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David Cox's How to install e-Sword modules

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Installation: e-Sword (4/07)
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  How to use...? 

How to use e-Sword (4/07)
e-Sword Menu (03/08)
Bibles  (11/07)
Commentaries (03/08)
Dictionaries (03/08)
Study Notes (03/08)
Topics
Search all Tops
Maps
Bible Readings
Devotionals
Program Panels Layout
Bible Searches
Search between Bibles
Making Verse Lists (4/07)
Strongs

e-Sword Utilities

MSWord Macros for s-Sword
esword MEd (11/07)
esword FIn (11/07)
esword RUn (no longer available)
Chads Commentary Creator
Best 2.11 & BPest

   How to Create Modules 

Module Creation Updated!
e-Sword MEd
My Word Macros
Creating Bible Modules Updated!
Creating Commentaries Mods Updated!
Creating Dictionary Mods Updated!
Creating Topic Mods Updated!
Creating Devotional Mods New!
Creating Illustration Mods New!

Finnish Resources for -Esword
Swedish Resources for e-Sword

Topic File Creation

Topic modules in e-Sword are very easy to create. First step is to open e-Sword, in the Commentary panel (usually on the right side), click "Topic Notes".

Let's give a little orientation here as to how this works. E-Sword uses topic modules which are like books, and each book has a chapter within it. Very important to remember that within e-Sword, searches in the topic modules are limited to that book and not outside (all topic modules).

Study this image to the left. Note that on the top arrow, is the selector for the chapters within the current book.

The current book shows on the bottom arrow. The book modules are basically all the files in e-Sword TOP format, with the TOP extension in the default e-Sword folder (usually in English XP, C:\Programs\e-Sword\).

Note that all the topic files in this folder will appear here in alphabetical order. When you work in a book, always remember the following: E-Sword automatically saves when you leave the book and load another book (TOP module). If you want to save you edits at any time, click on the floppy disk on the left of the Chapter Title Selector.

Now for the chapters. One of the things to remember about e-Sword is that it uses Microsoft Access databases to save this information, and each book is a separate database from the rest of the books, and each chapter is a record in that database. This makes e-Sword sometimes "quirky" in actual use and module creation. In use it is already, but if you make or change chapter titles, be aware that e-Sword will eventually if not immediately reorder the chapter titles alphabetically. There is no way to turn this off. In this module I created, notice that I began the title with a "00". As a personal practice, all of my modules have a number on them, and 1-9 have an addition 0 before the number, 01, 02, 03,...

I do this to keep them in correct order. The table of contents in my modules are always 00 with the introduction, preface, etc. being either in 00, or if it is too long, then I use 00.1 for these introductory material.

Another bothersome quirk of e-Sword is that these Access databases have limitations in the names of the chapters and in the actual length of what you can put in a chapter. If e-Sword freezes while typing in a chapter, you probably hit that maximum length, and you will need to break the chapter in two chapters. Note that this is very frustrating in copy and pasting material into e-Sword modules because e-Sword does not notify you if the paste was partial and it did not all get into the chapter. Make sure you remember the last few words of the original, then look for them after the paste. I do not remember the exact figure for these chapters, but in general, the number I do remember is 64,000 bytes is the normal length of memo fields.

Concerning the length of the title, well, you can open the module in Microsoft Access and make it longer, but that allows you to put it complete in the database, but you still can only see a small part of that in the drop down box. It is not worth the effort to do that, but rather you must abbreviate you chapter titles to 50 characters.

To create a new TOPIC module, click File, New. You will be prompted to give your new file a name. This file should have the extension "TOP".

Next you will see a blank screen under the Commentary tabs. Click on the new chapter icon (a blank page beside a page with a red "a" on it).

This will present a chapter title box where you will put your chapter title in. (The page with a red "a" is for changing this chapter title.)

Now you can write or copy and paste and make a new module.

One additional note. Note that the red "x" deletes the current chapter from the book. This does not actually delete it but marks it as invisible to the user. It is better to rename, and delete the content to reuse the chapters instead of deleting them. If you do delete chapters remember that this is wasted space in the module which has to be transferred every it is sent over the Internet. Once you delete it, you have to go into Access to actually free up the space. If you must delete it, at least delete all the content before you actually delete the chapter to reduce it as small as possible.