Good to hear you are busy, and also interested.
We aren't in any rush - we have a lot of programming to do, and some data collection,
but we have just got someone on board who is thinking about the user interface, so this is
a good time to also think about an overall look & feel.
The attachment I sent has some rough ideas, though as you can see from the
working prototype, we are trying out different kinds of interface.
The kinds of ideas we want to get across is in-depth Bible exploration, but
also easy-to-use tools for those who have no training.
Our brief is to reach those in the Majority World who have little access to books,
but have keen minds and an OK internet connection at least occasionally.
So we are aiming for multi-language interface, though English contents.
However, in many ways STEP is going to be more authoritative than any other free software,
and it is going to have some features and data unavailable in commercial software,
so I think everyone else is going to want to use it too.
The work is centered on the Bible, with explorations of language, history, geography,
secondary literature, manuscripts - ie everything under the umbrella of the text itself.
So the themes are Bible, available to everyone from interested teenagers to scholars,
with a world-wide reach. I'd love to get across a sense of exploring rather than teaching.
I hope there is something there to inspire a creative like yourself.
I think at this stage we are looking for some photoshop backgrounds, a logo,
and some themed buttons - not a fully thought-out website.
We have a lot of thinking to do about the User Interface before we get to specific layouts.
Here's praying that inspiration hits you!
David IB
At 15:30 04/03/2010, David Niblack wrote:
Hi David,
It is good to hear from you and I am glad that some of my original design for the Tyndale House webpage was helpful for the new site.
This looks like a neat project and I would love to help if I can. This next month is especially busy for me and I do not have much time. Where is the best place for me to start: Do you have a sample or rough idea of what kind of design elements would be needed for the backgrounds and menus? Or I could try to work up a few logo ideas. If I had a specific idea of what to work on I could try to get something back to you within the next four weeks.
If you are on a tighter schedule, I understand. In any case I am very impressed with what has been developed so far and look forward to seeing it on the web in the future.
Blessings,
David
From: Dr D. Instone Brewer [ mailto:dib10@hermes.cam.ac.uk] On Behalf Of David Instone-Brewer
Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2010 12:58 PM
To: David Niblack
Subject: A front end for the STEP website
Dear David
I'm emailing in the hope that I can grab some of your creative talents.
Your ideas have been really useful in the new TyndaleHouse webpage
(BTW I put a link in the footer: Concept: DavidNiblack.com )
Tyndale House has started a project called STEP - Scripture Tools for Every Pastor.
We want to give away the best possible Bible software to believers who are far away
from any good libraries and who don't have good internet access - as well as being
available to other believers.
We are designing a series of modules which have a web-based front end,
which will work on phones and PDAs as well as low-spec PCs and Macs.
And it will work on the web of course.
I've attached an introduction about this project, and listed at the end of this email
what we have done up to the end of last year.
We are now getting to the stage where we need a good-looking front end,
partly so that we have something pretty to show to prospective supporters,
and partly so that we can identify the practical issues about
how to make all this data easily usable. Also, if a thing looks really good, everyone
will be inspired to work harder to make sure that it works well and has good contents.
The attachment shows a rough outline of how it might work on a large screen,
and we also need to think about how to cut this down for a small screen.
I've appended a report I wrote at the end of 2009 to show you where we are at.
We need some kind of logo or 'look' or overall design for backgrounds and menus.
The team working on this has loads of experience and intelligence in the areas
of programming, history, linguistics and general Biblical Studies, but no artistry.
We need a Creative to come up with a look-and-feel to unite everything.
I'm afraid I'm not offering money. We are hoping that this project will
attract significant funding, in which case we will be able to pay a small amount,
but this is essentially a project done by volunteers to be given away to those who can't pay.
I've copied this to Chris who is doing most of the programming
and Jeremy who is starting to get involved with the user interface.
There is a very rough partly-working start to the project at
http://crosswire.org:8080/~chrisburrell/Step.html
The user end hasn't really been considered properly yet and most of the development
time has gone into making an engine which will work as well
on a java phone as on a stand alone PC and the web.
We already have valuable unique content as well as access to all the stuff in previous software.
So we should be able to produce something which everyone will want,
and give every pastor, however remote, access to the best study tools available.
I'm sure that you have the skills for this, but I will completely understand it you
decline, because you must have many other things to do.
However, if this sparks any inspiration, we'd be really glad to know your ideas.
David IB
Dr David Instone-Brewer
Technical Officer & Senior Research Fellow in Rabbinics and New Testament
Tyndale House, 36 Selwyn Gardens, Cambridge, CB3 9BA, www.TyndaleHouse.com, Phone 01223 566601
(division of UCCF, Ltd Company 387932, Registered Charity 306137. 38 De Montfort St. LE1 7GP)
STEP at the end of 2009:
A team of programmers and academics have started putting together free Bible software for people who have no access to libraries, limited internet, and can't afford commercial software.
Free distribution has already been arranged with partners in several countries to 20,000 individuals in key positions throughout the developing world. The software is designed to run on java-enabled phones and PDAs as well as low-spec computers with any operating system.
* David and Chris have created an engine which links JSword with web browsers so that we can link with online extensions and still run completely offline on any platform. This is a wonderful technical achievement after investigating a lot of technologies
* Chris has also completely rewritten a timeline module to make an expandable Bible history. There�s a very rough prototype at http://crosswire.org:8080/~chrisburrell/Step.html (it is still being built, so it isn't always working, and it isn't very pretty yet). Troy donated server space and gave a lot of help setting up this demo.
* Colin has put together chronological information from many sources and created a huge database of articles on history, people, places etc.
* Enid and David E scanned and cropped our almost unique set of 20000:1 maps of old Palestine (they were never published and only two other copies exist). * David E has almost finished creating co-ordinates to mash these with GoogleEarth.
* Galen and Kate have started collecting all the textual variants and different translations and presenting them in a form understandable by non-linguists
* Rob has been adding large numbers of the best of Biblical Studies articles to his collection of scanned and OCRed searchable study materials (see the extent of his already large collection at www.biblicalstudies.org.uk)
* In the New Year we plan to initiate work on an interlinear with exciting easy-to-use features, and start editing articles from public domain Bible dictionaries etc to update and improve them, as well as building pretty and useful modules from these impressive and sound foundations.
The team's work represents the academic rigor and unbiased scholarship of Tyndale House, which is respected by all branches of the church, worldwide. The aim of the project is to help churches in remote locations, both in developing and developed countries, to get practical and easily-understandable access to the academic wealth which we enjoy in Cambridge.
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