PRS-600 Touch Electronic Bible

[dclavey]

Touch Bible designed for PRS-600 / PRS-350 / PRS-650

Designed for real Christian use, i.e. Easy to read passages, but also easy to jump around from Verse to Verse or Chapter to Chapter. A lot of effort made on easy to touch Hyper Keys and a fast TOC (Table of Contents).

Version 0.1 - Sep 2009 - Initial Version, With problems in Psalms and Proverbs - Sorry.

Version 1.0 - Dec 2010 - Fast external TOC

Version 1.1 - Dec 2010 - New super fast touch TOC - no scrolling needed!

..

[HarryT]

Have you taken a look at this one? It's very nicely done.

[dclavey]

Yes, that one gave me the idea .... however it has a full TOC and therefore requires scrolling of the first level, if looking up revelation this will be four page scrolls.

Hence my new first level TOC ... see point 1.

Once inside the bible its impossible to jump around. So what you really need is an inside and outside TOC. I will cut a KJV version this weekend and release it so people can comment ....

I am putting together a touch Bible in ePub format which will be usable at a Church Bible study.

Ideas:

1. Table of contents - TOC easy to use from a Sony device (Any) the menu's being based on 10 entries.

i.e. First TOP menu says:
Genesis - Deuteronomy
Joshua - Kings
Chronicicles - Job
....
James - Revelation

e.g. The Second Menu under James - Revelation says
James
1 Peter
2 Peter
1 John
2 John
3 John
Jude
Revelation

This means you can get to a verse within four touchs of the TOC

2. Chapter based files with Touch Hyperlink (sorry PRS-300, PRS-505 uses) indexes at the top to go back to Index (A touch version of TOC), Book, chapter within Book or verse in Book.

Verses also start with a Touch Hyperlink so you can jump back to the top of the Chapter again.

The main idea here being to be able to jump around the bible as quickly as possible.

3. (Optional) Spare blank page at the end of each chapter for writing Handwriting notes. (Or you can jump out of book and take notes, then jump back in again)

Notes can then be downloaded and collated, and Bible cleaned before next study.

4. I have the source text to various Bible versions in a SQL database and am working on an ePub with multiple versions. Its going to be big as a bible is typically 2.6 Meg in size. So a 5 version on may be 12.5 Meg in size. However as I have split the document into chapters I feel it will work very well.

5. I would have liked picture buttons which are Hyperlinkable, but ePub does not appear to support that. So all links are Text links. Possibly PDF or BBeB formats support Hyperlinkable picture buttons.

6. I am considering a study version, but need to get the notes electronically from somewhere first.

7. The bible generator code is stored in SQL Server and uses C# code to generate the ePub contents.

Anyone interested in a sharable version e.g. KJV. I have other versions but they are not shareable.

Any more ideas that you would like to see in an electronic Bible?

[sherman]

The reason I didn't include an internal TOC or hyperlinks was because on the PRS-505 it takes almost as long, or longer to select the correct link and activate it as it takes to just jump back to the external TOC.

I agree that an internal TOC would become far more useful with the touchscreen ebook readers.

Good luck creating your version

EDIT: Hmm, just looking at your TOC idea, would you mind if I end up borrowing it (or something similar) for mine?

Also, I don't know how the PRS-600 manages large ePubs compared to the 505, but speed is an important factor. It should be split into as many xhtml streams as possible - I ended up having a separate xhtml file for every chapter in the bible. And be careful when you build your toc.ncx file - you should reference the file itself and no more. Don't try to link to a specific spot in an xhtml file unless it's absolutely necessary (eg: verses).

[dclavey]

Originally Posted by sherman

The reason I didn't include an internal TOC or hyperlinks was because on the PRS-505 it takes almost as long, or longer to select the correct link and activate it as it takes to just jump back to the external TOC.).

Yes understood, the external TOC is very fast. And even faster on the 600 because of its faster processor.

Originally Posted by sherman

I agree that an internal TOC would become far more useful with the touchscreen ebook readers.

Good luck creating your version

EDIT: Hmm, just looking at your TOC idea, would you mind if I end up borrowing it (or something similar) for mine?)

Absolutely, its actually a very simple idea and just requires one more level of TOC.

I only go to chapter level, but I have got a more complex scheme but was not convinced I really needed to go that far, i.e. right down to verse level on the TOC. I have seen some very bit ePub Toc's take an eternity to load. And one on a free TNIV I downloaded completely crash my 600 because they had all the references in the TOC!

By the way it was the downloading your version of KJV and playing with it on a PC, taking the ePub apart and trying my new TOC idea - that was my justification for buying a Sony reader - so Thanks

You can download XML format bible text from here:

opensong

And then its a small hop to write a XML to ePub converter.

Originally Posted by sherman

Also, I don't know how the PRS-600 manages large ePubs compared to the 505, but speed is an important factor. It should be split into as many xhtml streams as possible - I ended up having a separate xhtml file for every chapter in the bible. And be careful when you build your toc.ncx file - you should reference the file itself and no more. Don't try to link to a specific spot in an xhtml file unless it's absolutely necessary (eg: verses).

Yep I only go down to chapter level at the moment. I also combine verses together when appropriate for an easier read.

[dclavey]

My TOC detailed

Top Level
Genesis - Deuteronomy
Joshua - Kings
Chronicles - Job
Psalms - Song of Songs
Isaiah - Joel
Amos - Malachi
Matthew - John
Acts - Galatians
Ephesians - Hebrew
James - Revelation

Next Level Groupings:
Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy

Joshua
Judges
Ruth
1 Samuel
2 Samuel
1 Kings
2 Kings

1 Chronicles
2 Chronicles
Ezra
Nehemiah
Esther
Job

Psalms
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
Song of Songs

Isaiah
Jeremiah
Lamentations
Ezekiel
Daniel
Hosea
Joel

Amos
Obadiah
Jonah
Micah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi


Matthew
Mark
Luke
John

Acts
Romans
1 Corinthians
2 Corinthians
Galatians

Ephesians
Philippians
Colossians
1 Thessalonians
2 Thessalonians
1 Timothy
2 Timothy
Titus
Philemon
Hebrews

James
1 Peter
2 Peter
1 John
2 John
3 John
Jude
Revelation

Its worked out on fitting books in groups not greater than 10 and number of verses in each book.

When it gets to the second level then
Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy

Could become
Genesis 1-10
Genesis 11-xx
Exodus 1-10
Exodus 11-xx
Leviticus 1-10
Leviticus 11-xx
Numbers 1-10
Numbers 11-xx
Deuteronomy 1-10
Deuteronomy 11-xx

But that would make the TOC more complex and possible less responsive

[dclavey]

King James Version 0.1 for Touch Sony 600/700

Give it a Wiz and see what its like ...

(Attachment moved to first post message in thread)

[JustRay]

I think what you are doing is fantastic. Im glad someone is working on this. I just bought a Sony PRS-600 and downloaded the TNIV Bible and am not too happy about the hoops I have to jump to to go to a passage, or even just the beginning of a book.

But I have one big question (and if this is dumb for some reason, let me know): Couldnt someone just put really small tags in the text? I mean, even if they would just put "(Jon*1)" on the line above the first chapter of the gospel of John, and "(Gen*12)" above the beginning of Genesis 12, or something like that, it would be easy to go to Genesis 12 by just searching for Gen*12. That alone would make my live SOO much easier! Would such a little thing mar the text that much?

Am I missing something? Or is this just too simple for the bigwigs in eBible land? And, if they could make it REALLY small, they could put a similar tag in front of all the the verses, or else in front of every 10th verse, so you could get close. This would work for any reader with search capabilities... no? Am I missing something?

[dclavey]

Originally Posted by JustRay

Jon*1

Is text search really fast? I had assumed not. But I will give it a try.

In your syntax why the "*" star? and what about the book multiples. Does 1joh1 work for you? Or do you want 1joh*1 instead. Sorry am I missing the point is the "*" star a wild card?

I can generate a new KJ with search tags for you tonight, just let me know the format.

If you send me a personal message I can provide other formats for versions you have already bought.

This project is very much a "work in progress", so let me know what mods you want.

I still need to clean up the extern TOC and also do something radical to the internal TOC. I was hoping graphical buttons would work, but they only work in PDF format, not ePub. Shame. Still I think I can improve the internal TOC experience.

I took notes yesterday in the Bible Studies and found the little windows they give you anoying at best. So I am going to add some full page "Notes" pages to the end of the Bible where handwriting notes may be taken.

[HarryT]

My #1 request for this would be to add the books of the "Apocrypha". Not all Churches use the Protestant "selection" of books which form the "Biblical canon" and it would be nice to make this useable for everybody, regardless of "creed".

[JSWolf]

What about those of us that feel there's a lot of stuff in this bible that we don't use? All the new testament can go for sure.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What about those of us that feel there's a lot of stuff in this bible that we don't use? All the new testament can go for sure.

With respect, Jon, that is a totally different thing. You don't have to read something that's there if you don't agree with it, but you can't read it if it's not there.

[benham]

Just subscribing to this thread as I will probably get my wife an ereader for Christmas and it will probably be a Sony with a touch screen (there's only 1, right?) and it would be neat to have a Bible on it. I use the one sherman published every day.

[dclavey]

Originally Posted by benham

neat to have a Bible on it.

Check First post, I will file all versions here.

My aim is to create a Study bible with notes eventually. Version 0.2 coming soon with Quick chapter search and improved internal TOC and easier to touch chapter hyperlinks.

Unfortunately I am machine less at the moment as my machine was faulty!

[cliche]

Excellent work dclavey! One of my main reasons for waiting for the 600 was hoping that it would be a good touchscreen that would work well as a Bible.

Two features that I would like to see are:
a concordance feature, somewhat like the dictionary feature works now
links between specific verses that would look up commentaries by reference

Keep up the great work! By the way, could you provide a link to the 'small hop' conversion process of xml to epub for this n00b? Thanks!