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<font face="FreeSerif">Xiphos 3.2.0 was let loose earlier today.
Source tarball and Win32 installer are available at
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/gnomesword/files/Xiphos/3.2.0/">https://sourceforge.net/projects/gnomesword/files/Xiphos/3.2.0/</a>.
Fedora builds will be forthcoming. Ubuntu tarballs (because we
still lack a packager) are also available. See /topic on our IRC
channel.<br>
<br>
Aside from bug fixes, it has 2 feature enhancements that I think
are interesting and important.<br>
<br>
One is the generalization of companion modules, something I first
did several years ago, but not very completely. This is something
requested by Wycliffe when I met some of their folks at
BibleTech. Basically, if a module's configuration includes
"Companion=Abc,Def,Ghi" then when you open the module, you are
asked whether you want to open the others. Of that set, the first
listed will be opened in the main window, and the rest will be
opened in detached windows. Note that there is no engine support
implied by this; it's entirely a UI issue. The reason for this
feature is that Wycliffe produces multiple commentaries to go with
a single Bible. The particular use case for which this was
intended was when they have a "fast" commentary (verse by verse)
as well as a "slow" commentary (more detailed review of longer
sections of the Bible). The idea would be to have the "fast"
commentary as the 1st listed companion, and the "slow" commentary
as the 2nd, leading to them both being open and co-navigating as
the Bible is used.<br>
<br>
The other is BibleSync. This is a shared navigation protocol over
local network multicast. It has several interesting use cases:<br>
- you have several apps with which you are working at once, that
you want to navigate together.<br>
- you are working closely in a small team, such as perhaps
translators, whose Bible programs should nav together.<br>
- you are in a classroom environment, where there is a Speaker who
xmits nav to the Audience. The Speaker receives no nav and the
Audience transmits no nav.<br>
<br>
One of the better particular uses of BibleSync is sharing verse
lists. Say you've got a weaker app on a mobile device and a
desktop with strong search capability. Search on the desktop app,
send results to the mobile app. It's pretty cool to watch in
action.<br>
<br>
The base code for BibleSync is extremely general, totally agnostic
about the greater application in which it lives. It is unaware of
The Sword Project at all. I've attached a file "biblesync.7"
which is a man page for the programming reference. The intention
is to pull the BibleSync code out of Xiphos into a separate
library of its own so as to make it available for any app. A
number of other apps' authors have indicated interest in and
support for this, including theWord, Accordance, Laridian,
BibleAnalyzer, and Scripture4All. I think it would be neat if a
bunch of Sword Project apps could gain this ability in the
relatively near term, but of course that's up to each app's team.<br>
<br>
You might experiment with BibleSync and tell me what you think.
I've been running as many as 7 simultaneous Xiphoi on assorted
real hardware and VMs, making them all follow along with each
other. Beware the existence of your firewall; either disable it
or punch a hole for UDP port 22272. See Xiphos' manual under
Preferences for further discussion.<br>
<br>
--karl<br>
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