The SWORD Project

:"For the 1960s toy and science fiction stories, produced by Century 21 Productions, see Project SWORD."

The SWORD Project is the CrossWire Bible Society's free Bible software project. Its purpose is to create cross-platform open source tools—covered by the GNU General Public License—that allow programmers and Bible societies to write new Bible software more quickly and easily.

Overview

The core of the Sword Project is a cross platform library written in C++, providing access, search functions and other utilities to a growing collection of over 200 texts in over 50 languagesCite web|url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-115254414.html|title=Religion Meets Computer Revolution|accessdate=2008-03-17|year=2004-04-11|author=Al Fasoldt|work=The Post-Standard (Syracuse, New York)] . Any software based on their API can use this collection.

The project is one of the primary implementers of and contributors to the Open Scripture Information Standard (OSIS), a standardized XML language for the encoding of scripture. The software is also capable of utilizing certain resources encoded in using the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) format and maintains deprecated support for Theological Markup Language (ThML) and General Bible Format (GBF).

Available front-ends

Front-ends are available currently for Windows ("The SWORD Project for Windows"), various Unixes ("GnomeSword"Cite web|url=http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/2006/09/13/linux-the-flash-and-the-fish|title=Linux: The Flash and the Fish|accessdate=2008-03-17|publisher=WebProNews|year=2006-09-13|author=David A. Utter] and "BibleTime"), including all mainline Linux distributions and FreeBSD, Mac OS X ("MacSword"), WinCE ("SwordReader"), Internet Tablet OS (Rapier), as CGI utility ("diatheke") and others.

Beyond that there are a number of other front ends [ [http://www.bpbible.com/] BPBible] [ [http://sourceforge.net/projects/xsword/] Xsword] [ [http://sourceforge.net/projects/wxsword/] wxSword] [ [http://sourceforge.net/projects/pysword/] PySword] making use of the library.

A separate implementation in Java exists in JSword, with its own cross-platform GUI, BibleDesktop.Cite web|url=http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/51521/|title=Bible Desktop 1.0 Released|accessdate=2008-03-17|year=2006-01-10|work=Linux News]

Despite the similarity in name, the e-Sword Bible software program is not a product of The SWORD Project, nor is it built upon The SWORD Project API.

Reviews

Bible Software Review, [http://www.bsreview.org/index.php?modulo=Reviews&id=23 "Review of MacSword version 1.2,"] June 13, 2005.

Michael Hansen, [http://www.stimulus.org.nz/index_files/Stim12_3StudyingBible.pdf "Studying the Bible for Free,"] Stimulus, Volume 12 Number 3, August 2004, page 33 - 38

References

See also

* Go Bible – a free Bible viewer for the Java ME platform
* Palm Bible Plus – a free Bible viewer for PalmOS

External links

* [http://www.crosswire.org/sword/index.jsp The SWORD Project]
* [http://www.swordwarrior.net/ SwordBible]
* [http://www.crosswire.org/sword/software/biblecs/index.jsp The SWORD Project for Windows]
* [http://gnomesword.sourceforge.net/ GnomeSword]
* [http://www.bibletime.info/ BibleTime]
* [http://www.crosswire.org/jsword/ JSword]
* [http://www.crosswire.org/bibledesktop/ BibleDesktop]