[bt-devel] Bibletime 2 testing

[Greg Hellings]

On 8/13/05, Joachim Ansorg <nospam+bt-devel at joachim-ansorg.de> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> that's pretty cool! I'll test the exe as soon as possible. I guess we 
> could
> even link Qt statically.


If you want me to try that, just let me know. Not being the most proficient 
cross-platform developer, how would that be done differently from the 
current system? I think it would make a lot of sense in real releases for 
Windows/Qt4 to have the library linked statically into the exe, thus 
simplifying installation. Alternatively, one of the advantages of the .dll 
set-up, as I understand it, is that someone would not have to have code 
replicated in multiple (in this case Qt4 based) applications.


> > > 6. In a sudden burst of inspirational genius moments before I went to
> > > bed, I looked again in the Qt directory - there is no debugging 
> version
> > > of the libqtmain, so the libqtmaind is not there. So I changed 
> everything
> > > to building a release version and found that ld.exe bailed out on
> > > -lsword. I fixed that by adding a line to LIBS that included my
> > > libsword.a and the program built perfectly. Now, true... I don't have 
> a
> > > debug version available under Windows, but I do now have a 
> bibletime2.exe
> > > built.
> 
> In Linux I just set symlinks from the non-debug to the debug version to be
> able to debug the test program.


Symlinks are wonderful... when will Windows have something that handy? :) I 
thought about using a regular Windows link, but I don't know if it would 
function.


> > Just as a final note, I much prefer the UI of the current Bibletime. I
> > > think the strongest feature of Bibletime and MacSword is the fact that
> > > the windows within can be rearranged freely, rather than relying on
> > > pre-positioned panels with sliders. But I realize this is mainly a
> > > proof-of-concept at the moment. I look forward to the upcoming 
> success!
> 
> I think the UI of BT 1.x is fine but is not usuable for many open windows. 
> And
> the toolbars eat up too much space.
> I thought of a concept similair to konquerors "split current view 
> left/right",
> and "splitt top/bottom". Each tab window could be splitted to hold module
> displays like "Bible on the left, lexicon in the lower right and a 
> commentary
> in the upper right corner". And the Bible part could display some Bibles 
> in
> parallel.
> That way we have everything important in one window and we can have 
> several
> windows open without cluttering the screen.
> We'd have one toolbar which changes if you change a tab.


That sounds massively complicated in writing, but if I hear you right, it 
sounds like you want a setup that is similar to Biblestudy/BibleCS, where 
sliders are used to resize a few different panels, but the user can hide 
panels. But what do you do when user A wants Bible in the upper right, 
commentary in the upper left and lexicon on the bottom, while user B wants 
commentary in the upper right, lexicon in the upper left and Bible on the 
bottom while user C only wants commentary and Bible? You would need to 
program in a ridiculous number of options. Also, each panel would require 
its own navigation pane.

I think it might be better to keep the multiple tabs, like you are 
recommending, and allow a few basic setups, like "left/right," "top/bottom," 
"left/top right/top bottom," "top left/bottom left/right" and so on (still a 
LOT of nearly redundant coding, if you ask me) and allow each of those 
panels to hold any type of text. Then, possibly Gabriel's idea could come in 
handy with the "Press F7 to bring up a navigation dialog" type of navigation 
from the active panel.

That said, I still like the freedom of moving and resizing child windows as 
desired, but might it be possible to do that, while using Gabriel's idea for 
navigation and/or utillizing one toolbar that changes as different child 
windows are selected? I think the free-floating window panes is one of the 
strongest points in favor of Bibletime/MacSword when compared with 
Gnomesword, Biblestudy, and BibleCS.

--Greg
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