BibleShared.com API

Hello all,

I've been hard at work on BibleShared.com this last week, and am excited about some of the new things in store. This might not interest much of the general public, but for software developers and web designers, this might generate some excitement.

I'm working on developing an open API for BibleShared.com that will allow programmers to create software and web sites that use the features of BibleShared.com. Imagine being able to access your notes using a program on your cell phone, or searching the scriptures by sending a text message. These kinds of thing, and more will be possible.

It will be implemented as a SOAP web service which should have .NET programmers especially excited. An API Key will be required for applications to be able to call its methods, but that will be provided for free to those who request it. To access any information for or about a user, direct authorization must be granted by that user through an interface already implemented on BibleShared.com.

Currently the following methods are planned to be supported:

• AddNote
• AddNoteComments
• CreateSubGroup
• GetAuthCodeStatus
• GetChapterAddress
• GetNewAuthCode [Done]
• GetNote
• GetNoteComments
• GetPassageText
• GetPassageURL [Done]
• GetProgress
• GetRecentNotes
• MarkAsRead
• SearchBible [Done]
• SearchNotes

If you are a developer and would have interest in programming against this API, let me know in the comments, and suggest any methods you would like to see. No destructive methods will be supported (i.e. there will be no "delete" operations offered through the API).

On an unrelated side note, the Verse of the Day widget is still planned, we just need more verses to feature. Please leave comments with your favorite verses. Thanks!

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.

Global Notes Complete

Well, the Global Notes functionality of BibleShared.com is now live and available for exploration.

I went ahead and marked all of my own Shared Notes as Global Notes so that they will be available across all of the groups of which I am a member. This adds around 8 pages of notes to each and every one of these groups -- I hope the groups' administrators do not mind the flood.

This brings me to an interesting tidbit about Global Notes. If you are a group administrator or a moderator, you can prevent specific Global Notes from appearing in your group by simply deleting them as you might do with any other especially offensive note. This will not actually delete the note, but instead add it to a blacklist for your group. Though the note is not entirely lost, this process cannot be reversed, so don't delete notes casually.

Enjoy the new feature! I'm going to bed.

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.

Coming Soon

Let the screenshot to the right be a teaser of what is to come. If you look carefully at the icon, and the extra piece of information included under the text of the note you just might be able to figure it out. Otherwise, I'll just say it. Global Notes.

Have you ever posted a note in one group, and wished that you could see it in another group? Have you been a member of a group for a long time, and want to join another group, but don't want to lose your notes? Well soon you will be able to set certain notes as available everywhere, and as long as you are a member of a group, these notes will appear there.

This should provide a better experience for members of groups, as well as group administrators that are just starting out, as they can migrate all their existing notes without having to change anything at all.

Currently, on the "Recent Notes" list, you see notes that are either "Shared" notes, or "Private" notes which you have direct permissions for. Global Notes makes this a little more complicated. Now you will see a note if any of the following is true:
- The note is global and the creator is in your group
- The note is shared and it was created in your group
- The note is private, not written by you, you have permission, and it was created in your group
- The note is private, written by you, and was created in your group
- The note is completely private (i.e. "Only I can view" was selected), and written by you in any group.

Let me know your feedback on this feature that is in development by posting a comment.

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.

Verse of the Day Widget

Hello All!

I've been hard at work getting new things prepared for BibleShared.com. Among those things is a widget that will show the "Verse of the Day". Unfortunately that requires going through the Scriptures and picking out 365 different verses to feature. That's a LOT of work!

Just going through my own margin notes, I can come up with around 80-100, but I need your help! If you have a favorite verse, or one that you think should be a "verse of the day", post it as a comment to this blog, and I'll see what we can do about including them in the rotation.

Thanks to TwinkleMom for the suggestion!

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.

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.