[sword-devel] Android SWORD

[SonWon]

I would be glad to provide input for the user interface.


On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 8:28 AM, mjdenham <mjdenham at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Hi Troy,
>
> I just thought I would mention that I have also been playing around with
> Android.
>
> I have spent the last few weeks creating a prototype bible viewer
> application for Android, but I just noticed Troy's messages in this forum.
> I took a slightly different technical approach to you and I don't know
> which
> is better and I also came at this project with the aim of creating a mobile
> bible viewer I could tweak and improve rather than specifically to write an
> Android front end for Sword.  By way of information I thought I would
> outline my approach and what led me to start.
>
> I have used Pocket e-Sword for many years but development has now ceased on
> Pocket e-Sword and it is already looking a bit old, as is WinMob that it
> runs on, so I started thinking what to use in the future.  Although I loved
> using Pocket e-sword there were one or two things that I would have loved
> to
> change if I had access to the source but the source was closed.  Most
> pocket
> bible apps seem to be closed source and many charge money or depend on
> being
> on-line so I began to think about writing my own.  I have been writing Java
> code for a living since the 90's.  I looked at Java ME which unfortunately
> is not supported by recent, popular, trend-setting phones like iPhone and
> Android and started going that route but there doesn't seem to be much
>
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1414288/j2me-vs-android-vs-iphone-vs-symbian-vs-windows-ce
> buzz around Java ME  at the moment.  I briefly thought of iPhone but refuse
> to learn Objective-C, buy a Mac, and bend over backwards to get the app
> into
> App Store.  Then I realised that Google have built Android primarily for
> Java Applications and Gartner predict that by 2012 Android will outsell the
> iPhone so I downloaded the Android SDK and am impresed by the application
> framework Google have put into Android.  Incidentally I went to a
> fascinating talk on Android by Reto Meier yesterday evening.
>
> As Android hosts Java apps so well it seemed a good idea to use java front
> to back so I downloaded the  jSword and sword-Common projects back-end to
> serve the OSIS documents and started creating a Java front-end for jsword
> on
> Android so I have now been doing that for the last couple of weeks off and
> on.  I included the jsword and common jars in my Android app and simplified
> the xslt template I found in bible-desktop and now have a basic bible
> viewer
> app.
>
> Troy, I am interested to see that you use jni to access a C back-end.  Is
> that right?  Does this give better performance or is there another reason.
>
> In the front end I am currently using a TextView but briefly used a WebView
> which has better html support. I may have to switch back to WebView.  I
> tried to copy the PocketSword verse selection screen but failed so I am
> just
> using 3 combos for now.
>
> I haven't used Crosswire code before and it took me a while to get used to
> OSIS and jsword but the code looks great and I am now familiar enough with
> jsword to find my way around the necessary parts.
>
> Here is a screen print of the current state:
> http://sword-dev.350566.n4.nabble.com/file/n2248754/android-bible1.jpg
>
> For now I am still happily trying to improve on the prototype but I could
> switch and contribute to a central project  with others.  My only aim is to
> create a good open source bible I can tweak and that others may find useful
> too.
>
> Best regards
> Martin
> --
> View this message in context:
> http://sword-dev.350566.n4.nabble.com/Android-SWORD-tp360475p2248754.html
> Sent from the SWORD Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
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