On Mon, 08 Nov 2010 07:57:51 -0500 Karl Kleinpaste <[email protected]> wrote:
> Jonathan Morgan <[email protected]> writes: > > I tend to dislike software that forces me to search in certain ways: > > whether it's "You must select the language before we show you what's > > available" or "You must select the type of book" or "You must select > > the publisher's repository", there will be some times when this > > matches the way I want to search and what I'm looking for, and some > > times when it does not. > > I find it an extraordinarily odd perspective, that knowing what type > of book you're looking for is not a normal, all-the-time prerequisite > to finding what you want. Does anyone ever ask a salesclerk, whether > human or automated, "show me the book selection, but I don't even > know what I'm looking for, much less the language in which it's > printed, least of all the author or publisher"? Karl, not by necessity. 1) Some of our Genbooks could easily be formatted as a commentary. Probably it also should be done and that would remove one reason to look somewhere else. But right now the distinction is not totally a sharp one. Maybe it would be worthwhile to file a bug against modules which offend in this fashion. Luther's complete works is one like that as it the Father's module (both in parts). 2) Language - I use a lot of Martin Luther's and Calvin's stuff at the moment for bible college work. I honestly do not care which language it is as long as it is one I can read. And not all that should be available in German is available. In fact our English language Luther offerings are way better than our German ones. So I use them. > Since this is Bible study software, how would it ever be, that someone > looking for new books in our environment would not know if he's > looking for a Bible, or a commentary, or something else? > > If my imagination is insufficient about this problem, feel free to say > so. But the idea that you have to specify that you need English or > Suomi or Caribbean Javanese texts seems to me to be a "level 0" kind > of requirement. As above. Mostly yes, but not always. Author could be occasionally more relevant. In fact, I find the language distinction occasionally quite annoying. I have 4 bibles I use and they are the ESV, the Schlachter 2000, a Farsi one and Luther. I read them for what they are - different translations with different use cases for me or different emphasis. I also do have a multitude of other installs, but they are used only occasionally and yes, there, language choice is probably relevant, but - I am a module developer. I am bound to have anything and everything available even stuff I can not read, let alone understand. Most users are probably not. I think from a usability POV, I am wondering if the language choice could not be something which should be possible to switch on and off. Our hypothetical user might be - a minister - own language and original languages + maybe French or English. - a monolingual Anglo-Saxon/German/whatnot user - hide all that is not for him. - a missionary needing his own language, maybe English or French and a couple of other languages +/- original languages - a Bible Software enthusiast who gets mental raptures for seeing a Bible in Southern Timbuctulese available (never mind that he knows not a single soul who could read that), he needs to have access to all, but is in fact not our main target user. But - apart from the last user for whom I think we do not real should consider - most users will eventually have a selection of 3-10 Bibles which mentally will not get selected for reading for their language but simply for what they are - i.e. by name. I know that I have in the past asked for language tree selection and I stand by that - it is way better than what we had prior where you had to dig about to find what you wanted - and then realised that most stuff was in English. But now I think the Central-American BTI bibles do a bit my head in every time I have to wade past them... This is no objection to anything else said by anyone. Peter _______________________________________________ sword-devel mailing list: [email protected] http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel Instructions to unsubscribe/change your settings at above page
