wxsword: was: Re: [sword-devel] New Windows SWORD GUI

[Jason Turner]

I have been thinking a lot about BibleStudy (aka wxSword) since sending my 
message to the list last night, and I have come to some conclusions. 
Hopefully they will work out for the best for everyone who has been, is and 
hopes to be involved.

I have been out of the sword loop for a little while, so I feel like I should 
start by giving an update on my life, tho I'm not sure how many people really 
remember me :).

I got involved with sword while I was unemployed, I just looked at my CVS logs 
and it seems that my first check in was on April 1, 03. I had been out of 
work Since Dec 8, 02 and had reached a point where I said "well, as long as I 
have all this free time, maybe I can do something for God." I started getting 
a burning drive to release free, extremely easy to use biblesoftware that 
could ultimately be given away on the street corner. I reached many of my 
goals, in that the current .iso can be popped into the drive and run from CD 
with absolutely no software being installed. 

The list of the goals that I had are here: http://sourceforge.net/docman/
display_doc.php?docid=16536&group_id=11936

At the time, I did not contribute to the main windows gui mainly because I did 
not have access to Borland C++, but I also wanted to make something that 
seemed to me a little less overwhelming (i.e. a move away from the monolithic 
tabbed interface that  (nothing personal) gnomesword and biblecs share)

I chose WX because it uses native widgets (controls) on any platform, so the 
apps always look "right." As opposed to QT, which has it's own widgets. And 
this fit well with my goal of the average joe on the street being able to use 
it and not be confused by it.

So, to continue with the updates, I got a job in July and dropped all work on 
the project ... I don't know why. That job was o.k. not very interesting 
work, and didn't pay much, but great benefits. 10 weeks ago I had a freakish 
accident where I bit a hole in my lip while trying to perform a flip in an 
inflatible castle at my neighbor's 3 year old's party. As a result I was home 
from work that monday. I applied for exactly one job. I had a whirlwind round 
of interviews and started 7 weeks ago.

I now have a job that I love, for the first time ever. Programming for a 
company that is developing thier own line of home automation products for  
highend homes. I am personally doing Linux - QT development at the moment, 
and working with a great group of guys. The average is something like a 
Master's degree in the appropriate discipline (CS, EE, etc) and > 10 years of 
experience.

I recently asked a co-worker how in the world I got my job compared to 
everyone else's experience (3.5 years, B.S. CS) He said it was because I was 
the only interviewee with Linux GUI development experience!! Why? BibleStudy! 
All of my primary development was on linux with occasional ports to windows 
(minimal effort usually required).

So, that aside, from what I have seen on the list in the recent weeks it seems 
that we all share common goals, a simple easy to use bible software, that 
works on low-to-high end machines (biblestudy should work properly on window 
'95 with unicode support). The other goals that don't seem to have been 
mentioned recently are: personal commentary/diary with integration with David 
Trotz's excellent reading planner.

So, to sum up, I want to pick back up work on BibleStudy, and finally try to 
get a real release out. I know that keeping a project organized takes a lot 
of work, I'm volunteering to [stay|become] the guy for that. Hopefully we can 
work together on this. Like I said before, my source is GPL so if you 
(whoever) want to go off on your own thing you are free to.

I have two suggestions to make:

1) We move future wx-windows related discussion to the wxsword-devel mailing 
list: http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/wxsword-devel it is fine with 
me if forks are discussed here.

2) PLEASE PLEASE Troy, if you made it this far in reading, can we have a 
little screen shot and maybe a link to  sourceforge and/or the wiki on the 
crosswire page so these questions about wxwindows version of sword stop 
comming up every few months with everyone trying to scramble to see which 
project is where. Thanks!

God Bless,
Jason Turner