View source for Projects:Go Bible/SymScroll

== Symmetric Scrolling Branch ==

:''New page under development''.

=== Raison d'être ===

The motivation for developing the SymScroll branch of Go Bible was to provide support for '''touch screen only''' phones that have Java ME. For touch screen phones with a hardware menu button, using SymScroll you can safely get rid of the on-screen virtual keypad and retain full Go Bible functionality, thus taking advantage of the full area of the screen for the application display.

As a sensible prelude for this task, the source code has been [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_refactoring refactored]. The SymScroll branch of GoBibleCore has been subdivided into many more Java classes than the previous release.

=== Features ===

==== Enhanced/changed features ====
* Symmetrical scrolling
* Smooth scrolling
* Touch screen full support

==== New features ====
* Text added by translators can be displayed (e.g. in ''italics'')
* Line breaks
* Psalm titles & other headings 
* Personal names & name of deity
* OT quotations
* Other numeral systems (e.g. Arabic, Devanagari, Thai)
* Search next & search more
* Key settings (e.g. for phones with QWERTY keyboard)
* Font attributes (if available in the phone firmware)

'''Notes:'''
# Search results are limited to 50 verses. 'Search Next' finds the next 50 verses containing the search text.
# One of the keys can be assigned to 'Search Next' in a different sense. It goes to the next search result.
# If no search has yet been done, the same key initates a new search.

=== Improvements ===
Several software improvements were implemented in the SymScroll branch.

* The painting code has been reworked. It is much faster than the previous code.

'''Technical details:'''
* The original code measured the length of each line character by character, giving speed n (n = number of characters in a verse).
* Because of look ahead and caching, at first the SymScroll branch repeated the above process about 4x, on top of other overheads, slowing it down by about the same factor.
* Now, the code defers measuring any length until an entire word is read, speeding the code up by a factor equal to the average word length.
* For Chinese script, where there is no concept of words and spaces, the code is does a binary search (i.e. log_2(n) ) to find the best breaking point.

'''Remarks within ui.properties:'''
* The <tt>ui.properties</tt> file allows remarks to be included. Any line that begins with the hash symbol # is treated as a remark.

=== Bug fixes ===
Some existing software bugs are being fixed. ''Details will be included in the release notes''.

=== Implementation details ===

==== Symmetrical scrolling ====
Pressing 'up' now goes up by one ''screen'', and pressing 'down' still goes down by one ''screen''. This should be much more intuitive than the previous method. <ref>In which 'up' went up to the start of the previous ''verse''.</ref>

The previous method had its merits, namely speed, which this branch assumes is less relevant in the era of phones that can emulate Nintendo Gameboys.

<references />

==== Smooth scrolling ====

Touch screen scrolling needed to be smooth. Smooth scrolling is abandonned when a proper 'up' or 'down' key is pressed, after which the application reverts to the original discrete scrolling method.

==== Touch screen support ====

The Biblical text display now includes simple book and chapter headings, such that during continued scrolling, there is a better visual feedback for navigating.  Horizontal touch screen scrolling navigates to next/previous chapter. The Go Bible Menu is accessed by touching anywhere in the top bar.

==== Key settings ====
This new feature facilitates remapping keys to the Go Bible navigation functions, thus making it possible for the user of a phone with a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY QUERTY] keyboard (for example) to assign keys more conveniently. This feature requires several new UI properties.

The new '''Search Next''' feature is by default assigned to the previously unused "0" key.

==== Font attributes ====
GoBibleCore can now display text with font attributes such as italics or oblique or small caps, providing these attributes are supported by the phone firmware, and providing such attributes make sense for the language's alphabet.

In addition, the user can select alternative rendering methods such as underline, suitable for fonts that don't include italics.

==== Other numeral systems ====

The new UI property called '''UI-Digits''' facilitates using a different [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numeral_system numeral system] for chapter and verse numbers. The method is to specify a ten character string corresponding to the digits 0 through 9. Examples:

'''Default (if omitted):'''
 UI-Digits: 0123456789
'''Eastern Arabic numerals:'''
 UI-Digits: ٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩
'''Farsi numerals:'''
 UI-Digits: ۰۱۲۳۴۵۶۷۸۹
'''Devanagari numerals:'''
 UI-Digits: ०१२३४५६७८९
'''Thai numerals:'''
 UI-Digits: ๐๑๒๓๔๕๖๗๘๙

'''Notes:'''
# Limitations: Currently, there is no error message. Go Bible does not check for uniqueness of characters.
# If there are less than 10 characters, it will revert to default. If there are more than 10 characters, the extra characters will be ignored (since no digits are larger than 9).
# The transformation is done at the individual digit level for decimal notation.
# The transformation applies only to chapter and verse numbers as used by the application, not to any numbers as might be found within the text of some Bible translations.
# In numeral systems with further special symbols for 20, 30, 50, etc; these are not catered for.
# For right to left languages, how different phones handle the bidirectional algorithm when the numeral system is not the default is outside the control of Go Bible software.
# Some languages do not have a symbol for numerical zero. See [http://web.archive.org/web/20080514155753/http://www.code2000.net/numbersutf.htm] which tabulates Numerals in Unicode.
# No semantic check is performed by Go Bible Creator. i.e. The following would be accepted, even though it makes no sense.
 UI-Digits: 9876543210

==== Red Letters for Words of Jesus ====
This is in additional option under Preferences. It allows the user to switch Red Letters On or Off for any Go Bible applications made from source text that included the required markup.

==== Custom Verse Numbering ====
:''New feature still under development''.
The latest code snapshot (2011-06-29) supports custom verse numbering (including out-of-order verses).

This was achieved by creating an additional file under Bible Data/ to store mapping data (mapping one verse number to another).

:''Details to be added later''.

=== Go Bible Creator ===
The SymScroll branch of Go Bible Creator supports several new features.
* Some new command line options have been added.
* The command line option for update has been extended.
* Some new UI properties have been defined.
* Some further properties are available for use in collections text files.

==== Command line options ====
Options are now available by which one can choose a baseline Manifest file template, a baseline <tt>ui.properties</tt> template, and even the GoBibleCore binaries. This should make GoBibleCreator a bit easier to use with different versions of GoBibleCore.

<pre>
Usage: (java -jar GoBibleCreator) [ options ] CollectionsFilePath
	Options:
	-b (path) - Path to GoBibleCore binaries (.jar)
	-m (path) - Path to Manifest file template
	-p (path) - Path to ui.properties template
	-dh - Show some debug output
	-u - Update only
	-d - Set base source text directory
</pre>
'''Note:'''
The update only option has been extended to permit the main argument to be an existing ''GoBibleJARfilePath''. This enables any Go Bible application to be updated to use the latest binaries, without requiring access to the source text file or a collections text file.

==== New UI properties ====

Here is a list of the new and re-used user interface (UI) properties:
<pre>
UI-Key-Settings: Key Settings
UI-Assign-Key: Assign Key
UI-Unassign-Key: Unassign Key

UI-Action-Next-Book: Next Book
UI-Action-Next-Chapter: Next Chapter
UI-Action-Next-Screen: Next Screen
UI-Action-Next-Verse: Next Verse
UI-Action-Next-3-Lines: Next 3 Lines
UI-Action-Next-1-Line: Next Line

UI-Action-Previous-Book: Previous Book
UI-Action-Previous-Chapter: Previous Chapter
UI-Action-Previous-Screen: Previous Screen
UI-Action-Previous-Verse: Previous Verse
UI-Action-Previous-3-Lines: Previous 3 Lines
UI-Action-Previous-1-Line: Previous Line

UI-Book: Book
UI-Chapter: Chapter
UI-Verse: Verse
UI-Chapter-Reference-%1: Chapter %1
UI-Search-More: Search More
UI-Search-Next: Search Next
UI-Set-Range: Set Range ...
UI-From-Book: From Book
UI-To-Book: To Book

UI-Delete-All-Bookmarks-Alert: Delete all bookmarks?
UI-Delete-All: Delete All

UI-Delete-History-Entry: Delete history
UI-Delete-All-History-Entries: Delete all history
UI-Delete-History-Entry-Alert: Delete this history?
UI-Delete-All-History-Entries-Alert: Delete all history?

UI-Digits: 0123456789

UI-Red-Letter: Red Letters for words of Jesus
</pre>
'''Notes:'''
# This list may still be incomplete &ndash; (e.g. UI properties for selecting font attributes).
# Parameter %1 in UI-Chapter-Reference-%1 is a placeholder for the numerical value. This facilitates having a different position for the number in the displayed chapter headings.
# In version 2.4.x, displaying "Delete All" under Bookmarks was a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kludge kludge] using "UI-Delete" and "UI-All".
# "From Book" and "To Book" are back in use. When the "Set Range" option is chosen for Search, these labels appear at the head of the lists of available booknames.
# "Search-More" relates to displaying the next set of search results.
# "Search-Next" relates to jumping to the next search result in the text.

==== Collections text file properties ====

Here is a list of the new collections text file properties:

 MIDlet-Description: A brief description of the Go Bible application
 Go-Bible-Max-Results: 50

'''Notes:'''
# MIDlet-Description: is a required property for JAD files. Previous versions of Go Bible omitted this. Use this for a brief description. Use the existing Info: property to provide a verbose description.
# The value specified for Go-Bible-Max-Results: relates to how many search results are displayed at once. The default is now 50. Using a lower number may improve how Go Bible works on some older phone models. cf. Prior to SymScroll, maximum search results was fixed at 200.
# Corrections to how some existing properties appear in the JAD file are also being tackled. See [http://code.google.com/p/gobible/issues/detail?id=133 issue 133] for further details.

==== Custom manifest file template properties ====
Go Bible Creator supports using different manifest files. Here is an example of the default manifest template for LTR scripts.
<pre>
Manifest-Version: 1.0
Go-Bible-Align: Left
Go-Bible-Render-Faux-Italic: yes
Go-Bible-Render-Faux-Underlined: yes
Go-Bible-Render-Faux-Bold: yes
Go-Bible-Line-Height: 1.05
Nokia-MIDlet-On-Screen-Keypad: no
</pre>

'''Go-Bible-Render-Faux-Italic:'''

If you have the '''Go-Bible-Render-Faux-Italic''' option set in the manifest, all italics will be rendered in grey<ref>The current code uses 67% normal text colour, 33% background colour. This should be sufficient for all the preset themes. For words of Jesus, the predefined 'red' colour overrides the grey.</ref> with dotted underline.<ref>Dotted underlines are a drop-in replacement for italics. This follows the convention used in various Chinese Bibles for the words tagged (in USFM) as translators' additions.</ref> Otherwise, the program will use the default Italic font.<ref>This method can therefore be used to build a separate Go Bible application for phones that do not support italics, yet without requiring a different collections text file.</ref>

<references />

==== Support for XHTML_TE ====

The SymScroll branch of Go Bible Creator incorporates the extension to specify '''XHTML_TE''' as the source text format. The code is as provided by one of the programmers at SIL in Dallas. It was designed to support their FieldWorks Translation Editor, and is used internally by their Pathway publication tool.

==== Other improvements ====

'''Refactoring:'''

The source code has undergone major reorganization. The following are the new/changed Java classes:
* USFMConverter: Supersedes USFM_Utilities. Contains all the USFM-related methods.
* XMLConverter: Contains all the XML-related helper methods.
* GoBibleCreator: USFM- and XML- specific code have been removed and placed in their respective *Converter classes.

=== Go Bible data format ===
[http://code.google.com/p/gobible/wiki/GoBibleDataFormat Go Bible data format] already assigned the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_character control character] code \x01 to mark both the start and finish as the means to implement the display of red letters for Words of Jesus. As Go Bible made no standard use of control characters, it had been envisaged that any UTF-8 character up to \x1F might be used for further enhancements to the Go Bible data format. 

This method has been extended as follows:
<pre>
\x01 &ndash; Delimit red letters
\x02 &ndash; Delimit translators' additions (e.g. as for words shown as italics in the KJV)
\x03 &ndash; Delimit the name of deity
\x04 &ndash; Delimit quotations (e.g. OT quotations shown as oblique in the NKJV)
\x05 &ndash; Delimit a proper name

\x06 &ndash; Suppress printing the verse number, if it has not been printed, and change to boldface for titles
\x07 &ndash; Break a line, print the verse number, and resume normal data (see below)

\x0A &ndash; Line break (see below)

\x0E &ndash; Increment the verse number offset (see below)
\x0F &ndash; Decrement the verse number offset (see below)
</pre> 

==== Titles ====

To accommodate titles and descriptive headings without making major design changes to the data format, the following solution has been adopted. 
Example for canonical Psalm titles.

 <VERSE INDEX 0><\x06>For the director of music. Of David.<\x07>
 In the <\x03>LORD<\x03> I take refuge. How then can you say to me: ...
 <VERSE INDEX 1>For look,...

To facilitate this new feature, it is apparent that the data format has been extended to permit references to verse 0 in order to accommodate canonical Psalm titles. Even so, the codes <\x06> and <\x07> can be used within other verses, such as to display the Hebrew letter stanza titles for acrostic poems such as Psalm 119.

==== Line breaks ====

Discretional line breaks are now permitted within Go Bible data format, coded as EOL marker in Unix '''\n''' (i.e. \x0A or LF ).

'''Notes:'''
# SymScroll does not support paragraphs or poetry markup. Every verse still begins on a separate line, with the verse number at the start of the line.
# Therefore translations with verse range tags will still require a workaround during preprocessing.

==== Verse number offset ====
The displayed verse number = verse index + offset. Internally, when navigating to passages, or when sending SMS, only the verse index is used. 

'''Note:'''
# This is a solution in place of what was a workaround, where empty verse tags had to be inserted in the USFM files for missing verses.

==== Go Bible Creator support ====

:''Table showing which markup feature is supported for each source text format''. ''Please update this table''.

<!-- Note: Text in this construct is a comment. Such comments in the table below are present only as an aid. They can be deleted with no consequence.
     The formatting in table below uses a lot of white space to line things up. This is only done as a help to maintenance.
  -->
{| border="1" class="sortable"
! width="300px"                              | Markup Feature  
! title="Control character"                  | Code
! title="Unified Standard Format Markers"    | USFM      
! width="150px" title="Implements"           | USFM tags<ref>See the User Reference available at [http://confluence.ubs-icap.org/display/USFM/]</ref>
! title="Theological Markup Language"        | ThML     
! title="Open Scripture Information Standard"| OSIS     
! title="Extended HTML (Translation Editor)" | XHTML_TE

|-valign="top"
| '''Delimit red letters'''
<!--Code    !!  USFM    !!  tags        !! ThML      !! OSIS     !! XHTML-TE -->
! \x01      !! {{yes}}  !! \wj_...\wj*  !! {{yes}}<ref>Implements &lt;span class="red"&gt;...&lt;/span&gt;</ref>!! {{no}}   !! {{yes}} 

|-valign="top"
| '''Delimit translators' additions'''
<!--Code    !!  USFM    !!  tags        !! ThML      !! OSIS     !! XHTML-TE -->
! \x02      !! {{yes}}  !! \add_...\add*!! {{no}}    !! {{no}}   !! {{yes}} 

|-valign="top"
| '''Delimit the name of deity'''
<!--Code    !!  USFM    !!  tags        !! ThML      !! OSIS     !! XHTML-TE -->
! \x03      !! {{yes}}  !! \nd_...\nd*  !! {{no}}    !! {{no}}   !! {{yes}}        

|-valign="top"
| '''Delimit quotations'''
<!--Code    !!  USFM    !!  tags        !! ThML      !! OSIS     !! XHTML-TE -->
! \x04      !! {{yes}}  !! \qt_...\qt*  !! {{no}}    !! {{no}}   !! {{yes}}        

|-valign="top"
| '''Delimit a proper name'''
<!--Code    !!  USFM    !!  tags        !! ThML      !! OSIS     !! XHTML-TE -->
! \x05      !! {{yes}}  !!  \pn_...\pn* !! {{no}}    !! {{no}}   !! {{yes}}        

|-valign="top"
| '''Suppress printing the verse number, etc'''
<!--Code    !!  USFM    !!  tags        !! ThML      !! OSIS     !! XHTML-TE -->
! \x06      !! {{yes}}  !!  \s#_text...<ref>Applied before the title.</ref>!! {{no}}    !! {{no}}   !! {{no}}        

|-valign="top"
| '''Line break, print verse number, resume'''
<!--Code    !!  USFM    !!  tags        !! ThML      !! OSIS     !! XHTML-TE -->
! \x07      !! {{yes}}  !!  \s#_text...<ref>Applied after the title.</ref> !! {{no}}    !! {{no}}   !! {{no}}  

|-valign="top"
| '''Line break'''
<!--Code    !!  USFM    !!  tags        !! ThML      !! OSIS     !! XHTML-TE -->
! \x0A      !! {{yes}}  !!  \p(_text...)!! {{no}}    !! {{no}}   !! {{no}}        

|-valign="top"
| '''Increment the verse number offset'''
<!--Code    !!  USFM    !!  tags        !! ThML      !! OSIS     !! XHTML-TE -->
! \x0E      !! {{yes}}  !!  \v_#<ref>The code must appear at the start of the verse. The code has to be repeated for every verse for which the numbering is not correct.</ref>!! {{no}}   !! {{no}}   !! {{no}}        

|-valign="top"
| '''Decrement the verse number offset'''
<!--Code    !!  USFM    !!  tags        !! ThML      !! OSIS     !! XHTML-TE -->
! \x0F      !! {{yes}}  !!  \v_#<ref>See above.</ref>!! {{no}}   !! {{no}}   !! {{no}}        

|}
 
<references/>

==== Backwards compatibility ====

The SymScroll branch of GoBibleCore is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backward_compatibility backwards compatible] with existing Go Bible applications. This means that earlier applications can be changed to SymScroll merely by replacing the file '''gobiblecore2.jar''' and using the Update option of [[Projects:Go Bible/Go Bible Creator|Go Bible Creator]] to rebuild the application. For Go Bible applications that already have a UI translation, then ideally the new UI properties should be translated prior to the rebuild.

== Development Status ==

The SymScroll branch is still being actively developed. Most of the features are already implemented. The branch is at the testing and debug stage.
No milestoned release has yet been announced. 

[[Category:Projects|Go Bible]]
[[Category:Go Bible|SymScroll]]