Java LDS Scriptures

I am trying to find some LDS scriptures in the Java format that I can use on my new phone (Samsung Eternity). Have any ideas?

mkdnprtt wrote:I am trying to find some LDS scriptures in the Java format that I can use on my new phone (Samsung Eternity). Have any ideas?

What do you mean by "Java format"? Java is a computer programming language, not a data format. Java programs can work with a wide variety of data formats. What actual data format are you looking for?

rmrichesjr wrote:What do you mean by "Java format"? Java is a computer programming language, not a data format. Java programs can work with a wide variety of data formats. What actual data format are you looking for?

It appears he might be looking for a Java application instead.

The Eternity has a proprietary Samsung OS, (like we need yet another one ) so don't hold your breath for a scripture reader to be rolled out any time soon for it.

My samsung phone, like many phones, can only load Java applications. I am not a programmer, but would it be so difficult to make lds scriptures as a java application(.jar or .jad)? Or does one exist already?

Wouldnt it make sense to have it available, as many computer based platforms (including most cell phones) support Java?

Thanks in advance for your help!

As others said before. Java is a program language. If you are looking for a simple Text reader; I think your equipement has already one, then you need only TXT file of the scriptures.

Im sorry if my original question is difficult to understand. I would like to have a program, similar to the Scriptures app for the iphone, where I could jump between books, chapters, verses, etc., just written in Java with a .jar or .jad file extension. Anyone know if something like that exists, or if it could be easily written?

mkdnprtt wrote:Im sorry if my original question is difficult to understand. I would like to have a program, similar to the Scriptures app for the iphone, where I could jump between books, chapters, verses, etc., just written in Java with a .jar or .jad file extension. Anyone know if something like that exists, or if it could be easily written?

I don't know if it exist, but if so even Linux users could use it (and this is not the case right now), but I'm sure it's not easily writing. Most of all because scriptures data format! And I don't think that the one used by Church is an Open format too!
If it is, let me know it and I will do the program!

mkdnprtt wrote:Im sorry if my original question is difficult to understand. I would like to have a program, similar to the Scriptures app for the iphone, where I could jump between books, chapters, verses, etc., just written in Java with a .jar or .jad file extension. Anyone know if something like that exists, or if it could be easily written?

Okay, now we're getting somewhere. I don't know of anything that currently exists. Developing a Java application shouldn't be very difficult, but it would take some time--between a few days and a few months, depending on how much functionality is needed. There will be two major components:

First, there will need to be a way to capture the text of the scriptures. Each user would need to download the data, transform it, and load it into the phone. Distributing the text with the application would violate Church copyright unless permission were obtained, and getting that permission would not be feasible a small-scale project. So, some program would have to be written to do the download and transform.

Second, the application on the phone itself would take the bulk of the work. In theory, Java would allow one program to work on any platform. In practice, there are undoubtedly differences in screen size and layout, I/O methods, and perhaps other OS-specific issues that would have be solved separately for each make and model of phone.

The user base for this application would be the intersection of the sets of 1) Church members who want scriptures on their phone, and 2) owners of the specific phone the application is written for. Unless there is someone willing to do the work himself/herself or someone willing to pay for the work, I would fear that intersection would be too small to develop such an application except for perhaps a couple of phones with the largest market share.

rmrichesjr wrote:The user base for this application would be the intersection of the sets of 1) Church members who want scriptures on their phone, and 2) owners of the specific phone the application is written for. Unless there is someone willing to do the work himself/herself or someone willing to pay for the work, I would fear that intersection would be too small to develop such an application except for perhaps a couple of phones with the largest market share.

I think that is exactly right, which is why the church's own development effort is starting with a scriptures app for the iPhone. That platform has a large market share. Other apps on competitive platforms may follow and may be able to reuse some of the code, but the differences among operating systems and devices are not trivial. Java lends itself to portability, but it is not close to plug-and-play on diverse devices.

Thanks for the answers guys. I have seen programs (like tequilacat) that allow me to convert ebooks into .jar files which can be loaded onto my phone. It wont have the functionality of a Scriptures App type program, but I guess it will have to do until someone with the right skills gets ambitious enough to put something like that together, or until I get a device that will support something other than JAVA.

mkdnprtt wrote:Thanks for the answers guys. I have seen programs (like tequilacat) that allow me to convert ebooks into .jar files which can be loaded onto my phone. It wont have the functionality of a Scriptures App type program, but I guess it will have to do until someone with the right skills gets ambitious enough to put something like that together, or until I get a device that will support something other than JAVA.

A .jar file is simply a Zip archive, per the Linux "file" command: "Zip archive data, at least v2.0 to extract"

So, is your need solved, at least as much as can be until someone writes a scripture browser application in Java?

If not, what kind of files do you need in a .jar file for your phone? What file formats?

rmrichesjr wrote:A .jar file is simply a Zip archive, per the Linux "file" command: "Zip archive data, at least v2.0 to extract"

So, is your need solved, at least as much as can be until someone writes a scripture browser application in Java?

If not, what kind of files do you need in a .jar file for your phone? What file formats?

Yes, I guess my need is solved as much as it can be regarding a scripture app. I was moving now to plan B which is converting using Tequilacat BookReader. The Tequilacat user manual (found here) says I can convert a .txt file format (as well as a few other file types) to a .jar which will be read using their book reader. Do you know if the scriptures are available to the public in a .txt format?

mkdnprtt wrote:Do you know if the scriptures are available to the public in a .txt format?

You may want to see this related post, discussing how much of the scripture content is under copyright and not released under public domain: http://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.ph ... #post24353

You will find the Bible and an old version of the Book of Mormon are the only texts that can legally be distributed under the laws of public domain. Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, and all footnotes and cross references have never been released under public domain.

mkdnprtt wrote:Yes, I guess my need is solved as much as it can be regarding a scripture app. I was moving now to plan B which is converting using Tequilacat BookReader. The Tequilacat user manual (found here) says I can convert a .txt file format (as well as a few other file types) to a .jar which will be read using their book reader. Do you know if the scriptures are available to the public in a .txt format?

The only feasible legal way I know of would be to write a program that would let each user download the text from the Gospel Library area at lds.org and convert it to .txt. That's what I was referring to here:

rmrichesjr wrote: ...
First, there will need to be a way to capture the text of the scriptures. Each user would need to download the data, transform it, and load it into the phone. Distributing the text with the application would violate Church copyright unless permission were obtained, and getting that permission would not be feasible a small-scale project. So, some program would have to be written to do the download and transform.
...

This program would be short and easy, but it would need to be written. I think I would start with html2text and a Perl script.

rmrichesjr wrote:The only feasible legal way I know of would be to write a program that would let each user download the text from the Gospel Library area at lds.org and convert it to .txt. That's what I was referring to here:

...

This program would be short and easy, but it would need to be written. I think I would start with html2text and a Perl script.

I have pulled copies of the scripture web pages down by hand to read off-line (save page under a different name), but I always feel a bit concerned about it. The reason I feel concerned is that I don't quite understand why the Church doesn't just provide PDF or text files of the scriptures.

Is there somewhere I could find policy on this sort of thing? PDF would solve a lot of problems relative to scriptures formatted for portable devices.

It wouldn't allow linking between books, but there's still the low-tech solution of the eyeball link -- the cross references at the bottom of the page in the physical book. Or, if the linking problem is an issue, HTML is usually readable and linkable from the local hard drive.

reiisi wrote:
Is there somewhere I could find policy on this sort of thing? PDF would solve a lot of problems relative to scriptures formatted for portable devices.

Scriptures in PDF are available.

reiisi wrote:I have pulled copies of the scripture web pages down by hand to read off-line (save page under a different name), but I always feel a bit concerned about it.
...
Is there somewhere I could find policy on this sort of thing?

As far as the policy for downloading is concerned, in the Rights and Use Information for lds.org (a link is in the footer of every page of lds.org), it says:

You may view, download, and print material from this site only for your personal, noncommercial use unless otherwise indicated.

So you're fine downloading HTML or PDF from lds.org, as long is it is for your personal use.

reiisi wrote:The reason I feel concerned is that I don't quite understand why the Church doesn't just provide PDF or text files of the scriptures.
...
PDF would solve a lot of problems relative to scriptures formatted for portable devices.

You can indeed find the scriptures in PDF format in the Gospel Library section of lds.org under Church Publications--PDF Format (the Holy Bible and Triple Combination are the links in the Scriptures section, which is the first section on the page).

mkdnprtt wrote:Thanks for the answers guys. I have seen programs (like tequilacat) that allow me to convert ebooks into .jar files which can be loaded onto my phone. It wont have the functionality of a Scriptures App type program, but I guess it will have to do until someone with the right skills gets ambitious enough to put something like that together, or until I get a device that will support something other than JAVA.

Can you browse the web? You might want to try http://www.scripturebrowser.com.

Jason

I am considering buying an LG phone that has the same problem. I want to put the scriptures on my phone but this can only be accomplished via a java application. What was the final conclusion with this thread. It seems to me that for now the project is dead.

From the looks of this, it look like projects are in the works or planned for more than just the iPhone.

According to http://www.mobiledia.com/phones/samsung/eternity.html the Samsung Eternity supports J2ME, a special set of Java libraries and protocols with which "Java" applications can written for supporting mobile devices.

And I do believe a J2ME version of the Gospel Library is under development by the church through the community process.

Would you like a comment on JavaME development for the scripture reader? I would say I am heading up the team for the JavaME development project but it is more accurate to say that I am currently the team working on JavaME support. I have not been on the boards in quite a while but thought I should check if anyone has been trying to contact me.

The JavaME project went on hold for a bit while I was changing jobs and getting set up but I am now very actively working on the project. I hadn't previously said much about it because I thought the teams working on the gospel libraries for different platforms were being kept quiet but as the information about the projects is openly available now on the community pages I suppose I should be able to answer questions about it. I have been asked to try and get the information about the project on the wiki. I will try to keep updating the wiki as I make progress.

I am currently in the phase of binary serialization to a compact gospel library format which I have designed. I am finishing of the serialization but have the whole standard works with styling information is down to 2.5mb at the moment using GZIP compression. The final figure will be a little higher as some meta data is not getting written yet.

After the serialization is done I am into the phase of parsing the data from the compact binary format onto the device. I may write a Servlet for the JavaME emulator to connect to over http to get the data. When it comes to testing with real devices I expect to send the data via bluetooth but creating a servlet for this phase of the testing is probably going to be a bit faster.

Carl Jokl wrote:I have been asked to try and get the information about the project on the wiki. I will try to keep updating the wiki as I make progress.

A direct link to the wiki page is: Gospel Library for JavaME.

I am sorry also if there are errors in the Wiki page as it is still very much a work in progress.

Hi folks, I'm pleased to announce you the english LDS Scriptures Mobile Java (J2ME) version!

Can I upload files in this forum?

Details:

• Texts. I've got the scripture texts from the Mormon Documentation Project http://mdp.nephi.org/ (public domain) and with a little vim script I converted them to XML-ThML (one of the 3 XML formats required by Go Bible Creator application http://gobible.jolon.org/developer/ThML/ThML.html ).
• J2ME code. Go Bible Project 2.4.0 http://code.google.com/p/gobible/downloads/list I didn't even need until now to modify a single line of source code (nor rebuild GoBibleCore.jar): the GoBible data format is suitable for generic text grouped by books, chapters and verses: http://code.google.com/p/gobible/wiki/GoBibleDataFormat

GoGible links:
1st project site (2.2.6 binaries and some docs) http://gobible.jolon.org/
Google app page (2.4.0 binaries and docs) http://code.google.com/p/gobible/
2.4.0 sources https://crosswire.org/svn/gobible/
License:

• GoBible 2.2.6 was declared in the public domain http://gobible.jolon.org/about.html but sources are missing
• GoBible 2.4.0 : GPLv2 license http://code.google.com/p/gobible/wiki/GoBibleLicense

Anybody knows how to obtain XML version of other language scriptures, such as Italian Standard Works?
Else I'll copy&paste the texts chapter by chapter, a very long work...

Further development:

• Better customization (About menu, ...)
• Multi volume support and volume selection (all Works in one big jar - Implementation: a folder for each volume and another index file for volumes)
• Italian LDS Scriptures J2ME! (Spanish, German, ...) Where I can get the scriptures in XML-ThML format or at least generic XML or (My)SQL?

Sorry for my errors, I'm not so fluent in English language.

Good job!

lavrap wrote:Anybody knows how to obtain XML version of other language scriptures, such as Italian Standard Works?

You will find English, German and Spanish XML versions here: https://code.lds.org/svn/gospel-library/scriptures/ (LDS Tech account required.)

SanktSimon wrote:Good job!You will find English, German and Spanish XML versions here: https://code.lds.org/svn/gospel-library/scriptures/ (LDS Tech account required.)

Don't assume that you are free to use those XML versions of the scriptures for any purpose. They are the intellectual property of the Church and have restrictions on their use. Those particular versions are part of the Gospel Library projects. I'd be wary of using them for any other purpose without specific legal permission from the Church. See this post.

Ok, I'm just going to make this a little easier.

http://tech.lds.org/wiki/Book_of_Mormon_Java_ME_download

I've also been using wattpad. A java j2me reader that has all the books from the Gutenberg project including the Book of Mormon/Bible. It has a very slick interface for non smart phones like my pantech link. You can get it by using your mobile browser (like opera mini) and going to getjar.com and searching for "wattpad".