KJV and Search Features

In my January 18th blog, I promised to develop two search features by the 17th of February. Well, it is the 16th and both of those features are now available for general use.

1. It is now possible to view the text of the Bible in both the King James Version (KJV) and the New American Standard Bible (NASB).
2. It is now possible to search the Bible and search margin notes.

Both of these features were planned since the very beginning in one way or another, but have been put off until now. My only concern through all of this is that the navigation is starting to get cluttered. I may eventually unify the search so that one page searches both the Bible and margin notes. Until then, this is what is available.

UPDATE 2/17/08 11:00 PM: I unified the two search pages into one page, and added an advanced search page for searching the Bible. It looks so much better now.

I hope you all enjoy these new features, and make frequent use of them!

About the Author: Nick is the creator of BibleShared.com -- a web application that allows you to read the Bible, write notes in the margin, share these notes with others, and track your Bible reading progress.

Facebook Group

For those of you who use Facebook and like to join random groups, you can now join the BibleShared.com group at the following link:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7284667412

Enjoy!

About the Author: Nick is the creator of BibleShared.com -- a web application that allows you to read the Bible, write notes in the margin, share these notes with others, and track your Bible reading progress.

Vacation

Well, I'll be headed out on a much needed vacation tomorrow. As such, support requests and group creation requests may not be answered in a timely manner. If I have internet connectivity I'll try to get to those as I can, but I cannot make any guarantees.

I'm fairly certain reading plans will be added (in some capacity) in a future version, along with configurable email notifications as well. I probably will not include native support for text messages, simply because I don't want BibleShared to be responsible for running up peoples' cell phone bills. However, if you put in the email address for your cell phone, it won't bug you about it.

Another feature was suggested by Pastor Marty of Abundant Life Christian Fellowship in Everett, WA (my home church, and the origin of BibleShared.com). That feature was a prayer journal. This will most definitely be incorporated in some future version of BibleShared.com, I just don't know when at this point.

I will make one promise though. On or before February 17th, 2008, I will finally unveil fulltext searching of the Bible AND margin notes. It MIGHT even search multiple versions of the Bible under the hood so that if the wording stored in your memory isn't the NASB, it will still find it. Right now I have the KJV, NASB, and NLT indexed (with only the NASB published), so it is possible to do this, but don't hold me to it. I still have to research the legal implications of this with regards to the NLT.

I do have a random question before I go: Would you like the option to switch the Bible view so that it displays the King James Version of the Bible? Let me know via a comment.

Anyway, enjoy the next week!

About the Author: Nick is the creator of BibleShared.com -- a web application that allows you to read the Bible, write notes in the margin, share these notes with others, and track your Bible reading progress.

Two Feature Requests / Comments

This last week I've received two feature requests that I'm seriously considering implementing in a newer version of BibleShared.com.

The first request comes from Jacob of Southwest First Assembly of God in Lakewood, Colorado. He recommended that BibleShared.com add a "Reading Plan" feature wherein a user can create/follow a specific Bible reading plan, and track his/her progress as (s)he reads through the Bible (or a portion thereof) in a predetermined order.

The second request comes from Dan of Overlake Park Presbyterian Church in Bellevue, Washington. He recommended that a user be able to set an option that has BibleShared.com send him/her emails if (s)he does not read the Bible on a certain day. This would not be enabled by default (so as to reduce unwanted spam), but could be enabled if so desired.

Post your comments, and tell me if these are something that you would like to see in a future version of BibleShared.com.

About the Author: Nick is the creator of BibleShared.com -- a web application that allows you to read the Bible, write notes in the margin, share these notes with others, and track your Bible reading progress.

Blog Widget

Starting today, you can now add a BibleShared.com widget to your blog that will display your current reading progress.

For details head over here:
http://www.bibleshared.com/widgets.asp

About the Author: Nick is the creator of BibleShared.com -- a web application that allows you to read the Bible, write notes in the margin, share these notes with others, and track your Bible reading progress.

Bug Round-up

So it has been 4 months since the initial launch of BibleShared.com. This has allowed enough time to pass for bug reports to begin piling up. I fixed a few issues today, and will continue to work through these issues throughout the next few weeks.

Here's a list of all the issues submitted thus-far, for the curious:

Fixed
- A favicon should be created -- FIXED: Now an open bible
- Include an option for sub-groups -- FIXED: Now available under "Admin"
- Cannot create a group with 32767+ members -- WON'T FIX: The group would be virtually unmanageable anyway
- Profanity filter does not work on feeds -- FIXED: Now feeds are filtered
- Bug report form should make description optional -- FIXED: Now only the title is required

High Priority
- There is no search feature
- Undefined behavior when group subscription lapses
- There is no page describing subscription levels/pricing
- There is no password reset feature

Normal Priority
- User notes page pagination UI error
- User can change their password to nothing (but then cannot log in)
- RSS feeds need to be protected with a key value
- Session can time out while writing a note
- Bad grammar in closed forum thank you message

Low Priority
- UI looks awful on IE6 under Windows XP at 800x600 resolution
- Switching group and clicking "Edit Note" on note from previous group gives incorrect message
- Hitting the back button after switching a group forces sign-in
- Error message "User "" is not a member of this group" is seen after removing self from group

Feature Requests
- Re-create sign-up page to make more sense
- Widget to add to blogs to track bible reading progress
- Memory verse list
- Cancel button on delete confirmation page
- Copyright info bar extends too far to the right
- Button backgrounds are too light and hard to read
- Blog link should be moved

About the Author: Nick is the creator of BibleShared.com -- a web application that allows you to read the Bible, write notes in the margin, share these notes with others, and track your Bible reading progress.

In-person is best

Well, I finally arrived on-site with the BibleShared.com database server. Upon investigation I found that it was reporting that ALL DRIVES had failed -- which is ridiculous for a 3% fail rate.

Long story short, none of them had actually failed, it was just an easily resolved configuration hiccup. Oh well, I have a new drive coming in the mail for when it really is needed.

About the Author: Nick is the creator of BibleShared.com -- a web application that allows you to read the Bible, write notes in the margin, share these notes with others, and track your Bible reading progress.