6 replies to this topic

[Josh Barkin]

I'd love better tools for creating/editing notes files.

In particular, I'd get a lot of usage out of a tool that would allow to me import a Word file into a Notes file.

For example, I have a set of notes in Word format where each note is a new paragraph in the document. Each paragraph goes with a different verse.

As I understand it, the only way for me to get this into Accordance is to create a new notes file, then create a new note for each Bible verse, and cut and paste my text in. If I have over 100 notes, this means sitting here and creating 100 new notes, then reformatting the text (because formatting like bold and italics aren't preserved on the cut-and-paste).

Similar functionality (a Word import) would also be very helpful for creating User Modules.

[Alistair]

Yes, I would second this request for importing text. I have been experimenting with creating a user tool, and I have found the Accordance way to be quite non-intuitive and clumsy. Perhaps that is why there are so few third-party user tools available (AFAIK).

Better tools to create user-created resources could see massive explosion in the number of third-party add-ons and drive the expansion of the Accordance user base.

~Alistair

As a postscript, how do you produce the official Accordance modules?

I can't imagine you sitting around the computer late into the night cutting and pasting texts one verse at a time, eyes bloodshot and weary, the room littered with discarded pizza boxes and the empty cans of caffeinated soft drinks...

(Well, OK, I went ahead an imagined it anyway.)

~Alistair

[Helen Brown]

Your imagination is a little off, at least in the home offices that I have inspected! Our guys do work long and hard to extract all the possible information from the etexts we receive, and convert them to full Accordance modules with all the styles, fields, links, correct fonts, etc. I am sure that some resort to caffeine and pizza at times, when a deadline nears. The point is that the easy, elegant, and sophisticated Accordance functions are the fruit of an enormous amount of work both on the program and the modules.

User tools are inherently limited since we tried to make them robust (read user-proof), editable, and indexed. They are NOT intended to produce fully fledged modules. They are for articles, papers, sermons, lecture notes -- whatever you want. But if you want to see a full tool, please ask our experts to produce it.

[Alistair]

Let us assume that, for example, I written twelve books and I want to put them into Accordance for my own use.

I don't want to share them and I don't want to sell them — at least, not yet.
I do want to be able to make corrections/additions/expansions to the series.
What would be the best way forward?


And are you saying that Accordance creates modules the same way I would create a User Tool?
Surely you must have some magic up your sleeves, or some top secret software you don't want to share?



~Alistair

[Helen Brown]

Let us assume that, for example, I written twelve books and I want to put them into Accordance for my own use.

I don't want to share them and I don't want to sell them — at least, not yet.
I do want to be able to make corrections/additions/expansions to the series.
What would be the best way forward?

Save them as HTML and import them into Accordance. This topic has some discussion on how to do that. Then you can edit them as you want.

HTML is recommended as it automatically preserves some font style information, the headers as titles and subtitles, and the references as hypertext links.

And are you saying that Accordance creates modules the same way I would create a User Tool?
Surely you must have some magic up your sleeves, or some top secret software you don't want to share?

Yes, we have a complex mark-up system and a proprietary software program that creates the modules with all the features you love. Sorry, it is not robust enough for release top the public.

[Alistair]

Hi Helen,

Nice to see you again at the MacExpo in London.

I would pay good money to be able to create better user tools, and perhaps I am not alone. Oaksoft should consider making this available.

Even if your software is not good enough to be released to the general public, would you consider licensing it to individuals (i.e. me) in order to create better user tools?

~Alistair

[Helen Brown]

It takes us months and years to train people to make tools for Accordance. It is just not possible to release this outside of OakTree, the amount of support you would need would be prohibitive.