existing abbreviations for that resource type;
** The comments field contains content that is usable, and functional;
** The description field contains content that accurately represents the resource;
(I'm not sure how the latter two will be done, but that is a slightly different issue.)

* Walk through the Copyright Table, ensuring that that data is filled out;
* Walk through the Metadata Table, ensuring that that data is filled out;

For all resources:
* Walk through each displayable table, ensuring that the presentation format is consistent with the resource type and how the table is displayed;

For Bible resources:
* Walk through the Bible table, checking for:
** Missing text;
** Added text;
** Red Lettering in the appropriate places;
** Strong's Number is "correct". The number is found in that verse, even if it is used with an incorrect word;
* Anagignoskomena content is demarcated in blue;

"Missing text" and "added text" to be determined by comparing the number of characters in the verse, with that found in the KJVA, Greek LXX&TR, Hebrew MT, Latin Vulgate, and the average number of characters found in those four versions.

For Commentary resources:
* Walk through the Books table, ensuring that every listed book has content attached to it;
** Remove content along the lines of "name of book";
* Walk through the Chapters table, ensuring that every listed chapter has content attached to it;
** remove content along the lines of "name of chapter";
* Walk through the Verses table, ensuring that every listed verse has content attached to it;
** Remove content along the lines of "book, chapter, and verse number";
* In all three tables check that links to other sources are correctly formed;

For Dictionary resources:
* Walk through the Dictionary table checking:
** Every Topic has a Definition;
** Topics are ordered alphabetically;
** Check that links to other sources are correctly formed;
** If Topics are a numbering scheme such as Strongs, numbers outside of that numbering scheme are not listed;

For other resource:
* Walk through the tables, verifying that there is content that is consistent with the expected content;

Is e-Sword dead?

Mitchell Powell wrote "You heard it here first, folks. E-Sword is dead." in his blog ve'al timkor — ואל־תמכר on 15 September 2010).

He is not the first person to make that statement. Nor will he be the last.

I think that the first claim to that effect was made by the developer of Q-WordSpeak. More recently I've seen it used by users of TheWord.

It is a topic I broached on in:
* Selecting Bible Study Software;
* On Selecting Bible Study Software;
* The Death of Bible Study Software;
* My talk at BibleTech 2010 The Ecology of e-Sword;

Pocket e-Sword was the edition for Pocket PC 2003, Windows CE, and Windows Mobile 6.0.

e-Sword Live! was created for users of other platforms. The theory is that everybody would always have an available Internet Connection.

Rick has publicly stated that there will not be a WinMo 7 version of e-Sword, or Pocket e-Sword. He also announced on 12 December 2009, that further development of Pocket e-Sword would cease as of that day. All official support was also scheduled to cease 12 December 2009. All of the commercially distributed resources were pulled from the market on 31 December 2009. Since January 2009, at least half a dozen other organizations that create Bible Study Software have announced, either formally, or informally, officially, or unofficially, that development on their Windows Mobile platform offering had ceased.

e-Sword began life as a Bible Study Program for new Christians that did not know how to use a computer. The original axioms were:
* If a new Christian did not see the point of a feature, or of a function, then e-Sword would not offer that capability;
* If a non-computer user could not figure out how to do something, without consulting a manual, then e-Sword would not offer that capability;

Over time, things change. e-Sword has become far more complicated. Users are doing things with e-Sword that Rick never envisioned it being used for. Rick added features and functions to empower those "power users".

The future for e-Sword, is, at best, ambiguous.

e-Sword is a software program that one should grow out of. It is a program that should no longer meet one's needs, because one is no longer a new Christian that can only take milk. It is very easy for a user to mistake their change in software requirements, with a sense that e-Sword is dead.

For new Christians, e-Sword still remains one of the best offerings out there.

The challenge for e-Sword is whether it is to maintain its commitment to features and functions for new Christians, or whether to also offer more advanced features. There are at least half a dozen features, and components that could be added to e-Sword, that would be congruent with the original axioms of e-Sword development, and also enhance its functionality for "power users.

Libronix is still committed to its original market --- seminarians and clergy. At the same time, it has embarked on embracing the laity: the intermediate to mature Christian. With its offerings for the iPhone/iPad/iPod and Android, Libronix is well positioned to also engage the new Christian market. (Note: As of 20100918, the Android app is not publicly available. More precisely, only a very few people within the firm have a copy of it.)

Olive Tree is committed to the mobile market. Give them another year or two for development, and their apps should contain the same functionality as Libronix does. The issue Olive Tree will be facing is resources.

The Sword Project is the only FLOSS Bible Study Software to gain traction. Their major stumbling point is resources. Or, more precisely, the lack of them.
The nature of FLOSS is that since everybody has access to the source code, anybody can contribute code that provides functionality, features, or capabilities that they think the program lacks. As such, the various front ends will, in theory, eventually provide the same capability as Libronix currently does.

Laridian is committed to the mobile market. Their focus tends to be on the "New Christian" to "Intermediate Christian" market. I'm not sure what will happen to them when Libronix gets more mobile apps. It should remain a player, but.

Those are the only organizations that develop Bible Study Software, whose future can be considered to be "safe". The only players that will survive are those that offer their products on multiple platforms, and whose products can be easily synchronized between platforms.

e-Sword is not on that list, because it is available for only one platform --- Windows.
Accordance is not on that list, because it is available for only one platform --- Mac OS X.
TheWord is not on that list, because it is available for only one platform --- Windows.

Yes, I know that the software can, in theory, be run on other platforms, if one wants to install the prerequisite emulation software. Emulation software is an iffy proposition that provides for a temporary solution. A permanent solution requires the software to run as a native program, in the native environment. Not masquerades of 64 bit Win7 as 32bit Win7. No usage of WINE, or CrossOver. No usage of Parallels.

The closest Rick has come to saying that e-Sword will not be ported to other platforms, is in pointing users of other platforms to e-Sword Live!. He also points current users of e-Sword on Windows to that website. The original intent of e-Sword Live! was to be a Web 2.0 edition of e-Sword.

The future for e-Sword is ambiguous.

For the last four or five years, Rick has not made any public announcements about changes to e-Sword, until after the version with the changes was released. The few private statements he has made, have been in nature of the usefulness of the feature to the "typical" e-Sword user.

e-Sword Resource Format Specification 2 freed e-Sword from the restraints imposed by Microsoft. Most of the changes make it much simpler to migrate e-Sword to other platforms. The restraints here are:
* Financial cost of the hardware to develop and test the program on;
* Financial cost of acquiring the appropriate tool chain;
* Time cost of learning to use the appropriate tool chain;

The challenge and future of Bible Software in a Mobile World is one approach to cross platform development;
Beyond Mobility is a different approach to cross platform development;

What people tend to forget is that e-Sword is a very small operation. Between eStudySource and e-Sword, Inc, I doubt that there are more than four people who are paid --- including independent contractors and part time employees.


Possible Futures:

* e-Sword remains in Windows, and dies when either Microsoft, or Windows dies;
* e-Sword goes cross-platform, as a closed source program;
* e-Sword becomes an open source program;
* e-Sword clones appear;

Personally, I think that e-Sword will become cross-platform. Whether that will happen first on mobile devices, or other desktops is something I do not know. If you write something for the iPhone/iPad/iPod, you might as well also port it to Mac OS X. If you write something for Android, you might as well as port it to both *Nix, and Symbian.

Commercially distributed closed source software can be successful on *Nix, if it is sigificantly better than the competition. Gratis closed source software, that is not FLOSS, can be successful on *Nix, but only if it is better than the FLOSS competition. In both instances, it is the user that defines, and quantifies "better".

As an open source program, a major issue is being able to retain the right to use, and distribute resources for which royalties are currently payable. Several organizations that currently permit resources to be distributed in e-Sword format, will not allow their resources to be distributed for FLOSS programs.

Clones of e-Sword have been around since at least 2002. Some of those clones could utilize e-Sword resources. Some of those clones could not. With the changes in e-Sword Resource Format Specification 2, clones will not, in theory at least, be able to utilize official e-Sword resources. That won't negate the ability to utilize the thousands of user created e-Sword resources out there. Whether or not the absence of those thirty five commercially distributed resources, and the gratis official resources will make a difference to the clone coders, is something that remains to be seen.

In the meantime, use e-Sword, and recognize when your Bible Study has grown beyond the capabilities and functions that e-Sword was designed for.

Full House

I'm not sure if this is a feature of e-Sword 9.6.0, or of Wine, or of Linux. At any rate, I can see the selected passage in the Bible, and commentary, and dictionary. This was not the case in earlier versions of e-Sword.

If the "wc -l" count is correct, there are 1 063 bibles, 225 commentaries, and 262 dictionaries displayed on the screen.



This pair of screen shots demonstrates why I advocate single row tabs. The only difference in how e-Sword is configured, is the value given to "Tab style".

e-Sword Topical File Organizer

This tool walks through the meta-data table of each Topical File, and selects those who match the keyword that the user requested. When it has run through all of the available topical files, it moves the selected resources to the directory that e-Sword expects to find its resources in.

This tool is currently in pre-alpha.

Current points of failure:
* New resources may not be correctly archived, prior to searching for the appropriate resources;
* New resources may not be correctly backed up, prior to searching for the appropriate resources;
* The resource is not correctly copied to the location that e-Sword expects to find it in;
* If a resource does not contain the meta-data table, it will be omitted from the search;
* Incomplete data in the meta-data table will result in relevant resources been omitted, simply because they were completely, and correctly labeled;


Roadmap:

• Reliably select and move topical files to the expected location;
• Add support for other e-Sword resource types;
• Automatically add the copyright table to resources it encounters that do not include it;
• Automatically add the meta-data table to resources it encounters that do not include it;
• Automatically fill in as much of the meta-data table as it can, without asking the user;
• Nudge the user to complete an incomplete meta-data table, as it encounters them;
• Nudge the user to complete an incomplete copyright table, as it encounters them;

toki lipu toki

This is a project I'm very slowly working on. I doubt I'll ever complete it.

This is a translation of the Orthodox Canon.
If I complete that, I'll tackle a translation of The Ethiopiac Canon of Eighty One (Narrower Canon). If I complete that I'll tackle The Ethiopiac Canon of Eighty One (Broader Canon).

Each verse is accompanied by a map depicting the location of the place that the verse either refers to, or was written at.

Each verse is accompanied by either a drawing, or a diagram that depicts the subject of the verse.

A sentence diagram of each verse, for the Aramaic, Coptic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, English, and toki pona sentence.

The footnotes for each verse contain:
* Morphological markup for the Aramaic, Coptic, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin;
* A concordance of each Aramaic, Coptic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, English, and toki pona word in the verse;
* Cross-references to other verses that cover the same subject matter. These cross-references are based on data from Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge, Naves Topical Bible, and similar public domain, and creative commons licensed sources;
* An explanation of why each specific word/phrase in the translation was chosen;
* Significant textual variants in the Aramaic, Coptic, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin that aren't discussed above, and why they were/were not used.);
* Aramaic, Coptic, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin gematria values for each word, verse, chapter, and book;

To cast this as an e-Sword resource, one is looking at:

* A set of map resources for the sentence diagrams in Aramaic;
* A set of map resources for the sentence diagrams in Coptic;
* A set of map resources for the sentence diagrams in Greek;
* A set of map resources for the sentence diagrams in Hebrew;
* A set of map resources for the sentence diagrams in Latin;
* A set of map resources for the sentence diagrams in English;
* A set of map resources for the maps;
* A set of map resources for the images/diagrams;
Due to the size --- 45 000 images --- the set would consist of roughly 900 resources.

* A gematria dictionary;
* A Latin concordance cast as a dictionary;
* A Greek concordance cast as a dictionary;
* A Hebrew concordance cast as a dictionary;
* A Coptic concordance cast as a dictionary;
* An Aramaic concordance cast as a dictionary;
* An English concordance cast as a dictionary;
* A toki pona concordance cast as a dictionary;
* An Aramaic, Coptic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, English, toki pona concordance cast as a commentary resource;
* An Aramaic, Coptic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin lexicon cast as a commentary resource;
* An Aramaic, Coptic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin lexicon cast as a dictionary resource;
* An Aramaic, Coptic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin critical apparatus cast as a commentary resource;
* The TSK, Naves etc based cross references cast as a commentary resource;
* The TSK, Naves etc based cross references cast as a dictionary resource;
* The explanation of why each phrase was chosen, cast as a commentary resource;


I initially started the translation using BibleStudy2006. I used this program for about a month, before giving up on it. The fundamental idea was good. The problem was the implementation.

BibleStudy2009, obtainable from http://bs2009.net/ had a plethora of improvements, that make it much easier for people to do Bible translations. The only flaw is that it requires .Net 3.0, which is only available for Windows.

[Disclaimer: I was a BibleStudy2009 beta tester. I did experience a bug, which Frank did fix.]

Since I no longer use Windows, I'm writing my own tool chain to help with the translations, sentence diagramming, and concordance creation.

As I complete each phase of this project, I will be releasing the associated e-Sword resource.