Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Alkitab for Android Phone

Holy Bible in Indonesian is called "Alkitab". I am currently using Android Developer Phone 1 as my main phone, and I cannot find any "Alkitab" app yet on the market. I knew that Alkitab app exists for iPhone and J2ME platforms. Hence, I decided to develop one myself. Please keep in mind that the content of "Alkitab" is copyrighted by Lembaga Alkitab Indonesia (LAI).




You can download the apk file from here. For instruction on how to install .apk file into your Android phone, please go to this link. I am using Apps Installer from Android Market to install apk file from sdcard.

After application installation is done, please go here to download the database. You need the database to run the application. After you obtained "alkitab_db.zip", perform following steps:
  1. Connect your phone to your PC using USB cable and mount the sdcard
  2. Extract "alkitab_db.zip" to root folder of your sdcard. After extraction is done, you should see folder "alkitab_db" at your sdcard root folder
  3. Unmount your sdcard by clicking "Turn Off USB Storage" on your phone
  4. Start the application.
I will explain features available in this initial version.

Text Filter (on Android device with physical keyboard)

Type in the text using keyboard and the list will be filtered accordingly.



Gesture Motion

When you are in chapter or verse screen, you can swipe you finger on the screen to move between books/chapters. Swipe to left will bring you to the next book/chapter, swipe to the right will bring you to the previous book/chapter.


Search for Chapters/Verses

Clicking menu button will allow user to select this feature. This feature is used to search for chapters or versions in the bible, following are accepted input patterns:
  • [book] [chapter], Mazmur 3
  • [book] [chapter]:[verse], Matius 3:15
  • [book] [chapter]:[start_verse]-[end_verse], Kisah Para Rasul 1:3-5
  • [book] [start_chapter]:[start_verse]-[end_chapter]:[end_verse], Yohanes 10:5-11:3
  • [book] [start_chapter]-[end_chapter], Lukas 5-10
  • [book] [start_chapter]-[end_chapter]:[end_verse], Roma 3-5:13



Search For Word

If the search input does not match any of Search for Chapters/Verses patterns, the input will be used as keyword to search for match words in the bible. Searching using keyword feature will require the phone to send request to remote server instead of searching through local database. Local database is flat file database and it will take long time to find the match keyword. If you do not want the phone to connect to Internet, do not use the search for word feature.




That's it and I hope the app can be useful for everyone. Email me closari[at]gmail if you encounter bugs or have suggestions for improvement.
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3 comments:

  1. Surya SutantoOctober 18, 2009 at 9:52 PM

    Hi Christian,

    Nice apps, good effort for making this reader! I actually found Cadre Bible that has Indonesian translation version but unfortunately it's on terjemahan lama.

    I contacted them, asking if they have any plan to make terjemahan baru available. In their reply, they mentioned they are having difficulty to publish due to copyright issue from the Lembaga Alkitab Indonesia. They tried to contact Lembaga ALkitab Indonesia, with no luck so far. They need an explicit permission from Lembaga Alkitab Indo.

    Do you know the best way to get contact with the Lembaga Alkitab Indo?

    Many Thanks,
    Surya

    ReplyDelete
  2. closariOctober 19, 2009 at 9:40 AM

    Hi Surya,

    you might want to ask H.K. Ardiwinata BH who create the online version for terjemahan baru at http://www.geocities.com/athens/acropolis/2658/alkitab/

    Cheers,
    Chris

    ReplyDelete
  3. Surya SutantoOctober 20, 2009 at 7:28 PM

    Thanks for the swift reply.
    thank you

    ReplyDelete