On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 1:33 PM, Chris Little <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Jonathan Morgan wrote: > > On a different point, if we genuinely believe that Sword for Windows > > is not or should not be undergoing active maintenance then we should > > probably remove it or de-emphasise it. It is quite understandable > > that an average user like him will look at the website, find a product > > entitled "The Sword Project for Windows", assume that it is the best > > software offered by CrossWire for Windows, try it, dislike it, and > > then avoid CrossWire software in future. > > The SWORD Project for Windows is the only full-featured frontend for > Windows. Indeed, it is probably the most full-featured frontend for > Sword, period. You can complain about the interface. I think there are > definitely easier to use and more polished programs (at least in some > respects), but they are all lacking features.
I don't want to get into a lengthy debate, but a full featured system that is not used will not help anything. I, for one, will not use Sword for Windows in its current state, and I think you can see in his response to it how the average user will respond. [note that I have considerable exposure to usability ideas, so I tend to view goal-directed design and usability as more important than feature lists.] > Bible Desktop suffers the inherent lag of JSword behind Sword (so > drivers for GenBooks, for example, are still lacking I believe). > GnomeSword may once have been buildable on Cygwin, but it isn't > presently. And SwordBible certainly shows some definite promise, but I > think it's still a bit basic at present. How about BPBible? I'll willingly admit to bias here, but I claim that it supports most features that ordinary users will actually use (Install Manager style support is an exception, but that is currently a work in progress), and does so in a way that I hope means users will like it and use it. > Regarding the review in general, I can't help thinking we were a bit > cheated. We got low marks on support, though we've actually got very > good, prompt support at present (between email & the forums). I find no > record of the unanswered email he claims to have sent, so I'm willing to > place the fault on him (such as he didn't actually send the email, he > managed to make it look very spammy to the filters, or he acted like a > jerk (since I just delete rude messages)). His discussion of the forums > is just plain inaccurate. > > I'm still pretty well certain that we have the widest selection of > modules among free programs, too, so it's a bit annoying that programs > who've copied our library got higher marks. It seems like we ought to > get a little credit for the fact that The Word, e-Sword, Online Bible, > and Zefania are all enjoying content that came from us. I would have thought that e-Sword has more modules than we do. Anyway, you can't really expect a person investigating the usefulness of available software to determine whether it has been helped by the work of others. > Only a 3 of 5 for extensibility? Based on his own criteria, he's wrong. > > His assessments of the UI & searching are partly legitimate and partly > due to inadequate documentation (which is to say that he doesn't know > about the search functionality) or his not reading the documentation. Again from the usability point of view, I claim that if a person cannot use a feature, the fact that it is there does not help them. However, I have certainly had no trouble searching with Sword for Windows. Jon _______________________________________________ sword-devel mailing list: [email protected] http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel Instructions to unsubscribe/change your settings at above page
