Go Bible - the mobile phone Bible viewer
Go Bible is a micro-Bible reader for J2ME (Java Micro Edition) enabled phones originally started with the fantastic work of Jolon Faichney.
There are several websites dedicated to providing Go Bible MIDlets in many different languages.
Go Bible Creator is an easy to use content creation tool (developer kit) for making new Go Bible applications.
Downloads available:
- David's Go Bible Shared folder on box.net – supersedes the former Go Bible repository – this is now the main location for David's Go Bible downloads in many languages and Bible versions. Also under this folder, the Go Bible Creator folder contains the current version of the developer kit.
- Jolon's original Go Bible site – software and downloads are stuck at version 2.2.6 – yet still useful for its description of how to use the Go Bible Creator developer kit
Brief feature list:
- simple navigation and scrolling
- compressed data storage
- bookmarks and history
- user preferences and program states remembered between runs
- fast searching through the full Bible, the current book or a selected group of books
- sending a selected verse[s] by SMS
- a choice of coloured themes
- words of Jesus displayed in red (only for applicable source texts)
- full Unicode support with Bibles or Bible portions in over 100 languages, including Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Thai, Hebrew, Greek, and many more
- user interface localization for different languages
Installation
There are several ways of installing a Go Bible application on a mobile phone: (the first method is usually the simplest)
- download to your PC or laptop then transfer to your phone via Bluetooth, Infrared or USB Cable
- download and installation via WAP (CrossWire does not provide this method)
- copy directly to the flash memory card that can be inserted into your phone
- send wirelessly from a another phone to your phone using Bluetooth
It's impossible to list all the pecularities and specifics we have encountered when trying to install Go Bible applications on various phone models from the many different mobile phone makers. While mobile phones are still poorly standardised you cannot rely that what works on one phone will work on another.
Dependent on the phone type, you may find that it's impossible to install a complete Bible. In this case try to install separate portions of the Bible split into smaller file size 'collections'. Published phone specifications rarely indicate whether there is a maximum file size for JAR file. For example, some brands limit at 1MB, others and 512KB. Depending on the Bible language, a complete Go Bible is usually between 1.5MB (e.g. English) and 2.3MB (e.g. Chinese). If such splits are unavailable for the particular translation or Bible version, please put in a request at the Go Bible Forum.
Most modern phones provide MIDP 2.0 or later. Very old phones required a MIDP 1.0 application, but we have ceased to support that edition.
Further problems occur due to inadequate font coverage (see below), or the inability to deal with bidirectional texts and/or glyph shaping. Some early Sony Ericsson phone models had difficulties displaying Arabic style text in the correct direction. Within the Go Bible Preferences menu there is an option to reverse text direction. Please try this out if you find there is a problem.
Fonts
Unfortunately not many mobile phones support the full Unicode font range within the manufacturer's firmware. If you find that your Go Bible application shows black/blank rectangles instead of some/all characters, then there is nothing we can do for you. Some mobile phone models might allow installation of extended fonts, but you would need to explore the documentation for your phone in these situations. Some popular phone brands can be 'rebranded' by third parties, but in most cases this could invalidate the warranty. Some such rebranding facilities may be able to change the phone language[s] used for displaying text and even for the writing languages (as needed by the Go Bible search option). Caveat emptor.
Touch screen only phones
Go Bible software version 2.4.x has rudimentary support for touch screen phones but it is not yet fully capable. Work is underway to further develop the software to provide full support for touch screen only phones. A progress report is available in the team blog. Further details are documented in this wiki page.