LarryG

That's an amazing list of Puritan divines you've collected!  I only wish I had another 10 years to work with something of this nature, it's like looking in an ancient stream at gemstones and golden nuggets.  It's always a blessing to read the thoughts of Godly men, to hear what was upon their hearts.  I must think on this, I have had several problems storing my work in the 'cloud' and it's something I avoid.  Thanks for bringing this project to Biblesupport.com.  Blessings

Hello Steven,

I was digging in my file archives and found several versions of eSword that you do not have listed.  When I downloaded the operating program, I  usually downloaded all the files supplied by eSword.  I wanted to keep everything in a complete package.  Then also, in the early days, Yahoo Groups put out several files and there was another site (esnips) who posted sites.  I got what I could, but everything is in it's own file folder...kinda.

I've also a load of other Bible software, but the simple Bible games seem to be the best - along with the memorization programs offered 15-20 years ago.

Anyway, here's a list of the eSword program executable's that I can give you, assuming gMail will allow me to email software.

These old files take up over 29G on one of my pocket hard drives, so think it would be a little hard to email you everything.  LOL  I use a  ->S...L...O...W<-   Wi/Fi connection!    God bless you my friend.

v 7.00
v 7.05
v 7.77
v 7.83
v 7.85
v 7.98
v 8.0.4
v 8.0.5

Let me know if I can be of assistance.  Larry G.

Good job, well done!  Now to pray and wait!

Blessings!

I went to your website; very interesting....and BRIGHT!  I'm sure it will be a blessing, if it hasn't already blessed several people including myself.  You can never go wrong lifting up Jesus Name, the Redeemer of all who call upon Him.  Thanks. lg.

I've heard the following:

 

Most of the good materials out of copyright that can be distributed freely have already been done;

 

The source materials for many works are so poor or incomplete that they are difficult or impossible to use;

 

Permissions were denied on many good materials still in copyright.

"Good" in many cases is strictly a 'subjective' term, similar to the difference betwixt 'meat' and 'milk'.  There are literally hundreds of texts available to be processed into eSword modules, but the effort to transform these texts is more than most people are willing to expend.

Perhaps 'value' or how a person values an eSword module would be one perspective.  Transforming an old text of a missionaries biography doesn't seem to have much value when compared to a commentary, except for the young believer wondering how he may serve Christ amongst non-believers (which are increasing daily).  Apologetics and Islam is another group of modules missing.  Vast numbers of hymnals are available to feed the hungry hearts for those willing to sit down and transform them.  Then, of course, there are the many "Complete Works of ___ (fill in the blank)" available. 

Acorns grow into mighty oak trees, given half the chance....

As highly as I might esteem myself, I find that I am NOT the Holy Spirit.  At best, I'm merely something God may choose to use.  Likewise, God might choose to use the author of any book I would transform into an eSword module.  His tool, His choice.  I've not been given permission to change syntax or intent, rather just transcribe the authors verbiage.  I can be assured that the Holy Spirit will only use those things which promote the work of Christ on the readers heart.

While doing a Bible search for the word 'evening' in the KJV, the screen gave me 59 verses found, 60 matches.  Good, so far.  I scrolled down to 1 Kings 17:6 and double clicked the verse.  The Bible module went to that verse like it has done in the past, yet when I accepted the search by clicking OK, the Bible module reverted back up to the first verse with the word 'evening' in it - Genesis 1:5.  Strange.  I tried several times and the results were the same with different words selected.

I use Notepad++ as my text editor to write letters, and copy verses from eSword with it's 'Copy Verses' utility.  For the past 5 years this has worked very well, but with eSword v11 the copy function doesn't seem to work.  Usually I just use my mouse buttons, but I've also tried to use the keyboard shortcuts and the results are the same.  It appears to 'copy' the verses, but when I go to post them onto the text editor nothing transfers.

Does anyone else have this problem, or is this a new feature and not a bug?  Thanks for your feedback.

..... For almost all of them (that I've looked at) it seems they are little more than a .jpg and an OCRd .pdf file. Surely we don't re-key the .pdf file in order to make a module?! What's the trick?

Hmmm....  Trick?  There's no trick involved, just a lot of hard work correcting the OCR'd file, correcting spellings and punctuation, along with scripture references - then arranging your text into a professional, easy-to-read layout..  Josh Bond, the owner of this site is good doing this (IMO), but there are others also who have the ability to creat complex modules.

Making an eSword module, from my experience, is very labor intensive, laking dozens of hours just to make one small TOPX or DEVX module.  As you are probably aware, the 'ministry' to the saints is about 90% just plain hard work, mixed with about 10% spiritual labor.  I might have those percentiles wrong - ask your church janitor, he'll give you a more accurate breakdown.

I hope you don't consider this pedantic, but in the 'downloads' section of Biblesupport there is a section for 'Raw' files to be converted over to eSword modules. There are all types of files available, from commentaries to missionary biographies, including history, poetry and multi-volume works by men of great scholarship.  Actually there are over 100 pages of available works to be converted to eSword modules.

I suggest you find a topic or book that you're interested in, and then go to work on that text.  Scan through the forum headings and posts, there is an abundance of instructions on how to convert a text to an eSword module.  You will also need to use the Tool TipTool NT  v2.42.  This is software specifically developed for making eSword modules of all types.  When you download the software be sure to also download the Tooltip NT User's Guide.

Whatever your decision will be, I honestly suggest that you focus on Christ - the Light of The World.  There is scholarship aplenty, but only Christ can deliver.  Christ and testimonies of those who've followed hard after Him, pressing close into the Shekinah Glory, are what will build up the saints.

The author of the multi-volume devotional commentary has his own wikipedia page.  Here is a little blurb upon his background, along with a couple of paragraphs explaining what the Oxford Movement was about - which also has it's own wiki page.

-----

The Reverend Isaac Williams (1802–1865) was a prominent member of the Oxford Movement (or "Tractarians"), a student and disciple of John Keble and, like the other members of the movement, associated with Oxford University. A prolific writer, Williams wrote poetry and prose including the well known Tract: "On Reserve in Communicating Religious Knowledge".

The Oxford Movement was a movement of High Church Anglicans, eventually developing into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose members were often associated with the University of Oxford, argued for the reinstatement of lost Christian traditions of faith and their inclusion into Anglican liturgy and theology. They conceived of the Anglican Church as one of three branches of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

It was also known as the Tractarian Movement after its series of publications Tracts for the Times, published between 1833 and 1841. The group was also disparagingly called Newmanites (pre-1845) and Puseyites (post-1845) after two prominent Tractarians, John Henry Newman and Edward Bouverie Pusey.

Hello,

 

I'm very new to e-sword module creation. Can anyone tell me if it's possible to create a module from the many books available to read on google books. I believe many have a public domain copy right. I currently use Bible Works and it links to many eternal resources available through google. But I would like to access them offline with e-sword if possible.

 

Thanks

Hi Dan;  Wouldn't that be great to be able to read PDF's files within the eSword program, maintainging a PDF library within the eSword program itself?  Yup.  Neat, but the eSword developers are not to that point yet.  They did advance us into SermonAudio.com, so that's a great leap forward - along with the new Reference Resource Window.

If, however, you would wish to format some of those Google resources, it's a fairly straightforward process - but time consuming.  Two other places that have a vast amount of good solid Christian books in PDF formatting is:

The Internet Archive (search page):  http://archive.org/advancedsearch.php

Princeton Theological Seminary Digital Inititives page:  http://diglib.ptsem.edu/

Many of these resources are cross-posted in Google, but some are not.  However, if you absolutely MUST have a Google book, and it's completely readable public domain, it can be downloaded in PDF and in TEXT.  The text copy is usually (BUT NOT ALWAYS) a poor OCR of the PDF.  Sometimes their text copies are the best available text copies around - I've made several eSword modules from them.  The problem is that the book itself (when downloading a text of the book) must be copy/pasted 3-4 pages at a time.  It takes 30-45 min. to copy paste a 500 page book.  To find the Text version, just go to the gear cog in the upper  right of the Google book page for each available book -- the same place you would go to download the PDF copy.

I copy/paste into a text editor, and go from there.  These are doable projects, but they take time.  Having and being able to run your own OCR software is the best, but that's not always possible.

Blessings. lg

Hello!   There are several things that you can do to speed up eSword.

1]  Make sure that you have loaded in your Resource menu only those modules you will actually use.  The eSword folder can be full of modules, but only have checked those that you use.  The 'Resource Menu' is found under the 'Options' tag on the Upper Toolbar of the eSword software.

2]  If you do not use your Dictionaries or Commentaries, disable the verse/word links.  On both the Dictionary window and the Commentary window these link functions are indicated by a 'chain' and by an 'open book'

3]  Sort through your modules and see if you have duplicates, but with different names assigned to the modules.  The best way to do this is to download this software, called the eSword Library Manager.

http://www.biblesupp...ibrary-manager/

Play around with it a little and discover it's utility.  You can change the name on the tabs, place the tabes in order you want them, etc.  It's a very useful type of software tool.  If for some reason you want to actually go into a module database (to change the module's name entirely) then you can also use this tool.  http://www.biblesupp...tabase-browser/

4]  What I have done is generate a spare folder within the eSword program on the hard drive where I keep modules that I will not use every few weeks.  This takes them out of circulation, but they're readily available when I want them - just cut/paste back into the eSword folder.

5]  Also Dave Thomason has posted upon his blog  < http://www.doctordavet.com/ > how to better arrange a person eSword for maximume use.  Look in the right hand colume about half way down.

That's about all I can think of.

Has anyone seriously considered making a module of "The Emphasized Bible" by  J.B. Rotherham?

Yes, I am aware of several eSword Bible modules that are labled 'Rotherham', yet they are very deficient.  The reason is that the Bible foodnotes are not present and neither are the special verbal emphasis marks.  These 'emphasis' markings are what gave the Rotherham Bible it's unque accuracy - even if it did use the W&H text.

Anyway, The Emphasized Bible by J.B. Rotherham, was originally published by Samuel Bagster and Sons in 1902 and is in the Public Domain, (Kregal still publishes this Bible in dead tree format) but making an accurate module would be a real work of patience and love.  A quick cut/paste would not work - every word would need tweeked with the proper markings, along with an attendent module that deals with the footnotes.  How the eSword software hurdles could be circumvented I haven't a clue - but I think this module would be worth the effort.

There are other software programs that have this Bible, but I don't know if their copies are accurate either -- or just have the Bible text without footnotes or markings.

Perhaps it could be done as an REFX file, but it would still be a gigantic (multi-year) module to compose.

http://en.wikipedia....mphasized_Bible

http://books.google....therham&f=false

http://books.google....d bible&f=false

http://www.amazon.co...mphasized bible

Gen 1:1

Acts 13:16

Rev 21:1

AS YOU CAN plainly see, the footnotes, links and special markings are vital additions to this Bible translation - giving it depth of meaning and understanding.  Amazon, right now 2013, is asking $40 for this Bible.  Well worth the price, but it's HEAVY.  I've tried to carry it to class years ago and think I dislocated my shoulder!  LOL

I should really scale back expectations on this...

 

Betwixt you, me and 80,000 other people....I don't know about that! 

It's kind of like when they built the first American Intercontenental railroad: Big dreams, big expectations equaled big blessings for a nation first being built - we just don't know what God has in plan for tomorrow, but we dream for the future to be built. 

[O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. O LORD, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing. - Jeremiah 10:23-24 . Amen!]

I really loved your description of eSword and it's best attributes at this time -- would that God should bring others to also see it's value to their lives and private Bible study.  I think we are just in the beginning of this journey and not the end.
 

James & Josh --   An excellent interview!  Thanks and blessings to you both!