MinimalBible

A Bible app for android designed to be more focused in both UI and feature set.

Project Outline

This outline is intended to show the tasks needing to be accomplished, and give an idea of when releases will happen.

Core:

These are the tasks that will need to be accomplished before the 1.0 major release.

• Project setup
  • Add the appcompat project to the Git repository

Done as of d6c7f498e6e1f5bbd7895f979dc25c5537e7cae5

• Integration with JSword
  • Build JSword
  • Distribute an Android binary that contains JSword and 3rd party libraries

Done as of fd6c0630799d360cef83871cc6b3af05e4dc3a0d

• Download Manager

  • Bible browser
  • Can download Bibles
  • Can remove Bibles
  • Generate search indexes for Bibles

• Bible Viewer

  • UI design finalized
    • Use Immersive mode for 4.4+?
    • Panels for footnotes, commentary?
    • Navigation drawer for books?
    • What gestures should be used? (Swipe left/right for chapter search?)
    • How to get to Download Manager / some form of home page?
  • Navigation of books working
  • Can display Bible text
    • Time from launch to viewing text under 5s. Ideally, under 3s. as well.
  • Can use navigation drawer to open a book
  • Infinite scroll between chapters
    • Research how to accomplish infinite scroll
    • Implement infinite scroll
  • Red letter enabled

• Cleanup

  • Include only necessary libraries for jSword, rather than all dependencies. APK ~20MB is way too big.

Release v.1 to Play store

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• Search
  • UI design finalized (integration in Bible Viewer, separate activity?)
  • Search functionality implemented
    • Get Lucene search working (included in JSword)
    • Tweak search (fuzzy? Lord -> LORD? Are we actually getting results we want?)
  • Search history recorded
    • Record when search took place?

Release v.2

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• Download Manager

  • Download manager can fetch commentaries

• Footnotes/Commentaries

  • UI design finalized
    • Frame on bottom of Bible Viewer a la this?
    • Switch between footnotes/commentaries by swiping on panel?
    • Right-side nav drawer like FB?
    • Can we synchronize scroll between commentaries/footnotes?
    • Should Bible search also search commentaries?
  • Implement/Show commentaries/footnotes
  • Synchronize scrolling Bible to footnotes/commentaries
    • Is this possible?
    • Implement it!
  • Clicking on note in text opens commentary

Release v.3

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• Settings Manager

  • Night mode?
  • Automatic night mode?
  • Text font/size
  • Clear searches?
  • Disable red-letter?
  • Send feedback

• Home screen

  • Allow access to settings, download manager, and Bible Viewer

Release v1.0
Party!

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Feature Addition

These are features I want to add, but are not considered part of the "core" product. Many (most) are necessary features of a modern app, but follow after the first major release.

Usage statistics

• Include usage statistics?
  • Only send statistics on WiFi?
  • Disable by default? Prompt user?

Sharing

• UI Design finalized
  • Click on text to select it, then share?
  • Long-click text to share?
  • Share currently active text?
  • Dialog to select what range of text is included?
  • Share commentary/footnotes?
• Intent filter created to share via FB, email, etc.
• Settings
  • Share link to app alongside text? Allow disabling?

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Highlighting

• UI Design finalized

  • Click on text to select like share?
  • Highlight colors / custom colors?
  • Multiple highlight colors?
  • Remove highlights?

• Database backing

  • First feature to need a database! Success!
  • How to store sections of highlighted material?
  • Store start/end range, along with highlight color?
  • Store when highlight was created?

• Bible Viewer

  • How to show highlights?
    • More specifically, how does showing highlights impact performance on start?
    • Show text first, then highlights after loaded?

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Notes

• UI Design finalized

  • Likely very similar to highlighting

• Database backing

  • Likely very similar to highlighting
  • Store note instead of highlight color?
  • Store when note was created / updated?

• Bible Viewer

  • Same concerns as highlighting, how does it impact speed?
  • How do we display notes? Highlighting changes background color, have a separate link for our notes?
  • Do notes get added to a panel on bottom? Can user browse notes?

• Home Screen

  • Notes browser

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Widgets

• Text to display here?
• Shortcut to specific verse/chapter?
  • How to create shortcuts?

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Cloud support

• Backup notes/highlights to cloud service?
• Just backup entire app database to cloud?
• Google Drive/Dropbox?
• Settings
  • Automated backups?
  • Backup on WiFi only?

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Plenty to get done!