Linux Version?

[jcarling-p40]

I would like to put my two cents worth in towards the church releasing a version of the standard works for the Kindle. I know that there are a few versions available. I have a previous version on CD and one for my ancient Palm Vx. Neither of these versions are compatible with any of my new / current technology. I can't put them on my Kindle or my linux laptop. If the church wants to control the content they could certainly DRM the files.

If anyone knows of a version of the standard works that is available in a format for the Kindle that actually works I'd love to hear about it.

[rmrichesjr]

(This is personal thought, not anything official...)

I would think the quickest way to get the standard works (or any other Church content) on a new device would be to download the content from http://www.lds.org and convert it to whatever format is needed. Based on my recollection of discussions in this forum, most likely in another thread, I understand it's okay for individuals to download the content and store it on their own devices, and it's okay to distribute a program that does the downloading and/or conversion. The only restriction is that the content itself can't be distributed from non-Church-party-A to party-B.

If you can find a set of floppies from the Church's old floppy-based standard words product, I have a C program (for Linux but should be easy to port, or might just run) to convert the text itself to plain text. I just don't have the bible dictionary, topical guide, or cross reference.

I would suggest a good community project, perhaps standalone, perhaps Church-connected, would be to write some a few short programs. The first program would download the scriptures or other content and convert it to a generic plain-text-based format. Each of the other programs would convert from the generic format to the format needed by a specific device. If my employment situation allowed it, I'd be more than willing to participate.

[dajoker]

Just for the record the Scriptures application works perfectly in Wine. I don't know if it's been updated in the last five years but the one I have I just double-click on setup.exe and three minutes later (SUSE Linux) I have an icon in my Computer menu that says 'LDS Scriptures'. If nothing else that gives you equivalent features if you have this old version of the application available.

With that said I think a new application entirely is in order. I've signed up and requested the XML version the Church has so I can make a proper version but I think that's just the start... have an application that will be able to access all Church content as desired.... be able to pull it down in XML and then display it however the end user desires. "I want the Ensign from 2009-01." Click, click, done. "I want all of the First Presidency talks for the last three decades." Click, click, done. There is so much content that something cross-platform (Java.... the church has their own API for things in-house apparently) an interactive could be a great use of technology. Provide markup capabilities, bookmarks, cross-references etc. for everything in there. I'm not sure my request for the XML will be approved at this point (been a month or more at least I think) but if it does this is what I'm hoping to work toward.

[rmrichesjr]

Just for the record the Scriptures application works perfectly in Wine. I don't know if it's been updated in the last five years but the one I have I just double-click on setup.exe and three minutes later (SUSE Linux) I have an icon in my Computer menu that says 'LDS Scriptures'. If nothing else that gives you equivalent features if you have this old version of the application available.

With that said I think a new application entirely is in order. I've signed up and requested the XML version the Church has so I can make a proper version but I think that's just the start... have an application that will be able to access all Church content as desired.... be able to pull it down in XML and then display it however the end user desires. "I want the Ensign from 2009-01." Click, click, done. "I want all of the First Presidency talks for the last three decades." Click, click, done. There is so much content that something cross-platform (Java.... the church has their own API for things in-house apparently) an interactive could be a great use of technology. Provide markup capabilities, bookmarks, cross-references etc. for everything in there. I'm not sure my request for the XML will be approved at this point (been a month or more at least I think) but if it does this is what I'm hoping to work toward.

Thank you for the information that a "Scriptures application" works under Wine! In the Wine AppDB, I see "LDS Scriptures" with good test results and ratings in 2007. However, the URL doesn't work; yields "Invalid request". Is this the product on CD, or is this something that can be downloaded from the Church web site?

Your ideas for a cross-platform XML-based application sounds great.

[mkmurray]

Is this the product on CD, or is this something that can be downloaded from the Church web site?

I only know of the CD product available through the Distribution Centers and LDSCatalog.com:

http://www.ldscatalog.com/webapp/wcs/st ... sortOr%3D1

It appears they've changed the look of the product and they've also put the two editions on the same CD. The Resource edition is cool because you can read the Scriptures in English on one side and on the other side be looking at transliterated Hebrew supplemented with a Hebrew Dictionary. Now you can be like a BYU religion professor and say stuff like "In the original Greek translation, the word was actually..."

Also, I don't know if the version I remember of the software was just 1.0 or was 1.1, like what it is currently listed.

[rmrichesjr]

Thanks for the additional information. I found I had the 1.0 version on CD at home already, so I installed it in English and Spanish (for my wife who is studying it). I have ordered version 1.1.