Category: Software & Technology

New version of SwordSearcher released; adds Dispensational Truth

Yes, I’ve been pretty quiet here lately — with good reason.

Version 5.4 of SwordSearcher Bible Software is finally released!

For years I’ve received requests for Clarence Larkin’s Dispensational Truth. I’m happy to report that it is now part of the SwordSearcher study library, including all of the charts.  This was a pretty big job.  The charts in the book were not suitable for scanning as they often spanned pages and just couldn’t be properly combined into single images.  So, I obtained large-format prints of the charts, then had them scanned with hardware designed to archive large blueprints.  The result is the best possible scans of these old illustrations.

You can see what else has been added here.

SwordSearcher again the “People’s Choice” at SIC 2008

For the second year in a row, SwordSearcher Bible Software has been awarded the SIAF People’s Choice for Best Personal Interest software. The award was announced at the annual Software Industry Conference in Boston, MA on July 19.

I wasn’t able to attend the conference this year.  I’m sorry I missed it.  But I’m certainly pleased to get the award again.  To whomever is voting for SwordSearcher: thank you!  (I’ve never solicited votes, so I don’t really know who you are.)

SwordSearcher Modules

Ever since SwordSearcher 4.0, there have been users sharing modules (Commentaries, Books, etc) that they have built for the software. There are quite a few of them floating around the net, so it’s high time I did something to help SwordSearcher Bible Software users find them in case there are items of interest in their study.

SSModules: Free Module Downloads for SwordSearcher Bible Software is currently in “beta.” It’s beta because there isn’t much listed there yet, but I’m working on it.  My goal is two-fold:

  1. Index many of the modules available from third parties.
  2. Upload my own “extra” modules that I have built but not added to SwordSearcher’s Deluxe study library for one reason or another.

Work will be ongoing. I don’t know how long it will be “in beta” (certainly not perpetual beta like a Google internet service), but it’s usable now, so have a visit if you’re a SwordSearcher user.  You may find something you like.

SwordSearcher 5.3 out the door

SwordSearcher Bible Software version 5.3 is finally released. Yay!

In looking over the revision history, I think this is one of the most significant updates since 5.0 — not because of new content, but just because of new code. The new user editor should really be useful for people writing their own personal notes in the software, and the new Scan Text for Verse References tool should be an all-around time saver for anyone who reads Bible study stuff on the web.

Here’s what it does:

SwordSearcher Scan Text for Verse References tool

In the above example, I copied in text from a web page using the Windows clipboard. Each reference is automatically highlighted by SwordSearcher, and I can hold the mouse pointer over a reference to read the Bible text as I read along in the article. Obviously, clicking the verse links performs actions such as moving the Bible panel to the passage or loading the references in a Verse List panel.

This even works with “old style” commentaries that use Roman numerals for chapter identifiers.

(Geek alert: the rest of this blog post is programmer stuff.)

In order to handle this automatic verse reference discovery, I built a custom parser that uses a combination of Regular Expressions and good ‘ol Delphi code. SwordSearcher can understand over 2,000 forms of Bible book names and abbreviations. Jan Goyvaerts’ program RegEx Buddy was an invaluable aid in developing the RegExes SwordSearcher uses internally — I highly recommend it if you have to build RegExes in your line of work.

Anyway, version 5.3 was a lot of fun to develop. Now I can switch gears for a little while and do some other work that’s been waiting for me…

Web work can be fun; Forge update.

Web design can be fun… when you’re doing something new, making progress, and getting good results.

I spent the last couple of days re-designing the SwordSearcher website. It was overdue for an update — it still had a “2004” kind of feel to it. It was a nice change of pace from coding and doing Uncle Sam’s paperwork.

For the curious: I used Adobe Illustrator, Corel Paint Shop Pro, and Dreamweaver.

Another note: I updated Forge (a module build tool for SwordSearcher) to 2.0 earlier this week. It now automatically finds verse references for hyperlinking in the SwordSearcher display panels and the Verse Guide, so it’s no longer necessary to pre-tag verse references or rely on a third party program to do it. It even handles chapters written in roman numerals. The next update to SwordSearcher will incorporate the same verse parsing system for the in-program module editing features. Stay tuned…