Aminet 1 (Walnut Creek)/Aminet - June 1993 [Walnut Creek].iso/aminet/text/docs/vw12_1.lzh/VW.DOC

Text File | 1992-01-18 | 19KB | 413 lines

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VerseWise Amiga v1.2 Copyright Bruce Geerdes 1991,1992
May 9, 1992
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SUMMARY

VerseWise is a Bible display/search/output program for the Amiga.
It opens a resizeable window on the Workbench screen and allows
one to quickly jump to any scripture, search for verses containing
one to ten specific words, and/or output text to an ASCII file.

VerseWise uses the King James (or "Authorized") translation of the
Bible and is freely distributable, as long as it is not done so
for monetary gain.

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DIFFERENT IMPLEMENTATIONS

There are two implementations of VerseWise:  a hard disk based
full Bible, and a floppy disk New Testament.  You need a hard
drive to run the former, as it occupies about 2.2 megabytes of
disk space, with its largest file just under 1.5 megs.  The New
Testament fits on one floppy.

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SETTING UP

New Testament:  It's already set up.  Skip to the next section!

Full Bible:

You should have three disks:  VerseWise, Data1, & Data2.

To set VerseWise up, all you need to do is copy the VerseWise
directory from the VerseWise disk on to your hard drive. The files
in the directory (at last count) are:

    VW(.info)
    VW.doc(.info)
    Install_text(.info)
    data.boo
    data.cha
    data.loo
    data.num
    data.ver

From your hard drive, run the Install_text program and it will
request the Data1 and Data2 disks when it needs them and create
the "data.tex" file.  Keep the disks as a backup.

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RUNNING VERSEWISE

You may start VerseWise from the Workbench by double-clicking on
the "VW" icon, or if you are in CLI, typing "run VW".  By running
VerseWise two or more times and resizing and rearranging the
windows you can compare two or more passages side by side.  The
only restriction is the amount of available RAM your system has.
Each copy of the New Testament uses around 274k, while the full
Bible needs about 511k per copy. (Your mileage will vary.)  VW_LO,
provided with the full Bible version, uses about 386k per copy,
but is slower because it does more disk accessing.  If you have
very little free RAM, you may need to use it.

The window will open a certain size and in a certain location.
You may resize the window and place it differently.  If you want
the window to be opened such the next time you run VerseWise,
choose "Save Prefs" under the "VerseWise" menu.

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MOVING AROUND

If you are using the New Testament version, and this is the first
time you are running the program, you will start out at Matthew
chapter 1, verse 1. (The beginning of each verse is marked by its
chapter number [colon] verse number.)  If you are running the full
Bible version, you will begin at Genesis 1:1.  When you quit, VW
will save your position and place you there the next time you run
it.

The book you are currently in is displayed in VerseWise's window
title, which changes as the first line of the window moves from one
book to another.  The end of one book and the beginning of the
following book can be displayed in the window at the same time;
whichever book the first line of the window is in will be displayed
in the window title.

The scroll bar in the right border of the window approximates
where you are in the current book. (Note that sometimes the
approximation is quite inaccurate, especially in the smaller
books.)  You may jump to the beginning or end of the the current
book by dragging the bar to the top or bottom of its field,
respectively.  Or you may place it somewhere in between.

To move through the text you may use the cursor keys or the mouse.
Cursor up and down scrolls one line through the text backwards and
forwards, respectively; shift-cursor up and shift-cursor down
scrolls a full screen.  You may also use the arrow gadgets at the
lower-right corner of the window to move one or more lines, and
click above or below the scroll bar to scroll a full screen.

You may immediately jump to a specific verse by using the
pull-down menu "Go to Verse" or by hitting right-Amiga (located to
the right of the space bar) G.  Most of the menu items have
right-Amiga key equivalents; you can see what they are by looking
at the menus themselves.

A "Go to verse" requester should appear.  You now have to enter the
book, chapter, and verse you want to go to.  If you decide you
don't want to jump to another verse after all, hit the ESCape key
(the most upper-left key on the keyboard) or use the mouse to click
on CANCEL.

A book name should be in a pair of brackets towards the bottom of
the requester.  That is the book you would choose if you hit
RETURN/OK.  If it is not the book you want to go to, start typing
in the name of the book you do want.  If you are spelling it
correctly (upper or lower case does not matter here), it should
appear in the brackets before you type the whole name.  Hit
RETURN/OK to choose that book.  If the word "NONE" appears in the
brackets the characters you've typed in do not correspond to any
book of the New Testament or Bible, depending on which version
you are using.  Backspace, and try again.  Or use the cursor up
and down keys (or the requester's scroll bar) to scroll through
the names of the books alphabetically.

If you hit RETURN/OK and chose a book but want to back up and
enter a different book, hit the ESCape key or click on CANCEL.

You now have to enter the chapter number.  The requester should
now be displaying the number of chapters in your chosen book (1-#
of chapters).  The number in brackets is the default chapter, the
one you pick if you hit RETURN/OK without typing anything in.
Type in the chapter you want to go to and hit RETURN/OK.  Or you
can change the default chapter by using the cursor keys (or scroll
bar), and then hit RETURN/OK.  Cursor up and down will move the
value by one, while shift cursor changes the default to the
minimum and maximum value available in the current book.  Moving
the requester's scroll bar to the top and bottom of its field will
also accomplish this.

If you hit RETURN/OK and chose a chapter but want to back up and
enter a different chapter, hit the ESCape key or click on CANCEL.

You now have to enter the verse number.  If you were able to
successfully enter the chapter number, you should have no problem
entering the verse; it works exactly the same.  Information
regarding the number of verses in the current chapter is displayed
in the requester; type in the verse you want to go to, or
manipulate the default number in the brackets using the cursor
keys or scroll bar, and hit RETURN/OK.

VerseWise should now jump to the book, chapter, and verse you
specified.

VerseWise also allows you to define a "bookmark" and jump back to
it.  To place a bookmark, choose "Define Bookmark" under the
"Goto" menu.  It will place it in your current position.  Choose
"Goto Bookmark" to return to this position.  You may jump between
two scriptures by placing a bookmark, going to another scripture,
and choosing "Toggle w/Bookmark".  Note that it is the other
verse (the one you are not at) that is ultimately saved as the
bookmark when you move on.

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SEARCHING

VerseWise allows you to search for verses which contain specific
words.  To do such searches you must define two things:  the
word(s) you want to look for and, if you do not want to search the
whole text, the verses you want to search through.

To define words, select the "Word (set)" option in the "Search"
menu (or hit right-Amiga W).  A requester window will appear.
Near the bottom of the requester the word "NONE" is in brackets.
Begin typing in a word you want to look for, and the word in
brackets should change.  Hit RETURN/OK when the word you want
appears. (You may have to type in the whole word.)  If you type in
characters that do not correspond to any word in the Bible the
word "NONE" will reappear in the brackets.  Backspace and try
again.

Two notes:  Upper and lower case *do* matter here -- "The" and
"the" are two different words.  Also, be aware that some of the
King James spellings are different than modern day English. (Ie,
"spake" instead of "spoke".)

After you've selected the first word you want to look for,
VerseWise asks you for Word #2. (And after that:  #3, #4, etc.)
After defining several words you can scroll through your list of
words by using the up and down cursor keys, or by moving the
requester's scroll bar.  You can delete a word from your list by
hitting the "DELete" key (located in the upper right side of the
keyboard, next to the "HELP" key).  You can change a word by
typing in a new word.  To add more words to your list, go to the
end of the list by hitting RETURN/OK, the down cursor key, or by
moving the scroll bar until "NONE" appears in the brackets.  Then,
enter the word.  To tell VW that you're done defining the word(s)
you want to look for, click on CANCEL, or hit RETURN/OK when the
word "NONE" is in brackets.  The requester will disappear.  Your
words are defined.

Note that when you define multiple words, you are telling
VerseWise to look for verses that contain all of the defined
words. (Ie, "look for verses containing word1 AND word2 AND word3
etc.)  Someday VerseWise will let you search for verses containing
"word1 OR word2", or "word1 AND word2 OR word3", etc.

By default the range covers all of VerseWise's text. (If you're
running the New Testament version, this is from Matthew 1:1 to
Revelation 22:21, while the full Bible is from Genesis 1:1 to
Revelation 22:21.)  VerseWise does not currently use any
concordance files; it has to physically search the text.  If you
are doing a search through the whole text, this doesn't take more
than a couple of minutes.  However, the search time can be
shortened if you have some idea of where what you're looking for
is and you limit the search to that area. (Ie, if you are looking
for something Jesus said, limit your search to the gospels, or if
you are looking for something Paul said, Acts and the epistles.)

To define the range of your search select the "Range (set)" option
in the "Search" menu (or hit right-Amiga R).  You have to enter
two references:  where you want the search to begin, and where you
want the search to end.  The requester displays what the range
currently is, and asks you where to begin the search. (Entering in
the scripture references works the same here as it did in the
above section, "Moving Around".)  After you have typed in the
scripture to begin at, it asks you to enter the scripture to end
at.  The only difference here is that the chapter defaults to the
last chapter in the book, instead of the first, and the verse
defaults to the last verse in the chapter, since searches most
often extend over whole books and chapters. (At least mine do!)

A note:  make sure the scripture you want to begin the search is
*before* the scripture you want to end the search.  Nothing
catastrophic will happen; the program will just refuse to do the
search.  It will tell you when it does so for this reason. ("Range
is ill-defined.")

Once you've defined the words you want to look for and where you
want to look for them, you are ready to do the actual search.
There are two ways to do searches:  immediate, or to file.

Choose the "Next" option in the "Search" menu (or hit right-Amiga
N).  A requester will pop up detailing the search and the pointer
will turn into a timepiece while the search is being conducted.
If a verse containing your defined words is found, VerseWise will
automatically jump there. (If not, a "not found" message will
appear in the search requester.)  When you want to find the next
occurance of your defined words, hit "Next" again. (The "not
found" message will appear in the search requester when there are
no more verses to be found.)

If you would like to back up to a previous find, choose the
"Previous" option in the "Search" menu (or hit right-Amiga P), and
VerseWise will jump to the previous find. (If you try to go beyond
the first find, the "not found" message will pop up.)

If you move away from the last found verse, for example you "Go
to" another verse, or scroll it off the screen, and want to return
to it, choose the "Current" option in the "Search" menu (or hit
right-Amiga C).

VerseWise also lets you direct a search to a text file.  Instead
of jumping you to each individual verse, you may have VW create a
file containing all of the verses you are looking for.  If you
would like to do a search in this manner, activate "To file" in
the Search menu. (If there is a check-mark next to it, it is
activated.)  Begin the search by hitting "Next".  VW will count
the verses it is outputting to the file and let you know when it
is done. (Read more about outputting to a text file, and the
options available to you, in the next section.)

You may cancel a search by hitting ESCape/CANCEL at any time.

A note:  changing the word, the range definition, or the "To file"
option resets the search. (Ie, it will start over at the beginning
of whatever range you have defined.)

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OUTPUTTING TEXT

VerseWise allows you to output Bible verses as a text file.  There
are two ways to do this:  by screen, and by range.

I say "screen", but actually it saves what is in the current
window. (Maybe I get the two mixed up since I usually run
VerseWise with it filling up the whole screen.)  To do this,
choose the "Screen" option in the "Output" menu (or hit
right-Amiga S).  The pointer will change to a timepiece for a
second while the text is being saved.  It will be written to the
specified file.

You may also save a specific range of text to a file, from a
couple of verses up to whole books.  Choose the "Range" option in
the "Output" menu (or hit right-Amiga O).  You enter the range
just as you do when you define a range to be searched. (For more
details, read the above section on searching.)  After the range
has been defined, you are given a chance to change your mind. (If
you specified the whole Bible, but do not want a *very* big text
file on your drive, it would be a good idea to do so!)  A
requester pops up detailing the range you want to write to disk,
and the filename you want the text to saved as.  Hit RETURN/OK to
have it continue, ESCape/CANCEL to abort.  You can also hit
ESCape/CANCEL during the output if you want to stop it.

As when defining a search range, you must make sure that the
beginning scripture reference of your range is *before* the ending
scripture reference.  If it is not, the range is "ill-defined" and
VerseWise cannot use it.  It will tell you when this is the case.

The output filename defaults to "ram:vw_output.txt".  You can
change it by choosing the "File (set)" option in the "Output" menu
(or by hitting right-Amiga F).  I apologize for not having a fancy
file requester here, but I saw it as kind of overkill as this is
the only time one needs to define a file.  VerseWise never has to
load a file, or look for one, since all of the files it needs are
in its current directory, and a file requester would add to its
RAM overhead.

"ram:" is the volume it's saving the file to, that is, the Ram
disk. (You can tell it's a volume name by the colon after it.)  If
you want to save a file to a disk volume, change the filename to
"df1:vw_output.txt" or "dh0:vw_output.txt" or whatever, depending
on the disk you want to use.  Or if you'd like to save the file in
the same directory VerseWise is in, do not specify any volume:
"vw_output.txt".  Of course, in all these cases the filename does
not need to be "vw_output.txt".  It may be (almost) anything you
like.

There are three configurable options in the "Output" menu: Append,
Formatted, and References.  All of these default to "On". (Thus
the checkmark next to them.)  To turn them off, select them via
the "Output" menu, and the checkmark should disappear.  To turn
them back on, select them again. (Sorry, there are no keyboard
equivalents.)

When Append is "on" the text you output will be appended to the
specified file, with a blank line inserted between each output.
Thus, if you run VW and, not changing the filename, do several
screen or range outputs to disk, they will be appended to the file
"ram:vw_output.txt".  If you turn Append "off", each output to
disk will overwrite the previous write, unless you change the
filename for each one.

The Formatted option determines how the text is written to disk.
If you turn it "off", there will be no linefeeds (or carriage
returns or whatever those things are) inserted into the text.
Each scripture output will be on its own very long line. (Good if
you want to input the text into a word processor and set your own
margins.)  When Formatted is "on", the output is written to disk
exactly as it appears on the screen.  Thus whenever the output is
Formatted, the line lengths in the text file are the same as they
are in the window.  To change the line lengths of Formatted text,
resize the window accordingly.  I usually size it so there are
about 60 characters on a line.  This works out well for word
processors and bbs's.

If you turn References off, the chapter#:verse# will not appear at
the beginning of each verse in the outputted file.  This is useful
if you also have the text unformatted and want to put the
scripture in paragraph form in your word processor, without any
numbers to clutter the text.

All of the Output options you choose (including the filename) may
be saved by choosing "Save Prefs" under the "VerseWise"
menu.

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COPYING & PASTING

There are no internal functions in VerseWise to copy scriptures
and paste them directly into word processors or terminal programs.
Using only VerseWise's current functions, you must output text to
a file and load it into your word processor or terminal program
from there.  However, there are several utilities that other
people have written which allow you to use the mouse pointer to
copy text from one window (ie, VerseWise), and paste that text
into any other window (ie, a word processor or a terminal
program).  Two such utilities are "PowerSnap" and "Osnap". Check
your local sources of public domain and shareware software for
these programs, and others like them.

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A FINAL NOTE

Well, this is it.  I apologize if my instructions are unclear in
any points.  Writing documentation is not my favorite pastime, as
those who had to live with the docs I released with the Gospel
version (v1.0) of VerseWise know.  If you have any questions,
comments, suggestions, want to volunteer to rewrite the docs, or
whatever, drop me a line!  I can be reached, at least for the next
six months, at:

Bruce Geerdes
10700 E.Dartmouth #N111
Denver, CO  80014

God bless you as you study His word,

Bruce