LDS Open Source Projects

Let's use this thread to gather any information about LDS themed Open Source Projects. Please post replies to this thread with the project details and URL where they can be involved. Please do not post discussions about these projects so we can keep the thread easy to manage. If you have concerns about a project and whether it should be posted, PM me.

Tom

Here is the list of what I have found throught the posts:
.

• [thread=47]VCard2Outlook[/thread] (2nd page) Hosted at: SourceForge
• [thread=28]LDS Meeting Manager[/thread] Hosted at SourceForge
• [thread=113]Scripture Software[/thread] Hosted BYU Personal Page but will move to SourceForge once someone creates a project for it.
• [thread=170]Scouting Software[/thread] Currently no place is hosting as a source control.
• [thread=203]MLS Companion[/thread] Currently ideas are being thrown around, no project has been started yet.
• [thread=207]LUWS Interface[/thread] Currently not being hosted anywhere but in development.

I started a project for creating a High Council speaker assignments for a stake at the request of CaptainSalisbury.

The thread is [thread=244]here[/thread].

I've also created a thread about the Ward Mission Program [thread=241]here[/thread].

A few of us who are on the Macintosh side of things use Reunion 8 but it has not been updated in a few years. We reviewed it on our website at http://www.maccompanion.com back in 2003 or 2004.

Logan Allred has been busy trying to get PAF functionality working in Mac OS X and is stuck at the beta 4 release and he asked for help. He uses Cocoa as the development app to do the "look-and-feel" of PAF for the Mac.

http://homepage.mac.com/logan/MacPAF/
http://homepage.mac.com/logan/iblog/MacPAF/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/macpaf/

In [thread=245]this thread[/thread] the Church is asking for help with a certain open source project that would help the Church in various translation projects.

Tom

Here's some software I created to help wards with their Emergency Preparedness plan.
http://jay.askren.net/emergency/

Very nice! I like the way where you can select a skill or resource and see who in the ward has it. Cool feature! Are you looking for others to help develop on this project?

Tom

If someone wanted to help on this, that would be great since my time is somewhat limited. I haven't bothered finding a place to host this or deciding on a license since I'm the only one working on it. I asked around before but didn't find anyone with serious interest. For those who might be interested in helping these are some of things I would like to do still:

1. Export nice reports to PDF (probably using Jasper reports)
2. Having the ability to add families not in MLS
3. Eventually, password protection may be added.
4. Write a user manual.
5. Add a hsqldb as database backend (Currently everything is stored in memory so the program would run out of memory. If one tried to add their entire stake, the application would probably crash and burn.)
6. Better map interactivity. (Currently you can select a place on the map and the families in the selected area are highlighted. I would like though to be able to select a family on the map and have where they live highlighted. There are other map features that would be desirable. Geotools is currently used as the mapping software, though I'm willing to change because it is extremely unstable, so much so that they deprecated their GUI code a year ago and the last time I checked haven't replaced it.)
7. Make maps more customizeable. (Currently, you can add your own data to the map such as roads, rivers, etc... but it's not very easy for non programmers to do.)
8. Make application easy to install on Mac and Linux.
9. Come up with a good name for the application

I could do some of those tasks. Have you considered h2database vs hsqldb? I have found it VERY fast, easy to use and flexible. What if I were to use that as the backend?

Tom

h2database would be fine. Hsqldb just seemed to be the best thing I could find the last time I was looking for an embedded database. But that was like a year ago. I haven't tried h2database. I was also planning on using Hibernate as well. But I'm not picky about that either if there is something better. Should we take this discussion offline?

Also, looking at your project, MPL sounds like it would be a good license for this. I was thinking of hosting it at Google, but again I'm flexible.

Derby is a pretty cool database too that has full Hibernate support. BTW, if you are going to use Hibernate, I would recommend using JPA over Hibernate.

The Pro EJB book has actually nothing to do with EJBs, but more of the Java Persistence API. Also the Java Persistence with Hibernate book just came out and seems to be pretty good.

jayaskre wrote:h2database would be fine. Hsqldb just seemed to be the best thing I could find the last time I was looking for an embedded database. But that was like a year ago. I haven't tried h2database. I was also planning on using Hibernate as well. But I'm not picky about that either if there is something better. Should we take this discussion offline?

Also, looking at your project, MPL sounds like it would be a good license for this. I was thinking of hosting it at Google, but again I'm flexible.

I would hope that wherever you plan to host it would have MySql or Postgres for a DB option. I would never ship a product with an embeddable database for production use.

MySql and Postgres don't really fit this particular application since it is a desktop app, not a web app. It would make installation much more difficult for non techies. This appliation is precisely what embedded databases are made for.

bh5k wrote:I would hope that wherever you plan to host it would have MySql or Postgres for a DB option. I would never ship a product with an embeddable database for production use.

If the intent was to make this networkable or web based, I totally agree with you. If it is designed to run on a local user's machine in a stand-alone environment (which it currently is) then an embedded database is much more effective in my opinion.

However it should be fairly trivial to support multiple DB backends.

Tom

jayaskre wrote:Come up with a good name and get a domain name.[/LIST]

Can you clarify that point? Church policy at this point doesn't allow us to upload MLS data to other servers. I assume you're talking about a way to distribute the software rather then going with a web-accessed software.

That is correct. The domain name is just to have an easy way to find the software. Data resides on the user's computer and does not go anywhere else unless the user manually moves it somewhere else. The only exception is that if the user chooses to use the map features, addresses are passed to a Yahoo web service so they can be geocoded. No name or other iidentifying information is passed with the addresses to the web service. I don't believe Yahoo saves these addresses.

I've been asked to administer this piece of software for our stake. I thought I would pass it along as a possible project or at least one that should be duplicated as an open source project. The web-app is essentially a paperless stake/ward management system for callings and other work flow related tasks.

This is probably old news to all of you but just in case. Here is a link to the demo site. As far as I am aware about 7 - 10 stakes are using it.

https://www.stakesms.org/StakeSMS/Login.aspx?Stake=demo

--
Aaron

alphabeta wrote:I've been asked to administer this piece of software for our stake. I thought I would pass it along as a possible project or at least one that should be duplicated as an open source project.

Slick!

Who owns the code now?

Here's a few things I've done, or know about:

http://scott.barberfam.com/wp/2007/04/0 ... -ward-web/
http://scott.barberfam.com/wp/2006/10/2 ... ne-plugin/
http://ifyeareprepared.org/about

I'm excited about the greasemonkey script I wrote as it opens the door to other cool hacks. I'm working on a vonage "click to call" script next for lds.org

I wonder if there's someplace other that this forum where a software list can be maintained (some wiki?)

ScottyB wrote:I wonder if there's someplace other that this forum where a software list can be maintained (some wiki?)

I'm working on getting approval for a wiki but until then, I suggest http://www.ldsoss.org.

Tom

I know that wiki's can support media such as images, sound,etc. Would this wiki be spcial in that we can also host the code in a subversion or cvs type environment?

thedqs wrote:I know that wiki's can support media such as images, sound,etc. Would this wiki be spcial in that we can also host the code in a subversion or cvs type environment?

Those are two separate packages I will need to work on getting approval for.

Tom

Good luck. I think that would be another part of this site that would increase traffic and give the community a common workground.

RussellHltn wrote:Slick!

Who owns the code now?

Technically the Lehi Utah West Stake, but I'll see if I can't drill down to the author.

tomw wrote:If the intent was to make this networkable or web based, I totally agree with you. If it is designed to run on a local user's machine in a stand-alone environment (which it currently is) then an embedded database is much more effective in my opinion.

However it should be fairly trivial to support multiple DB backends.

I agree, however it would help to avoid a lot of headaches if you use JPA or an ORM framework (e.g. Hibernate) that can help migrate the app to be backed by any db (in the future). Using straight SQL in an application is probably not the best "scalable" idea.

Ok, so I have no idea if it would be helpful or not but...

In August 2006, I was asked by the Sacramento Temple Commitee to construct a database to mange all the people that volunteered at the Open House and Dedication. It had a overall admin functionality, stake admin functionality and then ward level functionality. It was to manage the 21 stakes and all the vollunteers? I actually developed it for a year and then it was really used for the dedication.

Some features included:

• Managing Commitees
• Managing Commitee Date and Time Schedules
• Managing Stakes and Stake Level Contacts
• Managang Wards associated with Stakes
• Managing Volunteers within Wards for specific assignments and dates.
• Overall Calendar view of all Commitees with corresponding dates and time schedules with a click through drill down feature to volunteers.
• Export of date or committee/date information (This was handy for printing daily badges etc.)

This list is really very small and simplified compared to what it does. Anyway, long story longer, it is obviously something that is very project (Temple Dedication Open House) specific and not something that everyone would be interested in but do any of you guys at the church want the code to see if it can be used for future temple dedications? It was written in Classic ASP and has a SQL Server backend...before anyone asks, it was hosting constraints.

If nobody wants it, it will probably just sit and waste away on my box until I am called to the another Temple Executive Committee...lol.

Let me know...if anyone is interested in it. I am not hosting a current version anywhere because as you know the temple is up and running now but if someone wants me to stand it up to look at, I can...I would just need a couple days to clear all the data in it.

Mr. M wrote:Ok, so I have no idea if it would be helpful or not but...

In August 2006, I was asked by the Sacramento Temple Commitee to construct a database to mange all the people that volunteered at the Open House and Dedication. It had a overall admin functionality, stake admin functionality and then ward level functionality. It was to manage the 21 stakes and all the vollunteers? I actually developed it for a year and then it was really used for the dedication.

Some features included:

• Managing Commitees
• Managing Commitee Date and Time Schedules
• Managing Stakes and Stake Level Contacts
• Managang Wards associated with Stakes
• Managing Volunteers within Wards for specific assignments and dates.
• Overall Calendar view of all Commitees with corresponding dates and time schedules with a click through drill down feature to volunteers.
• Export of date or committee/date information (This was handy for printing daily badges etc.)

This list is really very small and simplified compared to what it does. Anyway, long story longer, it is obviously something that is very project (Temple Dedication Open House) specific and not something that everyone would be interested in but do any of you guys at the church want the code to see if it can be used for future temple dedications? It was written in Classic ASP and has a SQL Server backend...before anyone asks, it was hosting constraints.

If nobody wants it, it will probably just sit and waste away on my box until I am called to the another Temple Executive Committee...lol.

Let me know...if anyone is interested in it. I am not hosting a current version anywhere because as you know the temple is up and running now but if someone wants me to stand it up to look at, I can...I would just need a couple days to clear all the data in it.

During the Newport Beach temple open house there was a similar program that I used written by someone local to that temple. I'm sure that this type of product could be re-used. I'll circulate this post to the internally at the Church and get back with you.

Tom

thedqs wrote:

• [thread=113]Scripture Software[/thread] Hosted BYU Personal Page but will move to SourceForge once someone creates a project for it.

Just as an update, this project has been put on SourceForge a little while back under the project name Scripture Study Plus.

I had a request from the new Stake Patriarch to get him a OpenOffice EWriter template to use for his Blessings (instead of typing them on, or guessing on the screen....

I made the tempate, but I can seem to be able to lock the from so that it can work with the PC on the floor. Need to know how to protect the areas of the tempate, and make the parts of the table open to type in....

Thanks, Evan Bastow

ebastow wrote:I had a request from the new Stake Patriarch to get him a OpenOffice EWriter template to use for his Blessings (instead of typing them on, or guessing on the screen....

I made the tempate, but I can seem to be able to lock the from so that it can work with the PC on the floor. Need to know how to protect the areas of the tempate, and make the parts of the table open to type in....

Thanks, Evan Bastow

What do you mean "lock the form so that it can work with the PC on the floor?" Your form looks nice. What do you want to lock? If you want to lock the text labels, convert them to "User Fields" by selecting the "Insert->Fields->Other" menu option and creating the custom fields.

Tom

I've made it more of a form approach in Word 2007, though if anyone could make it Word 2003 or OpenOffice Format with the same forms and protection that might be what Eric wants. So as it stands the patriarch can only insert information and never change the standard parts of the form.

tomw wrote:What do you mean "lock the form so that it can work with the PC on the floor?" Your form looks nice. What do you want to lock? If you want to lock the text labels, convert them to "User Fields" by selecting the "Insert->Fields->Other" menu option and creating the custom fields.

Tom

I think that was a sleep deprived statement and I think that is exactly what he wanted (by the way I think the correct translation of sleep speak was "with a PC straight off the store shelf"

Oh and you need to add docx as a valid uploadedable document to these forms.

thedqs wrote:Oh and you need to add docx as a valid uploadedable document to these forms.

This has been done.

Tom

And you might want the other X Formats for Office pptx xlsx etc (basically the normal office extensions with an x appended) Also the other openoffice formats though I don't remember all their extensions.

thedqs wrote:And you might want the other X Formats for Office pptx xlsx etc (basically the normal office extensions with an x appended) Also the other openoffice formats though I don't remember all their extensions.

Yes, thank you!

Tom

I'm also available to collaborate. I'm an italian member and I'm thinking to translate it in italian. Would this possible?

I wrong something, my reply was for another forum.
Pardon!

The forum is correct but I red only pag.1.
So my post is for EDB program mentioned at the beginning of forum.

I've downloaded this program but it doesn't allow me to import the MLS file. Help?

Aaron

ADRATHBUN wrote:I've downloaded this program but it doesn't allow me to import the MLS file. Help?

What "program" are you talking about? There are 40 posts in this topic, so it would help if you could provide a specific link to the program you're downloading.

Please note that you posted to a discussion that is 9 years old, so it's unlikely that any of the information is still relevant.

Sorry, the Emergency Preparedness Dayabase by Jay Askren.
Aaron

Much has changed in the past 9 years. I'm not sure if that export function is still there in MLS. Many have been removed due to privacy reasons.

There's also now a policy that prohibits importing membership into third party software.

Thank you for the help. Is there any talk of possibly trying to get something along those lines approved for Emergency Preparedness for the wards?? I am newly appointed and our ward has absolutely nothing and no where for me to start.
Aaron
Aaron

MLS itself has some functions, but if I recall correctly, the reports left something to be desired. (Not to mention the challenges of getting access to the computer.)

At some point, the functions may find it's way into the on-line LCR, but there's a whole list of other functions that have higher priority.