ray.mercer

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for answering about the screenshot I posted.

The problem you are encountering is not an e-Sword issue. All e-Sword is doing is reading the information/data that is in the Database file. Going by appearances only, it seems that your language and UTF settings in the database file needs to be changed, and that can only be done with either SQLite Manager, SQLite Browser, or SQLite tool that one can use to change these setting.

Just to be clear, I removed all extraneous modules and left in only the 3 in the screenshot. They are all created by Rick (I did help a little at one point providing source and a hcked together version of one of the Japanese modules but he made the finished product). All three are downloaded from the eSword website and not editable by me.

Also about Japanese RTL and veritcal. You are right that Japanese MAY be written vertically and in that case it is normally read from right to left. But these modules are written in the more modern way of left to right and horizontally. If they have been encoded RTL that is a bug because they are not written that way.

-Ray

At the risk of getting even further off-topic, I feel the need to reply to this post.

eSword is written in the now abandoned language called Visual basic 6. Microsoft deprecated it in 2008. Many companies still have existing code in vb6 but every year there is less and less and less. Compared to modern languages vb6 is obsolete. 

I believe you are right that parts of eSword for WIndows are written in VB6. Microsoft just announced support for VB6 in the NEXT version of Windows so it is not "obsolete." It is true that they abondoned COM-based VB and, unfortunately, moved to VB.NET. So it is dying or dead - but obviously not obsolete. Rick just rewrote this software, didn't he. Don't you love eSword? I do!
 

VB6 was never known for speed. It's a slow language designed to help beginners learn to program. That is why Microsoft started VB. The language is like using training wheels. You gain ease of use but lack severely in coding options and optimization. Combine that with poor memory management techniques +  best practices coding violations =  sluggish software. 

This part is not true at all. For example I personally wrote a video capture application called LiveMail in VB5 which was included by Microsoft on their WIndows NT Multimedia Jumpstart Kit back when Windows NT was released. When VB first came out the alternative programming langauges for WIndows programming were Assembler and C/C++. I also programmed in those but VB3-6 was a much better language for Windows programming IMHO, It is just an oft-repeated urban legend that Classic VB was "slow." Try benchmarking Java or .NET against a native compiled VB app - you will see that it is orders-of-magnitude faster than either of these.

Bill Gates started Microsoft with a little product called MS Basic and VB for Windows wasn't created as training wheels. It was created as a great language/runtime/IDE for WIndows programming. Microsoft made a bad decision to stop making new versions of classic VB after VB6 but amazingly great software like eSword can still be written in it. Sorry about jumping in to correct you but as far as I am concerned that right there says a lot. I love eSword and I love VB6 - even though there will never be a VB7.

Regards,

Ray Mercer

Former Visual Basic MVP 1999-2005
http://www.raymercer...f-visual-basic/

By the way, if I use ONLY Japanese Bibles the above issue does not present. It is only if I add an English Bible WITH a Japanese Bible that the issue appears.

-Ray

Parallel Bible and Japanese Bibles (version 11.06)

When I select the Japanese Bibles included with eSword the Parallel Bible column spacing is incorrect and therefor it is hard to read the Japanese. See the screenshot below for an example. It doesn't matter how many Bibles I use or whether the Japanese Bibles are first, center, or last column. The behavior is always to make the Japanese column too narrow.

Perhaps the fact that Japanese has no word boundaries is contributing to this issue? If so it will probably affect these 11 languages:
https://en.wikipedia...word_boundaries

I hope this issue can be fixed. I love this software and want to recommend it to my Japanese friends (Mac is popular here too). Perhaps the column width can be calculated differently without too much effort?

Blessings,

Ray

I'm glad to see the e-Sword application being improved. I still use it almost daily for preparing bilingual English-Japanese sermons. My favorite Bible software.

As of version 11.06 the font selection dialog is broken on my test machine - Windows 10 Pro 64
Here is a screenshot - all font selector dropdowns are empty. My guess is because I am running Japanese windows with English language pack layered on top, the different codepage is cause problems. When I type chpg at a cmd prompt it returns 932 which means the default codepage is still Shift-JIS (Japanese).

I programmed VB way back in the old days but I know that it is possible to set the codepage on most controls so maybe setting the codepage programatically can allow these dialogs to work on non-English OS? If I am off-base forget it but the bug remains.