99 replies to this topic

[Vaughn]

Dear Swordsman,

Those of you with the God given talent to understand making and the way to do it, should get together and create a "module making for Dummies" program, or pdf, or what ever for those of us with the desire but the fear. I just rebuilt a toliet so I know I can make a module or two. I have made simple topic modules in version 7 but with the change in format I am a little scared to try.

[DoctorDaveT]

Having some formatting options in T3 would be nice. For instance, I'd prefer this:

01 - First Chapter

or this

01 First Chapter

over this:

01-First Chapter

I just prefer the little extra white space.

Nevertheless, T3 is a great tool! It has more than doubled my output since I began using it in 2009. Thank you, BH, for making this automagic available.

[BH.]

Understand that I minimized the white space because the topic names in the the e-Sword dropdown has a limited number of characters.

[BH.]

OK DDT and Josh, I have implemented this, I've added another #define variable which is optional, prefix2. The syntax is like this:
#define prefix2=" stuff goes here "
The "stuff goes here" is what appears between the number and the text of your topics.

Example:
#define prefix=MT #1
#define prefix2=" "

÷Table of Contents
1. The First Chapter
2. The Second
...

÷The First Chapter.

The output to e-Sword will look this this, assuming 15 chapters:
topic 1:
MT 00.1 Table of Contents
MT 01 The First Chapter.
...
MT 15 The Last Chapter

If prefix2=" <---> "
Then the output would be:
MT 00.1 <---> Table of Contents
MT 01 <---> The First Chapter
...

This will be in the next iteration of T3 and T4.

Edited by BH., 06 January 2012 - 04:38 PM.

[Josh Bond]

Dear Swordsman,

Those of you with the God given talent to understand making and the way to do it, should get together and create a "module making for Dummies" program, or pdf, or what ever for those of us with the desire but the fear. I just rebuilt a toliet so I know I can make a module or two. I have made simple topic modules in version 7 but with the change in format I am a little scared to try.

Hey Vaughn,

Well, I've explained previously (in this or another thread) how to get started making a module.

1) Download Tooltip 3 (see BH's signature for the link).

2) It's a word processor so copy, paste, and format text as you normally would.

A topic is structured like this (ignore the coloring of the text, it's an ipboard thing...)

÷Topic name

What do you want to say here?

A commentary is structured like this:

÷John 3:16

Your comments about John 3:16 here

You then click Modules > Topics or Commentary to compile your text into a module. It really is that easy! I don't know how it could be any easier. If you can type an email, you can make an e-Sword module. All of this stuff I'm showing with Word is time saving tips for very large module creation. If you've never made a module, focus on steps 1-2 above.

Josh

[Josh Bond]

And this largely concludes my MS Word tutorials. I've shown you folks everything, at least in principle, that I know. I haven't shown you an example for everything possible, but I have shown you the principles you can apply to countless situations. You can use Word to quickly navigate long documents (first tutorial), manipulate large amounts of text, and even automatically (in some cases) generate your commentary, topic, or dictionary headers/divisions for Tooltip 3/4 (something many module makers spend hours and hours doing).

You can do a lot with Microsoft Word, and without it, the Pulpit Commentary, Biblical Illustrator, James Hastings Bible Characters, F.B. Meyer's Commentary, and lots of other resources would not have been accomplished. I'll still be around to help you with your Word questions, but if you've read all this and want more, check out the MS Word regular expression articles here and here (note the nice chart at the end of the article). If you combine Word's regular expression searching with the ability to search for fonts, styles, bold text, regular text, paragraph elements, etc then MS Word's power-to-knowledge ratio is the best I've ever seen.

From here, I'm going in a different direction as far as text manipulation goes. I will always use MS Word for e-Sword Modules. But, the author of another Bible software (Tim Morton) has recently peaked my interest in Python as a far better way to manipulate text. Python isn't really a true programming language--it's more of a scripting language. It will let me combine regular expression searches (like ones I've shown you) with logic and logic flow control, something a text editor/word processor cannot.

For example, I already have python code already that will automatically integrate Lange's end-of-chapter footnotes to inline footnotes. Python will really expedite the creation of Langes. Another example: Python will make possible the slicing of e-Sword's Gnomon of the New Testament into verse by verse comments. Python will help fix the font issues in the other Greek texts. Python will make a lot of things possible that would have required hundreds or thousands of man hours. As I get better with Python, it will greatly expand our ability to import, clean, and divide text from other sources that were just not feasible before. I may start a blog on Python, sharing my scripts and tools. But I probably won't post it in the forums, as it's outside of the scope of this forum and our audience.

[DSaw]

But I probably won't post it in the forums, as it's outside of the scope of this forum and our audience.

Wow did you just call us dumb

[Josh Bond]

Wow did you just call us dumb

Haha no, but this isn't a programming forum and some elements of programming are assumed when looking at python code (or any other type of code for that matter). And also, you're no longer in a point and click environment, like MS Word is.

[DSaw]

sense of humor good

[journey]

I'll say for myself that I appreciate these how-to threads. I've just about decided to get Microsoft Office 2010 to have these capabilities and others. One thing I've learned for sure is that I do things the hard and slow way. Thankfully, my largest project was only about 5 mb. I've learned a few things from the how-to threads here, and I'm beginning to work a little smarter and faster. I mainly just want to say THANKS.