References:
Echis Bible on Source Forge
Echis Bible Applicaiton Wiki
The Echis Bible Application
The Echis Bible Program began with a desire to simply have an electronic copy of the Bible so that I could keep it on portable media. My belief is that as we see the Return of our Lord getting closer, that true Christians everywhere (even in the United States) will face real persecution and our Bibles (or at least certain translations) may even be confiscated. And it will be alot easier to hide an electronic Bible than an actual Bible. Thus the Bible program began simply as downloading the text from the internet. The only translations of the Bible which I have included in the program are Public Domain; but I designed the Bible Application so that adding additional translations is simply a matter of copying a resource assembly into the Bible program's directory.
Once I had the text downloaded, I set out to simply create an application that would allow me to view and search through the text. That concept morphed over time into the Bible Application I have released on Source Forge. I added in Public Domain versions of Strong's Concordance and 1828 Webster's Dictionary. Then I added the ability to record and keep notes.
I used the .Net Framework's new LINQ capabilities to quickly search the Bible. While I haven't yet documented the searching capabilities, I'll talk a little about them here. By default the search window comes up with all books selected. Using the Tree views of the Old and New Testament books you can select precisely which books you want to search. You can select and desect books by grouping (Law, History, Wisdom, etc) or select or deselect the entire Old or New Testament. Once you've establish which books of the Bible you wish to search you can select your search option. NOTE: All search options are case insensitive: in other words CREATED, Created, and created are all considered "equal."
Match Any Word - This is the default search option, and as the name implies it will find any verse which contains any of the words you've typed in. You can alter this behavior by including a plus (+) or minus (-) before a word. A plus (+) indicates that the verse must contain that word; a minus (-) indicates that the verse must not contain the word. Additionally you can indicate a phrase to search for by wrapping the phrase with double quotes.
Match All Word - As the name implies here, only verses which match all of the words will be included in the search results. You can alter this by adding a minus (-) before the word to indicate that the verse must not contain the word. And again you can wrap a phrase with double quotes.
Match Exact Phrase - As the name of this search option implies, the application will search for the exact phrase entered.
Use Regular Expression Matching - This may seem a little foreign to any non-programmers, but Regular Expression Matching is a powerful tool. I recommend reading up on this capability by visiting Wikipedia's Regular Expression page. Or google Regular Expression Matching and you'll find pages like this and this.
Suggested Features
I am open to suggestions on new features or modifications to existing features. So if you have an idea simply click on the Contact link above and I'll be happy to consider adding your request (if it is possible) to a future release.
One thing I would love is to do is add additional translations, however, they must be Public Domain, or the Copyright holder must grant permission. I am simply not interested in doing the "leg work" to get the Copyright holder on board, but if you're willing to do the work there, then I could be inclined to provide a resource file for that translation (provided I can get an electronic copy of the text to start with).
Additionally, I would also love to translate the application into more languages, but I would need a great deal of help with this since I am no linguist. Additionally the translation of the Bible would once again need to be Public Domain, or permission granted from the Copyright holder.
Donations
There is a link on the Source Forge page for donations. I originally thought about trying to get this application published, but I've been sitting on it for over a year without doing anything with it, so I decided to just go ahead and release it. Donate whatever you would like, or if you prefer simply donate $5 to your local Church toward missions (as that's what I plan on doing with the vast majority of any donations I recieve from this).
Thank you all, and may God Bless you.
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