13 replies to this topic

[Vaughn]

Dear Swordsman, our friend David Cox is making modules at a unbelievable rate for The Word program. They are posted at: http://www.twmodules.com/! We should figure out a way to convert them into e-Sword modules and have them available here. I would love to see a programmer come up with a way to do this. However, I do understand that this can be very complicated at time. I would also like to give the credit for the modules to David and then explain you did the conversion if that is even wanted by the person that does it. Anyway, I get a few updates from this site each day of new postings. Of course just food for thought
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[pfpeller]

Hi Vaughn,

Josh has posted previously step by step instructions on how to convert theWord modules to e sword modules. If you would like to attempt it, please see this post.
http://www.biblesupp...__fromsearch__1

Blessings,
Peter

[Vaughn]

I have been able to get in contact with a programmer friend and we is going to look into what he can come up with to assist in these conversions. I will let you know what I find out and come up with as it develops.

[APsit190]

Hi Vaughn,
Josh has posted previously step by step instructions on how to convert theWord modules to e sword modules. If you would like to attempt it, please see this post.
http://www.biblesupp...__fromsearch__1

Blessings,
Peter

I have been able to get in contact with a programmer friend and we is going to look into what he can come up with to assist in these conversions. I will let you know what I find out and come up with as it develops.

Pete and Vaughn,
I've been looking at this quite seriously, and to be honest there has been a (proverbial wheel) program invented for this very kind of thing, and I think all it needs to be done for the conversion of The Word resources to e-Sword resources is just the tweaking of the code in that program to convert from Database A to Database B.

If you guys remember, Clint Branham had written a doozy little module conversion program called eSword9Converter. This program converted MS Access database file to SQLite database files (See screenshots below).

eSword9Converter in single conversion mode
[attachment=409:es9con_single.jpg]

eSword9Converter in batch conversion mode
[attachment=410:es9con_batch.jpg]

Considering (going by Josh's post to which you, Pete, linked to in your reply to Vaughn) that both the Word and e-Sword resources are SQLite database files, I don't think that it would be difficult to see if Clint could write a similar program that would convert The Word resources to the e-Sword format.

Click here to email Clint, and see how he may be able to help you guys out.

I hope all this may be helpful to you. If this can work, then it will be great.

Blessings,

[pfpeller]

Stephen,

That is a good suggestion. Costas Sterigou has written a very good program that imports e sword resources to theWord. I am sure that a program could be written that does it the other way around.

The program would have to take into account that theWord modules can be compressed from within the program and many of them are in RVF format and not rtf and need to be converted back to rtf first. You can convert a theWord module back to rtf from within the theWord itself. You can also de-compress the theWord resources from within theWord. I am not sure how easy it would be for a program to be able to do these two tasks independent of theWord.

Blessings,
Peter

[APsit190]

That is a good suggestion. Costas Sterigou has written a very good program that imports e sword resources to theWord. I am sure that a program could be written that does it the other way around.

Hi Pete,
Yeah, and guess what, he had initially written that kind of program when e-Sword was using MS Access database files. So considering that both The Word and e-Sword resources files are in SQLite format, then conversion shouldn't be a too bigger hassle. Well in theory anyway.

So, well hopefully, Clint might be able to help out, and if so, then a lot of prayers would be answered.

An alternative (this could be regarded at best as unethical, at worst illegal, or, O well, so what - I don't give a toss attitude ) is reverse engineer Costas conversion tool and, ummm, ummm, ummm, use his code to do it for e-Sword. What a way to go! Great sort of fun stuff to do.

Blessings,

[Josh Bond]

All the conversion utility needs to do is open the database, execute the SQL statements to change the schema, and save the database as a new filename. That's the main part of what my instructions involve--manually executing SQL statements. The SQL statements are already done--so the programmer just needs code to execute the SQL statements.

Issue #1
There really can't be a completely automated conversion of TheWord Books to e-Sword topics. The Word calls its book resource "Books". e-Sword calls its book resource "Topics". TheWord uses a relational database schema to determine the display order of chapters in the book modules. e-Sword uses an antiquated numbering "system" for display order, such as 0.0, 0.1, etc for front matter chapters like Title Page and Preface. And e-Sword uses 01, 02, etc for main chapter titles. TheWord stores the display ordering data. e-Sword just sorts alphabetically/alphanumerically. So you lose TheWord's display order data. A human will have to manually number the chapters, and front mater material in the order they should appear when TheWord Books are converted to e-Sword topics.

Issue #2
The other issue is, TheWord uses real RTF hyperlinks for scripture references. This will make a mess of the module in e-Sword 10. So the conversion utility will need to, at a minimum, strip the RTF hyperlinks from the text. Ideally, it would convert the RTF hyperlinks to e-Sword tooltips. That's the other part of what my (manual) conversion instructions explain.

[APsit190]

TheWord stores the display ordering data. e-Sword just sorts alphabetically/alphanumerically. So you lose TheWord's display order data. A human will have to manually number the chapters, and front mater material in the order they should appear when TheWord Books are converted to e-Sword topics.

Hi Josh,
It's actually programmably possible, and there's no need for any actual physical editing required. Well in theory anyway. All that is required is in the way one sets the arrays to sort the data within two kinds of boolean statements - if and for statements. One may also need to have this placed in an iterative (while) statement as well so that it count and sort through the data. We know what the rtf code is that e-Sword uses, and basically all it should take is one to replaced with the other, and then sort it all with the arrays within a loop counter.

You know, you evoke my thinking of how to solve programming difficulties. I realize that there is no one simple solution to this, but as Pete put it, " Costas Sterigou has written a very good program that imports e sword resources to The Word," then the reality is a program is extremely possible to do it the other way around, and I don't think its all that complicated and messy, where no physical editing is required when using such a program.

You see, Josh, software are developed where they have the capability to convert data from one format to another. Open Office is an excellent example of this in where it converts MS Word documents to OO with extremely minimal format loss (maybe only approx 1 or 2 percent if that). So, taking these things into consideration, then looking at what Sterigou has done, then we need to look at the how to do it part of it.

Blessings,

Edited by APsit190, 25 February 2012 - 06:55 PM.

[Josh Bond]

Hi Josh,
It's actually programmably possible, and there's no need for any actual physical editing required. Well in theory anyway. All that is required is in the way one sets the arrays to sort the data within two kinds of boolean statements - if and for statements. One may also need to have this placed in an iterative (while) statement as well so that it count and sort through the data. We know what the rtf code is that e-Sword uses, and basically all it should take is one to replaced with the other, and then sort it all with the arrays within a loop counter.

Sounds like you have it figured out. If that's all there is to it, then you can whip this out tonight, right?

Seriously, the loop counter's great but e-Sword doesn't show Topics based on the order of the database. It shows Topics based on an alphanumeric/alphabetical sort of the value preceding each topic entry. The best a program could do is append a number ( 0 or 00 or 000 to 1 or 10 or 100) to number each topic based on the program's determination of how the Topics appear in TheWord (whew, got all that?). But even still, manual editing would be required to differentiate front matter material from chapter topics, as only a human can tell the difference. That's not the end of the world, though. It's better than what we have now.

Now, going the other way from e-Sword to TheWord is easy. Super easy. Because TheWord displays chapter topics based on data in the database, rather than using an alphabetical sort "system".

Edited by Josh Bond, 25 February 2012 - 07:14 PM.

[Josh Bond]

My good Brent could code Tooltip 4 to read TheWord modules into Tooltip like he currently reads e-Sword books into Tooltip. That would be cool. TheWord uses a very different and much more complex schema, though.