Go Bible is a free Bible viewer application for
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...
mobile phone
A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...
s (
Java ME
Java Platform, Micro Edition or Java ME is a computing platform for development and deployment of portable code for embedded and mobile devices (micro-controllers, sensors, gateways, mobile phones, personal digital assistants, TV set-top ...
MIDP 1.0 and
MIDP 2.0
Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP) is a specification published for the use of Java on embedded devices such as mobile phones and PDAs. MIDP is part of the Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME) framework and sits on top of Connected Limi ...
). It was developed by Jolon Faichney in
Surf City,
Gold Coast, Queensland
The Gold Coast is a coastal city in the state of Queensland, Australia, approximately south-southeast of the centre of the state capital Brisbane. With a population over 600,000, the Gold Coast is the sixth-largest city in Australia, the nati ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, with help from several other people who assisted in making versions for other languages and translations. Go Bible is installed like any other
midlet
A MIDlet is an application that uses the Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP) of the Connected Limited Device Configuration (CLDC) for the Java ME environment. Typical applications include games running on mobile devices and cell phones which h ...
by copying the .jar and .jad file to the
cell phone
A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...
by
USB
Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad v ...
or
Bluetooth
Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...
. The English
KJV
The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of K ...
Go Bible 1.1 can also be installed using
WAP
WAP or Wap may refer to:
Music
* "WAP" (song), a 2020 song by Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion
Organizations
* Weatherization Assistance Program, for US energy costs
* Western Australia Party, a political party founded in 2016
* Western A ...
download.
Features
Go Bible 2.2.6 featured:
*
Christ’s Words in red
*
SMS
Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...
scriptures
*
Bookmarks
* History
* Coloured themes
* Fast search
Releases
Releases subsequent to 2.2.6 are hosted on the SVN server for the CrossWire Bible Society. Compiled versions of Go Bible Creator can be downloaded from the relevant Google groups.
* 2011-03-11 Go Bible 2.4.1 – ''bug fix in Go Bible Creator in word-wrap for the manifest''
* 2010-04-17 Go Bible 2.4.0 – ''several bug fixes and enhancements; plus removed Send MMS from menu options, and ended support for MIDP 1.0''
* 2009-07-10 Go Bible 2.3.5 – ''added support in Go Bible Creator for USFM tag /r''
* 2009-05-11 Go Bible 2.3.4 – ''more minor bug fixes for Go Bible Creator''
* 2009-04-27 Go Bible 2.3.3 – ''has some bug fixes for Go Bible Creator''
* 2008-09-24 Go Bible 2.3.2 – ''source code checked in, but binary not posted on original site''
In July 2008, Go Bible was adopted as a software development project by the CrossWire Bible Society.
* 2008-03-31 Go Bible 2.2.6 – ''latest version of English KJV Go Bible and twenty two other languages''
* 2008-03-26 Go Bible 2.2.5
* 2007-08-09 Go Bible 2.2.4 – ''improvement to Go Bible Creator''
* 2007-04-12 Go Bible 2.2.3
* 2007-02-06 Go Bible 2.2.2
* 2006-07-30 Go Bible 2.2.1
* 2006-03-16 Go Bible 2.2
* 2004-06-28 Go Bible 2.0
* 2003-09-28 Go Bible 1.01
''The news page on the Go Bible website provides some more details. For more detailed development history up to March 2005, see the onthenet.com.au website''.
Languages
Go Bible site
Including the
King James Version
The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an Bible translations into English, English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and publis ...
which heads the list, Go Bible is already available in 23 languages. These include:
EnglEnglishish -
Afrikaans -
Arabic -
Chinese -
Danish -
Dutch -
Finnish -
French -
German -
Hungarian -
Indonesian -
Norwegian -
Portuguese -
Romani (Gypsy) -
Romanian -
Russian -
Spanish -
Swedish -
Tagalog (Filipino) -
Ukrainian -
Vietnamese -
Other websites
Third-party developer
A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large ...
s have already published Go Bible translations in the following further languages:
Albanian -
Armenian -
Basque -
Breton (NT) -
Burmese -
Cebuano -
Zo (NT) -
Chamorro (portions) -
Coptic -
Croatian -
Czech -
Dari
-
Esperanto -
Estonian -
Georgian -
German (Volxbibel translation) -
Greek -
Haitian Creole -
Hebrew (OT) -
Hindi
-
Hungarian -
Icelandic -
Indonesian/Bahasa -
Japanese -
Kabyle -
Kekchi -
Korean -
Latin (Vulgate) -
Latvian -
Lithuanian -
Malayalam -
Manx Gaelic (portions) -
Maori -
Mizo -
Nepali -
Paite -
Pashto -
Persian
-
Polish -
Potawatomi (portions) -
Serbian -
Shuar -
Slovak -
Slovenian -
Swahili -
Ukrainian -
Uma -
Urdu -
Tamajaq (portions) -
Tamil -
Thai -
Turkish -
Welsh -
Wolof -
Xhosa -
''These lists are likely to grow as more people become involved in using the
developer application''.
Many of the Go Bible translations still use English for the Bible
book names, and for the
user interface
In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...
, though that is now starting to change as developers become more familiar with the features of the developer application.
Unicode fonts
Go Bible uses the
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
fonts installed by the mobile phone manufacturer. Some translations may not display correctly on all phones due to missing code pages or individual codes. Also, there are problems with some
Sony Ericsson
Sony Mobile Communications Inc. ( ja, ソニーモバイルコミュニケーションズ株式会社) was a multinational telecommunications company founded on October 1, 2001, as a joint venture between Sony Group Corporation and Ericsson. I ...
phones with regard to displaying
Arabic script
The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and the ...
and other right-to-left languages. Rendering such languages properly depends on having a correct implementation of the
bidirectional algorithm
A bidirectional text contains two text directionalities, right-to-left (RTL) and left-to-right (LTR). It generally involves text containing different types of alphabets, but may also refer to boustrophedon, which is changing text direction in eac ...
as well as glyph shaping.
Compatibility
Phones with limited memory
It is possible to divide Go Bible into several smaller collections so that the JAR files can be installed in mobile phones with limited memory. For some models, splitting into
Old Testament
The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
and
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
is sufficient. For older models, splitting into files smaller than 1MB, 512KB, 256KB or 128KB may be necessary. Go Bible 1.0 is suitable for phones with 64KB JAR file limit.
Phones that check certificates
Go Bible applications are not digitally signed. Some phone models by default will not install unsigned applications. In many such cases, it is usually possible to find a phone setting to change to accept unsigned applications.
Developer application
The author has also provided a
developer kit called Go Bible Creator. This enables further translations and language versions to be generated by users. Go Bible Creator takes as data input Bible files in
Theological Markup Language The Theological Markup Language (ThML) is a "royalty-free" XML-based format created in 1998 by the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) to create electronic theological texts. Other formats such as STEP and Logos Library System (LLS) were foun ...
(ThML) or
Open Scripture Information Standard
Open Scripture Information Standard (OSIS) is an XML application (or schema), that defines tags for marking up Bibles, theological commentaries, and other related literature.
Description
The schema is very similar to that of the Text Encoding ...
(OSIS). From version 2.3.2, the ability to process Unified Standard Format Markers (USFM) has been added.
Go Bible Creator supports two useful additional features:
* Book name mapping – this enables translated Bible book names to be mapped to English book names.
* Translated user interface – this requires the translation of 73 words or short phrases from the English default UI.
Go Bible Creator was used successfully by the author of the Mobile Bible site in
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
to create several Go Bible collections in various languages.
Another user has started a Go Bible Box.net account, from which several more Go Bible collections may be downloaded.
The author has started a Go Bible Project on Google Code,
but for discussing the Go Bible source code is Go Bible Dev.
Go Bible Creator is not limited to making Bible collections. It can also be used to create other types of e-Book, such as an electronic hymn book (words only) or daily devotionals.
The original
source code
In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...
for both GoBibleCore and GoBibleCreator was available online under the new
BSD license
BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses, imposing minimal restrictions on the use and distribution of covered software. This is in contrast to copyleft licenses, which have share-alike requirements. The original BSD lic ...
.
The latest source code is available from CrossWire, under the
GNU GPLv2
The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general us ...
license.
Go Bible Creator is supported by the SIL Pathway project for publishing scripture.
Go Bible Creator is supported by the open source Bible editing application called Bibledit.
One member of the Theologische Initiative Freiburg has written software scripts to convert
Zefania XML Bible modules into the
ThML format for use with Go Bible Creator. Though the description is "Converts a
Zefania XML bible modul to a SWORD -modul", the download includes a tool for Go Bible. ''The host language is German''.
Distribution
Go Bible is listed in a number of
free and open source
Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...
software distributor sites, such as:
*
Softpedia
Softpedia is a software and tech news website based in Romania. It indexes, reviews and hosts various downloadable software and reports news on technology and science topics.
Website
Softpedia hosts reviews written by its staff—each review in ...
*
GetJar
GetJar is an independent mobile phone app store founded in Lithuania in 2004, with offices in Vilnius, Lithuania and San Mateo, California
.
History
The company was founded by Ilja Laurs in 2004, who is currently its Executive Chairman and Ch ...
* HandyByte
* Game-Thing
Go Bible is also being used on a number of Christian websites.
Go Bible in Java ME emulators
The Go Bible application can be previewed in the following Java ME
emulator
In computing, an emulator is Computer hardware, hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run so ...
s:
* MicroEmulator
*
Mpowerplayer
It is also possible to run Go Bible applications on a
Pocket PC
A Pocket PC (P/PC, PPC) is a class of personal digital assistant (PDA) that runs the Windows Mobile or Windows Embedded Compact operating system that has some of the abilities of modern desktop PCs. The name was introduced by Microsoft in 2000 ...
by installing the following:
* IBM MIDP 2.0 Java Emulator
It is even possible to run Go Bible in a Sony
PlayStation Portable
The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PAL regions on September 1, 2005, ...
by installing a Java emulator for the PSP. See:
* PSPKVM
Go Bible also works in the
JVM
A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a virtual machine that enables a computer to run Java programs as well as programs written in other languages that are also compiled to Java bytecode. The JVM is detailed by a specification that formally describes ...
called
Esmertec
Myriad Group AG is a Swiss software company in the mobile communications sector. Myriad delivers consumer applications, social media and messaging solutions, and embedded software to OEM's, mobile operators and pay TV providers. Myriad operates t ...
Jbed, (
J2ME Programming/Esmertec Jbed) which can be installed on various mobile phone platforms.
Similar products
* OliveTree Bible Software has a number of Bible Reader applications for various mobile phone and PDA platforms.
* jBible is a Russian website with free Bible reading applications for Java mobile phones. Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian Bibles are available.
* Sky Bible is an application for mobile phones and hand held devices, used to view Bible text in many languages. Sky Bible is intended for
Symbian
Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system
A mobile operating system is an operating system for mobile phones, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typic ...
phones.
* YouVersion
Bible application for Java phones.
* GoBible LLC creates a suite of stand-alone personal audio players for purchase.
See also
*
The SWORD Project
The SWORD Project is the CrossWire Bible Society's free software project. Its purpose is to create cross-platform open-source tools—covered by the GNU General Public License—that allow programmers and Bible societies to write new Bible softwa ...
, cross-platform open source Bible software
* – ''German''
*
List of free and open-source software packages
This is a list of free and open-source software packages, computer software licensed under free software licenses and open-source licenses. Software that fits the Free Software Definition may be more appropriately called free software; the GNU p ...
References
{{Reflist, colwidth=30em
External links
Go Bibleoriginal website – frozen at version 2.2.6
Go Bible ForumGo Bible Teamblog
Electronic Bibles
Electronic publishing