Difference between revisions of "EnduserFAQ"

Revision as of 05:29, 13 June 2007

End user FAQ

Here are some commonly asked questions about the CrossWire Bible Society and The SWORD Project and answers to them.

CrossWire is a non-commercial organization which produces Bible related Free Software. We have several software products. We also have several text modules (Bible translations, commentaries, lexicons...) which can be used with our software. All products are made by individual volunteers who may or may not be related to each other and may or may not know each other's work. Therefore it's important that you first know which product you have questions about. Then you can select the category and question below. If your question is not answered here and you have to ask us directly, please attach as much information about your problem as possible, especially about the product you are using.

Questions about text modules

Do you or will you have NIV/NASB/NLT/Message/NKJV/other translation?

NASB is under work and will be sold commercially by the publishing company. Most other copyright holders, including the publisher of the NIV, have not been interested in publishing their material in our format even when they could get money out of it. Strange world, isn't it?

Some people recommend using a couple of good modern freely available translations instead. ESV and NET are both high quality. ESV is a conservative word-for-word translation which continues the KJV legacy but is based on modern textual criticism. It's downloadable from our repositories. NET uses more dynamic equivalence principle and is downloadable from http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=3086.

What happened to the Portuguese module?

It was removed because it was not what it claimed to be, had errors and probably violated some copyrights. There has been new one under work but it needs volunteers.

Where are the Deuterocanonical or Apocryphal books?

Sword doesn't support them yet. It's under work. The reason is technical, not theological. Sword developers are mostly protestant as far as I know, but we don't take theological stances with our software. Maybe those who started the Sword programming library just wanted to make something which worked and was enough for themselves. But whichever the reason is, now it's apparent that Apocryphal books are also needed and we are working on that.

How do I convert e-Sword modules to Sword modules?

I don't know.

I have purchased and lost a key to a locked module. Can you tell me what it is?

No.

Personal modules shows some strange text, why?

It was a bug in the configuration file (mods.d\personal.conf). You can download and re-install the latest version but then you may lose the contents. Alternatively, you can just replace the configuration file with the new one.

Questions about what we do for free or for money

Would you send me free Bibles or other material?

It is very unfortunate that some web sites have "information" according to which we are able to help you get free material. That is not true. There is no money involved in our work and we handle only electronic material. All our products are freely downloadable on our web site (or their own web sites) and that is all we do.

Can I donate to your ministry?

No, there is no money involded in our work.

Would you donate to my ministry?

No, there is no money involved in our work.

Can I sell advertising on your website?

No, there is no money involved in our work.

Will you allow me to link your website on my website in exchange for linking mine on yours?

We don't do link exchange. We may link to some websites if we find it appropriate and you may freely link to ours.

Where's my CD?

Maybe it doesn't even exist yet. Frankly said, we are not good at those things because we are not commercial actors. Send a mail to our support list, maybe it helps.

Questions about our software

If you don't find an answer to your question here and want to ask directly, PLEASE TELL US WHAT SOFTWARE YOU ARE USING. There are many products related to CrossWire. The most common is The Sword Project for Windows. It's extremely difficult to answer a question like "I'm trying to open a Bible but it doesn't work" if we don't even know which application you are using. It also helps if you attach as much exact information about your problem as possible, like "After I have opened the program I select action A from the menu and click button B, but it does nothing". NOT something like "I can't do C".

Many problems are due to outdated software or text modules. Please check first which version you are running. Notice also your operating system and version.

How do I uninstall?

Sword for Windows has uninstaller which should be in the same place as the program. You can also just delete the folder and possible menu entries.

Is it possible to install Sword for Windows / text modules into USB disk (or some other place)?

The Sword for Windows applications is really simple, all is installed under one folder, including the modules. You can copy it anywhere as it is and run the program from there.

When I read the Syriac Peshitta and some other modules all I see are boxes?

You don't have a proper font installed. It should be unicode font and have the Syriac or other letters which the module uses. Not all unicode fonts have those.

I love your Bible Tool. Can I install it on our churches website?

Yes.

Do you have a Sword program for my phone? my pda? my handheld?

Maybe.

I've found a bug. How do I report it?

Use the bug reporting facilities of the project you are using.

Why doesn't your program do such and so? I'd like it to do it. It should to be competitive.

Yes, it would be nice, but this is volunteer based project and we do this in our free time. Help if you can and give feedback but don't complain too much. The best you can do is pray for us.

How do I do something in MacSword? BibleTime? GnomeSword? BibleDesktop? The SWORD Project for Windows?

Please read the attached documentation and other supporting material of the project you are using. Many problems will be solved by reading the documentation. After that use the support forum/list/pages of that project. After that you can ask your question in our forum or our support list.

Somebody sells your software in net, is it right?

It's not forbidden to sell Free Software. However, according to licence the source code must be included. Some people also sell free programs without telling that they are really free, and that is morally wrong.