Notices

I have some bibles in PDB format and would appreciate if it is supported too.

Actually conversion type programs is my specialty. ;-)
Do you know if their is any "encryption" on any of these .pdb

Nathan.

http://katana.garage.maemo.org

Then ask to join the project. I can add you as a developer and then you can submit the svn on the project.

Nathan

We would have to write a "convertor" to convert either one of them to sword modules. However, I think their might be one already from olivetree modules. Not sure about e-sword.

Nathan.

You can get some Palm Bible+ PDB from the site above. There is a converter there for converting sword bibles to the PDB format but I believe it is possible convert from PDB to sword modules.

What i did was just to change sword-1.6.0a/debian/sword16.install

It originally was

usr/lib/lib*.so
usr/lib/sword/*
usr/share/sword/locales.d/*

And i change the usr/share/sword line so it looks like the following now:

usr/lib/lib*.so
usr/lib/sword/*
usr/share/sword/*

I am not sure this works as expected with the optify rules as it looks i have some file appearing in two places (/usr/share/sword/locales and /opt/maemo/usr/share/sword/locales)

The inclusion of the extra mods.d directory is handy as you can then just copy /usr/share/sword in another place to get a sword directory template.

not to hijack the thread nor the effort - would there be people who will prefer to use Bible+ via Garnet VM then (if there is going to be one for N900)?

wahlau.

I have just spotted this thread and might be very interested in this. I use two Palm programs extensively. DateBk and PalmBible+. I have put a lot of work into creating some Hebrew and Greek modules for Bible+. Does the Garnet VM display these type of modules properly? If so I may consider getting an n900. I tried StyleTap on a Pocket PC but it messed up the text when in full screen.

Nope, not possible to go from PDB to Sword. That has been attempted by a number of folks, and usually speaking, you can find the resource already within Sword unless you have done a personal .PDB conversion from another source.

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I would advise against writing a tool that converts copyrighted materials. Since the publishing of that tool on the B+ site, there are always tons of questions (posed to myself actually) about what the copyright rules are for different regions for different versions of Bibles. Its honestly too hard to keep up with - and in many cases is pretty fruitless.

It is because of the work of many people behind the scense at Olive Tree, Bible+, and a number of other areas that more Bibles are available via an open license than what used to be the case. Yes, there are publishers of some popular versions still not able to be used electronically, but as an effort, its better to give them an incentive to open up (as was the case with the Message, ESV, and NET Bible folks), than to do things unethically and subvert the work they rightfully deserve compensation towards.

The tool on Bible+ was developed before many companies - publishing companies - decided to lock down even the electronic dissemenation of their materials. For most - currently - they do not allow the transfer of a licence - aka you cannot purchase the print version and get license to use the digital version. This falls under their legal right as copyright owners (in the US and many Western European countries). Check with your regions' rules before using that or other tools.

Again, its a political issue, not a technical one. And would be better served in a deeper discussion in Off-Topic here or in another forum.

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There has been no confirmation from Access towards the development of the Garnet VM for N900 devices. And while little prevents them from developing this, its at best a solution that's akin to dragging a cross around. If you will: why would you carry in a modern device an emulated environment for a few applications which have better equlivents on the more modern platform?

Bible+ works fine in the current Garnet emulator. However, instability with handling the virtual memory card can make for some interesting issues for Bibles and related content. In many occasions, you can lose the entire VM partition to just a random reboot - and this is because its still quite beta and not really an environment mean to run in your device for day-to-day tasks.

Hence my question for supporting .PDBs within Katana. In this way, the user doesn't lose the Bibles they have had already. Content such as bookmarks and note do export to memos, which can then be synced to a PC via Palm Desktop, and then migrated to the Maemo 5 device.

There are is no encryption leveled on any of the .PDBs linked to from that site - with the possible exception of the Message as that was a special case that a few people worked very hard towards opening to the B+ community.

EDIT:
In terms of OliveTree modules, we would definitely be better in going to them directly. I've got a number of contacts there and will not have a problem with opening this discussion with them. However, the inclusion of Olive Tree modules would mean that some type of licensing mechanism would need to be built into Katana. I'm not sure that this falls under the original scope of the project, and this may introduce some other complexities.