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From here you will need to select the type
of e-Sword module file you are looking for. This dialog box is going to
default open in your default e-Sword folder. Now you should see
something like the image below. Note again that in Spanish Windows XP,
my default program folder is C:\Archivos de Programa\etc and in English
it should be C:\Programs\etc. I
created a TOP Module named delete, and entered 5 Chapters.
Properties of Current Module
- Each module has basically at least two
databases. One has the information to be displayed and the other has a
small one entry database with information about the module. Here you can
edit this information.
What you see at left is the following:
ID: The actual record number of the
database. I made #1 and then deleted it, so Chapter 1 is actually record
#2.
Count: The record number out of the total
number.
Title: The title of the chapter.
Comments: This is the actual information
you will see in the Topic file. This information is just plain text, but
it can also be RTF formatted text. More about that later.
Let's go through the interface then we will
look at images different file types set up here.
Create new Module - This is to create
a new module from nothing. Note that most people will never use this
program as an "editor" program to create a book or work. The smart thing
to do is to use Microsoft Word (or whatever) edit it how you want it,
and when it is totally finished, then open this program and copy and
paste from your Word Processor into this program.
Create through Downloading a RTF file into a Module
- If you use a Word Processor that can save files to RTF, then you can
import them using this interface. The advantage of doing it this was is
that you can format to your heart's content, and most of it will come
over into e-Sword format. Always remember, not everybody has your fancy
fonts, so results are unpredictable if you don't use standard Windows
fonts. What that means for Greek and Hebrew is anybody's guess.
Okay so click on this icon and this image
should be what you see.
You are going to create a module from an
RTF file. (The file needs to already exist of course.) Let's make a test
file. Note that only Bibles (from a plain text file) or TOPics (from an
RTF file) are currently supported. Dictionary and Commentary files are
not supported at present. So let's make a delete2.top file here.
 This
is going to be your import work window.
Cancel
- is to cancel here (abort and lose all work).
Instead of following the order Craig White
has it, let's look at the Add icon first.
Add
- I just added some RTF files in my folder and put Chapter 1, 2, 3 etc
before them. This is what you see when you add.
This is how you add an RTF file as a
chapter in your book. The + and - space just adds a space before the
title. I don't know why he put this in here to tell you the truth.
Here everything to the left of the greater
than sign ">" is going to the a chapter title, and to the right is where
it is importing it from.
Now the rest makes more sense.
Edit
- Is going to get you the same dialog box as Add, where you can change
things.
Delete
- This is going to delete one of the chapters.
Done
- Finished editing save and leave.
 Help
- This is Craig's Help file. It is basically a version of changes,
and absolutely no help in how to use the program.
 Exit
- This exits you out of the program Once you have your chapters
in place, you will now use the bottom part of the main screen.
Add
Entry - Add a new entry. (I have
gotten runtime errors clicking this button with a previous version. To
solve that if it happens make sure you move to a record you didn't just
create and then create an additional new record.)
Delete
Entry - Delete the highlighted
entry (make sure you have one highlighted or you might get a runtime
error and get thrown out of the program).
This & All - These
actions will work on just the record you have loaded, or on "all" on the
entire book.
Versify
- The one feature of e-Sword that makes it better than
other commercial Bible software is the ability to make verse references
into popup tooltips. On this one, Rick Meyers was a genius. You can
convert references into tooltip references manually when you make the
original file. There is no great secret here, just use the same 3
letters of the book of the Bible that e-Sword uses (left most panel in
the e-Sword program where you navigate to a Bible passage) and put and
underscore and the chapter:verse. or chapter:verse-verse. E-Sword will
not display a tooltip if the reference is more than one single chapter.
Doing this manually is possible before making it into a module, but it
is time consuming. Here versify will do it for you. I have had some
problems with it not putting the correct RTF code for green and
underline, but completely acceptable anyway.
Search and Replace
- This will allow you to change things within the
module, and this is especially handy for replacing RTF code.
Strip Tags
- This will remove all RTF formatting tags from the text.
In general RTF is a whole different
disaster when it comes to making things work. RTF is problem ridden. But
that is Microsoft's problem (like they don't have money to fix a decent
universal document format, or they don't have the brains to do it. Get
real.) But in general, it is easier to make a RTF file formatted how you
want it in Microsoft Word and just import the thing. Note that in RTF,
there is more than one way to get the same formatting features. In other
words you can hard code something with the code around every place you
want "green underline text", or you can set it up with a special file
specific abbreviation at the beginning of the document (in this case I
think it is at the beginning of the chapter), and use the
abbreviation. At least that is my conclusion because if you examine
files, they show the same thing but don't have the same code underlying
it. Crazy!
I am no brain in the RTF department, and I
shudder even thinking of trying to learn it. (I have investigated enough
to know it is a mess.) But if it will save you some time, I have a 4x6
card taped to my computer screen with the following:
Green Underlined Verse Reference:
{\cf11\ul Book_chapter:verse}
New Paragraph: \par
Tab: \tab
Bold: \b - to turn bold on, \b0 to turn bold off (that is
a zero, not an "o")
Italic: \i - turn italics on, \i0 to turn italics off
SmallCaps: \scaps - turns small caps on, \scaps0 - turns
smallcaps off.
Sorry I cannot help you more on the RTF
side of things. You will have to use trial and error, and if you
discover things, send me an email telling me what you find and I will
publish it if I think it is worthwhile for everybody to know. E-Sword
does not recognize the complete RTF codes, it only handles a subset of
them. I am no expert in this area, but I do not think this is a
necessarily a limitation that Rick Meyers has put into e-Sword but is
most probably a limitation that Microsoft has in using their own
horrible Access format files instead of a more robust format in their
language. I would guess Rick is using something like C++ for writing
e-Sword although I have never seen a statement that would lead me to
that conclusion. |
E-Sword Module Database Library
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