Unicode User Bibles

[David Rowbory]

There's a worldwide push to move all Bible translations to Unicode and it certainly helps consultants and others if we can bring in text into various tools without worrying about whether we've got particular and very peculiar fonts installed. But sadly Accordance doesn't support user bibles in Unicode unless I've missed something. As UBS Paratext isn't available on Macs and as the number of people using Macs in Bible translation is increasing slowly, Accordance would really be much more helpful if you could

- Import user bibles using the full range of Unicode characters.

- Search and do all current analysis using Unicode characters.

 

Of course editing user Bibles in Accordance is probably a wish too far, but obviously it would be massively useful, as would being able to have an editable pane (rather than separate window) for User Tools when one is making exegetical and translation consultant notes on passages/translations.

[Helen Brown]

Yes, we are planning to allow import of Unicode Bible texts, but they will still be limited to Roman alphabets. Converting Accordance to full Unicode would be a massive project, and one that we are not ready to undertake at present.

[David Rowbory]

Yes, we are planning to allow import of Unicode Bible texts, but they will still be limited to Roman alphabets. Converting Accordance to full Unicode would be a massive project, and one that we are not ready to undertake at present.

 

OK, I understand. I wonder then whether you would be able to consider some way of providing APIs for other programs to interact with Accordance or some kind of plug-in system, so that someone (eg me!) could write a module that, say, displays (and maybe edits) Unicode Bibles and keeps them in sync with Accordance. For all I know there may be some functionality related to the very handy Widget or the older AccordIt that would be relevant.

 

Clearly if Accordance isn't working in Unicode then Word Search and concordance/analysis features wouldn't work natively with Unicode texts (which is a pity), but some measure of linkage could still be useful. The key thing would be for Accordance to notify the plugin/external program when the scrolling or verse range has changed. That might involve sending a list of references/ranges to the plugin. In return, if the plugin has a scrolling UI then it would be good to be able to control what's viewing at very least in the active Accordance tab. Some rudimentary AppleScript support might be a quick way of doing this, but as far as I can see Accordance isn't scriptable. I wonder if there's any way we could work together on this? I don't want to distract you from more important priorities, but a plugin system/API set/applescriptability would possibly open up more of an Accordance eco-system, just as WordPress and so many projects have kept the core pure but let others do things the core team either don't want to prioritise or haven't thought of.