STEP using Crosswire

>>>Good to "virtually meet you" Troy!!!
>>>A few months ago, back in July/August, I was having a look at the
>>>Crosswire project and downloaded it to have a play around with it.
>>>I don't really know much about it, but it seems to have a neat
>>>Java API for use in the offline desktop applications.
>>>I believe the Crosswire search engine has already been linked to a
>>>web interface before, the source code of which is in the Crosswire
>>>subversion servers: http://www.crosswire.org/study/
>>>I wonder if we could get an offline version of this working,
>>>whether we would want to try and light local integration with STEP
>>>such as a web service of some sort (not too keen on SOAP myself
>>>any more, but maybe a simple REST API. The looser we make the
>>>coupling the easier it will be to upgrade the offline web
>>>crosswire. Obviously, we'll probably want to bypass the web user
>>>interface bit, but a loose coupling would allow us to choose our
>>>database/server structure separately.
>>>I believe the web SWORD project is a Java web app using a standard
>>>Tomcat server, although when I first looked their seemed to be
>>>some integration with COBRA-like things. Maybe we would use their
>>>part of the integration with COBRA (CORBA?) and then build our app
>>>on... Sorry throwing a lot of ideas out there!!!
>>>If we're going to interface at anyone of those levels it is likely
>>>our distribution will have to require installation of Tomcat and
>>>its configuration...
>>>Another option, almost completely different would be to take their
>>>Java Swing JSword installation, and branch off it (either formally
>>>or using a cut of their code), and build STEP into it. Like that
>>>we 1- benefit from a wider distribution range when updates are
>>>requested by existing users, and 2- have all the UI there already
>>>for the Bible searching facilities... Maybe introduce a few tabs.
>>>That would give us one complete product as opposed to a couple...
>>>On the other hand it ties us down to what's already there and
>>>maybe it would get too complicated (we could perhaps provide two
>>>tightly coupled applications - two links to the users to keep the
>>>UI clean and uncluttered)
>>>Or I guess, which having looked at the SWORD website, we could use
>>>the SWORD API which I guess is why it's there and then we'd write
>>>our own UI for it!
>>>I we were to go for a Java option, there are a number of offline
>>>pure java databases. One recommended to me is the one that comes
>>>with JBoss (haven't looked at that yet). Others like JavaDB might
>>>be shipped by default with Java 1.5
>>>I think before I can get simple pages up and running, it would be
>>>good to define the target language platform and the database. I'm
>>>pretty sure using Gears might be quite different to using JavaDB or MySQL.
>>>Having thought more about the VM idea, although really portable, I
>>>think it might be tricky to get installed all in one go and might
>>>also be quite resource intensive?
>>>Skill-set wise, I don't mind really, but I tend to be better at
>>>integration type things... Either way, I think we need to figure a
>>>high-level architecture before we start on the other things....
>>>Chris