In the Beginning ...

NEW: Yiddish Bible App for iPhone/iPad/iPodTouch

2012-01-21T17:19:00.001-08:00

If you do a search on the Apple iTunes App Store for "Bible", you will see the (literally) hundreds of Bible applications that are available. If you narrow your search to "Hebrew Bible" or "Jewish Bible", you will still get dozens of results. However, if last week you had searched for "Yiddish Bible", you would not have seen a single Yiddish Bible application. Now, that is no longer the case - my Yiddish Bible app is available on the app store. With the ability to toggle between Yiddish-only and Yiddish/English, Yiddish/Transcription, Yiddish/Hebrew parallel formats and with a built-in Yiddish/English dictionary, it is also a very useful app for people who are either learning Yiddish or who are trying to improve their knowledge of Yiddish.

More details (with a short demo movie): Yiddish Bible Web Site
iTunes Store app information: iTunes Link
Background: Open Siddur Project blog

Verse Index for Chanting the Hebrew Bible book

2011-11-04T11:11:00.001-07:00

Joshua Jacobson's book Chanting the Hebrew Bible: The Complete Guide to the Art of Cantillation (Amazon link) is a fantastic and wonderful resource for anyone who has an interest in either Hebrew chanting or cantillation. However, one issue that I have with the book is that there is no index. The book is about 1,000 pages long and, although it does have a very good Table of Contents, it would really benefit from having an index. I've exchanged emails with the author and he has indicated that any future update (if there is one) will have an index. I googled around a bit to see if anyone else had any supplementary material that would be useful. On Len Fellman's site, I found an index that he had compiled listing all of the scripture references in the book along with page numbers and chapter subheadings. Although the verse index that I found on Len Fellman's site was good to print out, it was not very useful for interactive searching. So, I spent some time converting it into an Excel spreadsheet (I also had to "rationalize" some of the section names that Len used as he wasn't entirely consistent). Now it can be used interactively (you can sort by page#, verse, etc or use any of the other data functions that are available in Excel). You can download the spreadsheet from here.

HebrewBible Version 5.1 now available on the Apple App Store

2011-10-28T17:17:00.001-07:00

Hot on the heels of the Version 5.0 update to my HebrewBible App, I've released a version 5.1 update. This update adds support for local audio files (previous versions would stream audio over the Internet - this version allows the user to either stream audio or store it on their device and access it without an Internet connection). I had expected that this enhancement would take a lot longer to do (which is why it wasn't included in the 5.0 release); however, it's amazing what a few late-night development sessions will do! This enhancement will allow users to store and access on their devices either the standard audio (that is currently streamed over the Internet) or their own audio files. This could be useful for use with Bar/Bat Mitzvah audio training files or if you simply prefer a different set of audio readings of the Tanach or if you simply want to have the audio files on your device so that you can use them when you don't have Internet connectivity. Be aware that there are certain standards that you must conform to if you use your own audio files. Also, be aware that storing the audio files on your device could consume a significant amount of storage space. Full setup instructions are located here.

The new version of the app is now available on the Apple App Store and I recommend that all current users download the upgrade (it is a free upgrade for existing users of the app).

HebrewBible Version 5.0 now available on the Apple App Store

2011-10-25T18:29:00.001-07:00

This is a fairly major release since I've added an additional "Hebrew/English (reader)" Bible version to the app. This version is based on the Leningrad Codex Hebrew text and the JPS 1917 English text. As with the "Hebrew (reader)" version, it provides word-lookup functionality when Hebrew words are touched and the Hebrew text has full vowels and cantillation. The new version of the app is now available on the Apple App Store and I recommend that all current users download the upgrade (it is a free upgrade for existing users of the app). The following changes are in the HebrewBible App update:

Enhancement: Added "Hebrew/English (reader)" Bible version which provides a parallel Hebrew/English version of the Tanach with support for Hebrew word lookups (by touching on a Hebrew word, the definition is displayed with buttons to display verses or relevant page from BDB).
Enhancement: Changed word translate functionality from Google Translate to Microsoft Bing Translate.
Enhancement: Built with iOS SDK 5.0 but will run on any iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch with at least iOS 3.0.
Enhancement: Changed cache functionality so that cached Bible data is not backed up to iCloud (better performance, doesn't impact user iCloud storage limits, and is in keeping with Apple's iCloud guidelines).
Fix: Audio was sometimes not terminating properly on iPad.
Fix: Minor cosmetic fixes.

Here is a screenshot of the new "Hebrew/English (reader)" Bible version (shown after touching the Hebrew word for "serpent" and displaying the word-lookup definition information):

Video review of Hebrew Bible app

2011-06-08T11:00:00.001-07:00

Rabbi Ari Sytner has created a great presentation titled ”Judaism In The 21st Century: How The iPhone Is Changing The Way We Observe The Torah“. In it, he reviews a lot of the currently-available iPhone/iPad apps that have Jewish content, including my Hebrew Bible app. The youtube movie of his presentation is broken down into 3 parts (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3). There is also a nice summary (with links to the apps referenced in the presentation on "The Jewish iPhone Magazine" site. The section of the presentation where Rabbi Ari Sytner discusses my Hebrew Bible app is at the beginning of Part 2 (the first 3.5 minutes of the clip) in which he looks at the Hebrew/English Tanakh version, the verses lookup, and the maps functionality in the app.

BiblicalHebrew version 1.4 now available on App Store

2011-05-06T14:22:00.001-07:00

As with my recent HebrewBible version update, this update is a bunch of usability updates that I've been meaning to do for a while. The new version is now available on the Apple App Store and I recommend that all current users download the upgrade (it is a free upgrade for existing users of the app). The following changes are in the BiblicalHebrew App update:

Enhancement: Added Prev/TOC/Next buttons (segmented control) to Dictionary tab's version of BDB page display so that the user can navigate in the BDB more easily when accessing the BDB from the word definition popup from that tab.
Enhancement: iPad enhancement to display (depending on orientation) portrait or landscape-specific splash screen on startup.
Enhancement: Built with iOS SDK 4.3 but will run on any iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad with at least iOS 3.0.
Fix: Fix for bug that was preventing dictionary display of 2-letter words that ended in a 'sofit' character.

HebrewBible version 4.8 now available on App Store

2011-04-30T08:16:00.001-07:00

It's been a few months since I've posted an update (due to personal and work issues) so this one is a bunch of usability updates that I've been meaning to do for a while. The new version is now available on the Apple App Store and I recommend that all current users download the upgrade (it is a free upgrade for existing users of the app). The following changes are in the HebrewBible App update:

Enhancement: Added Prev/TOC/Next buttons (segmented control) to Bible tab's version of BDB page display so that the user can navigate in the BDB more easily when accessing the BDB from the word definition popup of the Bible.
Enhancement: Added Prev/TOC/Next buttons (segmented control) to Words/Dictionary tab's version of BDB page display so that the user can navigate in the BDB more easily when accessing the BDB from the word definition popup from that tab.
Enhancement: iPad enhancement to display the last Bible chapter previously selected on startup.
Enhancement: iPad enhancement to display (depending on orientation) portrait or landscape-specific splash screen on startup.
Enhancement: Support display of settings in both Portrait and Landscape orientations (previously only displayed in Portrait orientation).
Enhancement: Built with iOS SDK 4.3 but will run on any iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad with at least iOS 3.0.
Enhancement: Changed the temporary Bible version Menu Bar Button to a regular Button to better conform to Apple HIG (Human Interface Guideline) standards.
Fix: Fix for bug that was preventing dictionary display of 2-letter words that ended in a 'sofit' character.
Other: Some minor UI fixes/adjustments were made for improved usability.

HebrewBible version 4.7 and BiblicalHebrew 1.3 now available on App Store

2010-11-17T20:58:00.001-08:00

This is a minor update to add support for iOS 4.2 to the app. The primary user-noticeable benefit will be support for multitasking on the iPad. The new versions are now available on the Apple App Store and I recommend that all current users download the upgrades (they are free upgrades for existing users of the apps).

HebrewBible version 4.6 and BiblicalHebrew 1.2 now available on App Store

2010-09-19T12:16:00.001-07:00

There is 1 fairly significant enhancement as well as some iPad-specific mods and bug fixes in this version. The new versions are now available on the Apple App Store and I recommend that all current users download the upgrades (they are free upgrades for existing users of the apps). All of the following changes are in the HebrewBible update and the first two are also in the BiblicalHebrew update:

Enhancement: Added Search functionality to Words - if you know the English equivalent of a Biblical Hebrew/Aramaic word, you can search for all words that contain that text in one of their definitions. This function supports wildcards (see below for examples) as well.
Enhancement: Built with iOS SDK 4.1 but will run on any iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad with at least iOS 3.0.
Enhancement: This version contains a number of iPad-specific enhancements to better conform to Apple HIG (Human Interface Guideline) standards. (The Temporary Bible Version change picker is now displayed in a popover element, the "Read Book" button has been replaced with an "Entire Book" switch setting).
Fix: Re-instated "Translate" button in Words tab on the iPad.
Fix: Some minor fixes were made, fixed issue where switching to next/prev chapters was positioning incorrectly sometimes.

With the new search functionality, "wildcards" can be used (e.g. - you can use a "_" character to represent any single character and a "%" character to represent any number of characters). An example of the search wildcard feature might be useful to understand how wildcard characters can be used - the following show examples of the type of results that would be returned for different searches:

a. Searching for "man" locates all Hebrew words that have the those 3 consecutive characters somewhere in the definition for the word (so, for example, it picks up definitions that contain the words "manger, "Manasseh", "man"):

b. Searching for "ma_n" locates all Hebrew words that have the characters "ma" followed by some other character (which is represented by the "_") and then an "n" somewhere in the definition for the word (so, for example, it picks up definitions that contain the words "magnificence", "remain", "Maon"):

Searching for "% man %" locates all Hebrew words that have the unique word "man" somewhere in the definition for the Hebrew word:

HebrewBible version 4.5 and Biblical Hebrew 1.1 now available on App Store

2010-09-03T11:25:00.001-07:00

After the release of version 4.4 my Hebrew Bible app last week, I had reports from users who were still using iOS 3.0 or 3.1 that they were experiencing crashes on startup. This issue also affected my Biblical Hebrew 1.0 app. I identified the problem and submitted emergency fixes for both apps to Apple last Friday. Apple has approved the fixes and they are now available in the Apple App Store as free updates. All users should download these new versions. My sincere apologies for the inconvenience this has caused for iPhone and iPod Touch users who are still using iOS 3.0 or 3.1.

HebrewBible version 4.4 now available on App Store

2010-08-26T12:54:00.001-07:00

Hot on the heels of my brand new Biblical Hebrew app is the release of version 4.4 of my Hebrew Bible app! This version is a minor update that is primarily for improved iPhone iOS 4 and iPad functionality. The new version is now available on the Apple App Store and I recommend that all current users download the upgrade (it's a free upgrade for existing users of the app). The changes:

Enhancement: Fast app switching in iOS 4.
Enhancement: Pickers now displayed in popover element on iPad to better conform to Apple's HIG (Human Interface Guideline) standards.
Enhancement: Improved default viewing size of Root pages when "Big Text" is set off.

Users who have both the Biblical Hebrew and Hebrew Bible apps will find that the multitasking (fast app switching) in iOS 4 makes it very convenient to quickly toggle between the two apps while maintaining the current "context" in each app.

Biblical Hebrew iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch app now available on Apple app store

2010-08-24T17:11:00.001-07:00

My latest app is now available on the app store: Biblical Hebrew (or goto iTunes). The Biblical Hebrew application is designed for learning (or improving ones knowledge of) Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic. It is a "universal application" (e.g. - you only buy it once and it runs on any of the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad devices that you own) and it is entirely self-contained (e.g. - no Internet connection is required). The application is comprised of three main components (each represented by a separate tab-bar tab in the application)

Dictionary: The Dictionary tab provides two quick mechanisms to lookup Hebrew words:
1. Roots: One of the really beautiful aspects of the Hebrew language is that all of the roots of the verbs and nouns are derived from two-letter units that are usually assembled as part of a three letter root. By selecting the first two letters of the root, a listing will be displayed of all Hebrew and Aramaic words (Aramaic words will display in green in the summary) that begin with those two letters with a brief English translation. Once the list is displayed, tapping on a word will display a popup with further detail about the selected word. It is also possible to display a list of all the verses in the Hebrew Bible that contain that word or the BDB page for that word.
2. Strongs: If you know the Strongs number of a Biblical Hebrew/Aramaic word, you can go directly to the detail information about that word.
The Dictionary definition popup for a word includes (when applicable):
- The Hebrew (with vowels) representation.
- The phonetic pronunciation of the Hebrew.
- The Strongs transliteration of the Hebrew.
- The Strongs#.
- The language classification (Hebrew/Aramaic/Name).
- The part-of-speech.
- A button to access a list of all verses in the Hebrew Bible where that word appears.
- A button to access the BDB page related to that word.
- Common definitions.
- Common translation.
- Explanation.
- Exegesis.
- TWOT (Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament) number reference.
Lexicon: The Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB) HebrewLexicon is probably the most commonly used Biblical Hebrew Lexicon. A complete copy of this lexicon is accessible from within the application. In additon, individual pages can be displayed via the Dictionary word lookup functionality.
Grammar: Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar is the standard Biblical Hebrew reference grammar in English. A complete copy of this grammar is accessible from within the application.

Note: Due to the density of the text in the Lexicon and Grammar texts, this application is best viewed on an iPad. However, it is still very usable on an iPhone or iPod Touch (the Lexicon and Grammar texts will be best viewed on those devices in either Landscape orientation or by "pinch zooming" the text).

Lisp by Analogy (using Kanji and Hebrew)

2010-08-10T09:11:00.001-07:00

I really like programming with the Lisp programming language and, even though I rarely do much Lisp programming these days, it has affected how I program in other languages. In the past, I've blogged a lot about both Lisp macros (see here) and continuations (see here); however, I still occasionally get questions from non-lispers regarding Lisp macros and continuations as most programming languages don't support them to the same extent that Lisp does. It's understandable that many people struggle with grok'ing the concepts as it's kinda like the Bedouin trying to understand icebergs ;-). With some people, it helps to use analogies, so I'll try to do that here. As with most analogies, mine will be a bit flawed and I'll intentionally be glossing over and simplifying things; however, I hope these analogies will give non-lispers a bit of a "feel" for what Lisp macros and continuations are like.

Macros

A major differentiator of Lisp is it's ability to create custom, domain-specific languages. A key "enabler" for this is Lisp macros which give the programmer the ability to create new language constructs (macros in many programming languages only provide a text substitution mechanism). I'll use a natural language analogy to try to illustrate how this is different from what non-Lisp languages provide. Both Indo-European and Semitic written languages create words by combining letters of the alphabet that represent the individual sounds that make up a word. So, in English, the word for a female spouse is "wife" while, in French, it is "épouse". In English, the written word "wife" is the combination of symbols that represent the sounds associated with the letters "w", "i", "f", and "e", so it has a different written representation from the same concept in French. In some countries in the East (most commonly, in China and Japan), Kanji characters can be used for written words. Kanji is different from most other written script in that there is no attempt to represent the spoken word in the written representation of the word. Instead, it uses a pictogram-like representation of the word. In both China and Japan, although the spoken languages are very different, the Kanji representation of many words is the same (differences arise because new words were subsequently added in one country but not in the other). So, for example, in Kanji, the word for a female spouse is actually a pictogram representing the combination of the Kanji pictograms for "woman" + "holding" + "broom-like object" as depicted below:

Therefore, once a new pictogram has been composed and accepted for use, that pictogram is the same as any other pictogram in Kanji. While in English, there are 26 symbols (letters of the alphabet) that represent the basic "building blocks" of the written language and you can't add any more, in Kanji, there are thousands of symbols (pictograms) that represent the basic "building blocks". In the same way, when a Lisper creates a macro, he is creating a new "building block" in Lisp. The new macro will be the same as any other "built-in" language construct (while there are some things that you can do with a function, there are some things that can only be done with a macro). So, if (for example) a Lisper wants to add a new looping construct to Lisp, he might create an "iterate" macro in his custom language. This new construct (when used in the custom DSL) would be no different from "standard" built-ins like "do" or "if". So, in this way, macros are analogous to Kanji - you are not limited to a core set of "building block" constructs in the language and you can expand that set of core constructs as/when needed.

Continuations

Continuations give programmers the ability to save the execution state at any point and return to that point at a later point in the program. In the past, I've talked a lot about using continuations to develop complex web applications. I particularly liked Avi Bryant's "elevator pitch" definition of why continuations are useful for web apps:

"Continuations bring precisely the same benefits to traditional web development that subroutines bring to GOTOs"

However, continuations can be used for other purposes as well. I'll try to use a personal analogy to illustrate what using continuations is like. Music often has the ability to take you to a particular place or state of mind. In October 1973 I had just started university in the US when the Yom Kippur War broke out. I dropped out of university and flew back to Israel. There was a song that was playing on the radio quite frequently at that time in Israel. It was called "Lu Yehi" (roughly translated as "Let it be" or "May it be") and it really captured the feelings and the mood of the country at that time. A translation of the lyrics is available online; however, as with most songs (and most translations), the original is best and translations don't really do it justice. Anyhow, flash forward to the year 2008: I hadn't been back to Israel since leaving in 1980 and I hadn't spoken Hebrew in almost as long. Then, one evening, I was having a drink and looking out at the lights of the ships in the bay when I started humming some of the words to the song. Not expecting to find anything, I did a search on YouTube. To my surprise, it was there! I pressed "play" and suddenly, I was back in Israel 35 years ago. As I listened to the Hebrew words, all the same feelings, thoughts, and emotions from that time flooded back.

That's what continuations provide to a programming language - the ability to jump back to a particular place in the code, retaining all of the program "state" that was in place at that time.

So, I don't know whether these analogies worked for you or not, but, for me, they capture part of the essence of these two key features of Lisp.

Hebrew and BiDi text in Emacs24 - Part 2 (Hebrew Input Methods)

2010-07-14T14:36:00.001-07:00

In my previous post, I described the Hebrew and BiDi support available in Emacs24 (currently, development version only). As I mentioned in that post, BiDi support is built into Emacs but there are several alternatives for actually entering Hebrew text and Emacs "input methods" are probably the preferred means most Emacs users will use. Although Emacs24 comes with a Hebrew input method (based on the keyboard layout used on Israeli keyboards), I use my own custom Hebrew keyboard layout and I have added that layout to Emacs as a custom input method. The keyboard layout is described on my Hebrew-ZC Keyboard Layout page; however, I'll summarize my rationale for creating a custom Hebrew keyboard layout here as well:

I am a fast English touch-typist and only type Hebrew occasionally. Therefore, I prefer a layout that attempts to match Hebrew letters to English phonetic equivalents. This lets me make reuse my "finger muscle memory" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_memory) when typing Hebrew. I don't want to learn a completely new keyboard layout that I will only use for the occasions that I type in Hebrew.
I want to keep punctuation, special characters, and numbers on the same keys (as much as possible). Most Hebrew keyboard layouts move special characters and punctuation characters around and this drives me crazy!
I mostly type Modern Israeli Hebrew (MIH), usually without vowels. But, I also sometimes need to be able to enter vowels, Biblical Hebrew-specific characters, cantillation marks, and accents. Therefore, the keyboard layout should focus on making modern Hebrew fast to type but also make Biblical Hebrew fairly intuitive.

My custom hebrew-zc Emacs input method (along with installation and usage instructions included as comments at the beginning of the code) is here: hebrewzc.el.

If you are more accustomed to using the SIL or Tiro Hebrew keyboard layouts, Yair F. has created a custom hebrew.el file with those keyboard layouts defined as Emacs input methods. The full list of Hebrew keyboard layouts that he supports in that file are: SI-1452, Lyx, Full, Tiro and Sil. For Yiddish, he also supports keyboard layouts for: Royal (Based on Royal Yiddish typewriter) and Keyman (Phonetic qwerty). Remember: for any Emacs input method, you can use 'M-x describe-input-method' to see the keyboard layout.

For a full description of input methods, refer to the Emacs24 info documentation from within Emacs: 'C-h i m emacs g input'.

Hebrew and BiDi text in Emacs24 - Part 1 (Introduction)

2010-07-08T12:30:00.001-07:00

I use Emacs a lot - not just for programming, but for many other tasks as well. It has always irritated me that Emacs didn't support Hebrew text input and that I would have to switch to another editor whenever I needed to write something in Hebrew. Well, with Emacs version 24, that will change! I've been playing around with the development version of Emacs24 (actually, although I also tested on Emacs24, I've mostly been testing on the development version of Aquamacs which is Emacs packaged with a number of frequently-used extensions for use on the Mac) and have been impressed by how well Emacs is starting to support Hebrew input with proper BiDi display (due in large part to the work and perseverance over the past few years by Emacs developer Eli Zaretskii). Here is a screen shot to illustrate both a mixture of English and Hebrew lines of text and Hebrew embedded in an English XML code snippet (in both cases, the proper Left-To-Right (LTR) and Right-To-Left (RTL) display of the text is maintained):

At the moment, this is only available in the development version of Emacs/Aquamacs. Therefore, unless you're technically-savvy, you probably won't be able to use it until the next official release of Emacs (the above picture is just to whet your appetite!). However, any developers who want to give it a try can do so by downloading and building the Emacs development source. Here are the necessary steps for building the Aquamacs version: From a terminal, download and build Aquamacs24: git clone git://github.com/davidswelt/aquamacs-emacs.git cd aquamacs-emacs/
git checkout -t origin/aquamacs24 (note: depending on git version, you might need to do: git checkout origin/aquamacs24)
./build-aquamacs
Then, drag the Aquamacs.app application from the nextstep directory to your Applications directory. Currently, bidi support is turned off by default in Emacs24 (this will change before the official release of Emacs24), so you will want to turn it on in your .emacs file:
(setq-default bidi-display-reordering t)
That's all you have to do to enable bidi support! Emacs will "automatically" recognize whether you're typing a LTR or a RTL language and display the text appropriately (according to the rules specified in the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm (described in Annex 9 of the Unicode Standard)). You can "force" RTL or LTR text by either setting the "bidi-paragraph-direction" variable in Emacs or by using one of the standard mechanisms described in the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm page; however, for the most part, you will just let Emacs DWIM. You can enter Hebrew by either enabling system-wide Hebrew input (e.g. - as described here for the Mac) or by enabling a Hebrew input method locally in Emacs (e.g. - using "C-x RET C-\ hebrew"). Most Emacs users will probably prefer the Hebrew input method approach as it allows you to continue using standard Emacs command keys while the system-wide overrides will affect command key usage. If you enable an Emacs Hebrew input method, you can toggle between Hebrew and your default language by pressing "C-\". Anyone wanting to read about the main design decisions that went into the development of bidi support in Emacs can read Eli Zaretskii's "Bidirectional editing in Emacs -- main design decisions" post on the emacs-bidi list archive.

HebrewBible version 4.3 now available on App Store

2010-07-01T12:37:00.001-07:00

This version fixes a couple of nasty bugs that caused crashes (including one that surfaced with the release of iOS 4). The new version is now available on the Apple App Store and I recommend that all current users download the upgrade (it's a free upgrade for existing users of the app). The changes:

Fix: Fixed bug when switching to Aramaic when in a non-Torah book.
Fix: Fixed crash (only on iOS 4) when changing Bible version.
Fix: On flipside view, moved buttons so that messages weren't obscured.

BDB Support in Hebrew Bible iPhone/iPad app

2010-05-29T12:56:00.001-07:00

The latest version of my Hebrew Bible app now has support for the Brown–Driver–Briggs Hebrew Lexicon (BDB). This is as a result of the work that David Troidl has done in creating a BDB outline linking words defined in the Brown–Driver–Briggs Lexicon to their Strong's Concordance numbers. By having a cross-reference of the Brown–Driver–Briggs pages to specific Hebrew words from the Tanach, I have been able to link directly to the relevant Brown–Driver–Briggs page for each Hebrew word. Brown–Driver–Briggs support is now in 3 different sections of the app (the following screen shots are from the iPad version of the app):

When reading the "Hebrew(reader) version, it is possible to touch any word and bring up a popup that displays the definition of the word with buttons that will display either all occurrences of the word in the Tanach or a Brown–Driver–Briggs page that relates to that word:
When using the "Words" functionality, it is possible to select a word from a 2-letter lookup page and then also access the Brown–Driver–Briggs information, or directly search for a word by Strongs number and then access it's definition and Brown–Driver–Briggs information:
Lastly, it is also possible to browse the Brown–Driver–Briggs Lexicon directly from the "BDB" tab by either selecting a section or page from the Table of Contents or by just paging through the pages:

HebrewBible version 4.2 now available on App Store

2010-05-29T09:55:00.001-07:00

There are 2 fairly significant enhancements as well as some bug fixes in this version. The in-app settings enhancement will make it easy for users to quickly change the default settings of the app without going out to the standard Settings app to do so. The Brown–Driver–Briggs (BDB) Hebrew Lexicon is probably the most commonly used Biblical Hebrew Lexicon and this enhancement to the HebrewBible app makes the app that much more useful for students of Biblical Hebrew or the Hebrew Bible. Because the app is displaying the PDF version of BDB, users will probably find it more convenient to view the BDB either on an iPad or in landscape mode on the iPhone. The new version is now available on the Apple App Store and I recommend that all current users download the upgrade (it's a free upgrade for existing users of the app). The changes:

Enhancement: Added in-app settings (accessible via "gear" icon on Bible view).
Enhancement: Added access to full text of BDB Lexicon (as a separate tabbar item).
Enhancement: Added access to relevant BDB page from Hebrew word popup.
Fix: Fixed bug where Psalms Chapter 88 was listed twice in picker instead of Chapter 89.
Fix: Fixed rare bug which caused crash when switching to a different Bible version.

HebrewBible version 4.1 now available on App Store

2010-05-12T16:01:00.001-07:00

This version includes a lot of minor enhancements. The new version is now available on the Apple App Store and I recommend that all current users download the upgrade (it's a free upgrade for existing users of the app). As with the previous version, this version is a "universal" app in that a customer only needs to buy it once and it will run on all the iPhone, iPod Touch (1st or 2nd generation), and iPad (a minimum of iPhone OS 3.0 is required on any device) devices that the user owns. The changes:

Enhancement: Updated Hebrew(reader) text to WLC version 4.12.
Enhancement: Improved performance of Bible text display with alternative fonts.
Enhancement: Added display of true Strongs transliterations to word definitions.
Enhancement: Eliminated superfluous spaces after certain characters for improved readability.
Enhancement: Added Part-of-Speech description to word definition popup.
Enhancement: Added word definition lookup by Strongs number.
Fix: Changed alignment of Translate form for better visual presentation on both iphone and ipad devices.

HebrewBible Version 4.0 with iPad support and new fonts

2010-04-01T13:53:00.001-07:00

The latest version of my Hebrew Bible app was released on April 1st (to coincide with the release of Apple's iPad in the USA on April 3rd). This version is a "universal" app in that a customer only needs to buy it once and it will run on either the iPhone, iPod Touch (1st or 2nd generation), or iPad (a minimum of iPhone OS 3.0 is required on any device). It is a free upgrade for current users of the app.

The changes:

The application has been modified to take advantage of the greater screen size of the iPad when run on that device.
New fonts (the Culmus Ancient Semitic Scripts) have been added so that users can select (via preferences) alternative fonts with which to view the Hebrew Bible text.

The new fonts are based on script styles used at different times throughout history. So, for example, you can choose to read the Hebrew Bible in a font that looks like a script style in use at the time of Hezekiah or script styles that were in use at the time of the Second Temple! There are multiple Paleo Hebrew fonts, "square" or "Assyrian" Hebrew fonts, and Aramaic/Canaanite/Phoenician fonts included. The Paleo Hebrew fonts could also be useful for someone who is attempting to learn to read Paleo Hebrew as there are few large digital texts that are readily available that one can use when learning to read Paleo Hebrew script. The Keter Aram Tsova font replicates the script found in the Aleppo Codex and is a lovely "square" or "Assyrian" Hebrew script that supports vowels and cantillation marks. There is also a font that is similar to the Ashkenazi Ktav Stam writing in which Sifrei Torah, Tefillin, Mezzuzot, and the Five Megillot are written. Several Aramaic fonts are provided for reading the Aramaic Torah and, for fun, a Proto-Canaanite and a Phoenician font have also been included.

The additional font support is dependent on iPhone OS version 3.2 (which is currently only available on the iPad). Therefore, if the application is used with a device that is not running iPhone OS version 3.2, only the default font will be used.

When reading the Hebrew text without vowels, any of the following fonts can be used. However, when reading one of the versions that have vowels or cantillation, only the default font, Keter Aram Tsova, and Keter YG fonts can be used (the other fonts are not meant to be used with vowels or cantillation). Here is an example of the first line of the Genesis text in the iPad rendered with the different fonts (The fonts are listed in chronological order. The date next to the font name indicates the approximate century that the script style dates from):

Proto Canaanite (27C BCE):

Phoenician Ahirma (12C-10C BCE):

Hebrew Paleo Gezer (10C BCE):

Hebrew Paleo Mesha (9C BCE):

Hebrew Paleo Siloam (8C BCE):

Hebrew Paleo Lachish (6C BCE):

Hebrew Square Isaiah (2C BCE):

Hebrew Paleo Qumran (1C BCE):

Hebrew Square Habakkuk (1C BCE):

Hebrew Square Ben Kosba (2C CE):

Hebrew Square Bet Shearim (2C CE):

Keter Aram Tsova (10C CE):

Keter YG (10C CE):

Hebrew Samaritan (14C CE):

Hebrew Sofer STaM Ashkenaz:

Default Font:

In addition, the following Aramaic fonts are provided that can be used when viewing the Aramaic (without vowels) version of the Torah:

Aramaic Early BR Rkb (8C BCE):

Aramaic VIIBCE (7C BCE):

Aramaic Imperial Yeb (5C BCE):

HebrewBible Version 3.3 now available on App Store

2010-01-27T13:05:00.001-08:00

The new version is now available on the Apple App Store and I recommend that all current users download the upgrade (it's a free upgrade for existing users of the app). The changes:

Fix: Changed "i" icon to a gear icon and moved it to bottom/center of Bible selector screen to make it easier to access in order to change Bible versions or to cache content (a number of people complained that it was difficult to press the small "i" icon, so this change will make it much easier).

HebrewBible Release 3.2 now available on App Store

2009-12-30T14:10:00.001-08:00

Wow, Apple approved my latest set of updates in less than 24 hours (the quickest approval yet)! I only made some minor updates; however, it's unusual to have an update approved so quickly. The new version is now available on the Apple App Store and I recommend that all current users download the upgrade (it's a free upgrade for existing users of the app). The changes:

Enhancement: The HebrewBible app will now work on 1st Generation iPod Touch devices (with OS 3.0 or higher) in addition to iPhones and 2nd Generation iPod Touches.
Fix: Fixed problem with Read Book not working sometimes for double books (e.g. - 1&2 Samuel).

HebrewBible Version 3.2 submitted to Apple for approval

2009-12-29T14:50:00.001-08:00

I've made a couple of minor enhancements/fixes to the HebrewBible iPhone app. The changes have been submitted to Apple for approval. Usually, changes take about 2 weeks to be approved for release on the Apple App Store and I'll post here again when they're available (it's a free upgrade for existing users of the app). The changes:

Enhancement: The HebrewBible app will now work on 1st Generation iPod Touch devices (with OS 3.0 or higher) in addition to iPhones and 2nd Generation iPod Touches.
Fix: Fixed problem with Read Book not working sometimes for double books (e.g. - 1&2 Samuel).

HebrewBible Release 3.1 now available on App Store

2009-12-11T20:31:00.001-08:00

I got a Hanukkah present from Apple - they approved my latest set of updates after only 5 days (the quickest approval yet)! I've made a number of minor enhancements and a few fixes to the HebrewBible iPhone app. The new version is now available on the Apple App Store and I recommend that all current users download the upgrade (it's a free upgrade for existing users of the app). The changes:

Enhancement: On the Words definition popup, changed the "Close" link and the verses link to buttons for improved visual appearance.
Enhancement: On the Words summary display, Aramaic words are now displayed in green (Hebrew words are still displayed in black) in order to visually differentiate Aramaic words from Hebrew words.
Fix: Corrected bug that was causing some display issues in landscape mode when reading Bible text.
Fix: Corrected bug that was preventing display of 1Kings Chapter 22.
Fix: Minor spelling and word corrections for the Words dictionary data.
Fix: Corrected sort order of verses from Words popup so that numerics were sorted properly (for example: app was previously displaying "Gen.19.31" before "Gen.2.24").

HebrewBible Version 3.1 submitted to Apple for approval

2009-12-07T19:27:00.001-08:00

I've made a number of minor enhancements and a few fixes to the HebrewBible iPhone app. The changes have been submitted to Apple for approval. Usually, changes take about 2 weeks to be approved for release on the Apple App Store and I'll post here again when they're available (it's a free upgrade for existing users of the app). The changes:

Enhancement: On the Words definition popup, changed the "Close" link and the verses link to buttons for improved visual appearance.
Enhancement: On the Words summary display, Aramaic words are now displayed in green (Hebrew words are still displayed in black) in order to visually differentiate Aramaic words from Hebrew words.
Fix: Corrected bug that was causing some display issues in landscape mode when reading Bible text.
Fix: Corrected bug that was preventing display of 1Kings chapter 22.
Fix: Minor spelling and word corrections for the Words dictionary data.
Fix: Corrected sort order of verses from Words popup so that numerics were sorted properly (for example: app was previously displaying "Gen.19.31" before "Gen.2.24").

HebrewBible Release 3.0 now available on App Store

2009-11-24T18:49:00.001-08:00

I've made a number of significant enhancements to the HebrewBible iPhone app. I'm particularly excited about the "Hebrew (reader)" Bible version that is introduced with this release. Since I programmatically generated this Bible version from Westminster Leningrad Codex XML sources, I can dynamically add new functionality to it quite easily in the future (the other Bible versions are static texts that I can't easily enhance). Since these changes are significant, I've made this the 3.0 release of the app. In addition to the enhancements, I've also fixed a display issue that several people encountered when changing the iPhone orientation from portrait mode to landscape mode. The new version is now available on the Apple App Store and I recommend that all current users download the upgrade (it's a free upgrade for existing users of the app). The changes:

Enhancement: Added "Hebrew (reader)" Bible version (it is based on the Leningrad Codex and is designed for those who are learning Hebrew and wish to read a Hebrew-only version of the Bible but still have access to English-language definitions of words. While reading this version, if you touch any Hebrew word, you will be presented with a pop-up English definition based on information from the Strong's Concordance. The "Hebrew (reader)" version is stored entirely on the iPhone and no Internet connection is needed in order to use this Bible version. This version displays cantillation marks to the extent that is supported by Apple's current fonts.).
Enhancement: Added "Hebrew (with cantillation)" Bible version (displays cantillation marks to the extent that is supported by Apple's current fonts).
Enhancement: Changed root word lookup functionality to access local word definitions rather than the 2LetterLookup web site, speeding word lookup functionality significantly. Having a local set of word definitions also makes future enhancements (both content and presentation) easier to do.
Enhancement: Added popup showing all verses in Hebrew Bible where a particular word is found. This is accessible from either the root word lookup or from the "Hebrew (reader)" word lookup functionality.
Enhancement: Added callout detail disclosure to show all verses in Hebrew Bible where a particular map location is found.
Fix: Fixed bug that was causing intermittent Bible text display issues on rotation to landscape mode.

HebrewBible Release 3.0 submitted to Apple for approval

2009-11-15T18:28:00.001-08:00

I've made a number of significant enhancements to the HebrewBible iPhone app. Since these changes are significant, I've made this the 3.0 release of the app. I've also fixed a display issue that several people encountered when changing the iPhone orientation from portrait mode to landscape mode. The changes have been submitted to Apple for approval. Usually, changes take about 2 weeks to be approved for release on the Apple App Store and I'll post here again when they're available (it's a free upgrade for existing users of the app). The changes:

Enhancement: Added "Hebrew (reader)" Bible version (it is based on the Leningrad Codex and is designed for those who are learning Hebrew and wish to read a Hebrew-only version of the Bible but still have access to English-language definitions of words. While reading this version, if you touch any Hebrew word, you will be presented with a pop-up English definition based on information from the Strong's Concordance. The "Hebrew (reader)" version is stored entirely on the iPhone and no Internet connection is needed in order to use this Bible version. This version displays cantillation marks to the extent that is supported by Apple's current fonts.).
Enhancement: Added "Hebrew (with cantillation)" Bible version (displays cantillation marks to the extent that is supported by Apple's current fonts).
Enhancement: Changed root word lookup functionality to access local word definitions rather than the 2LetterLookup web site, speeding word lookup functionality significantly. Having a local set of word definitions also makes future enhancements (both content and presentation) easier to do.
Enhancement: Added popup showing all verses in Hebrew Bible where a particular word is found. This is accessible from either the root word lookup or from the "Hebrew (reader)" word lookup functionality.
Enhancement: Added callout detail disclosure to show all verses in Hebrew Bible where a particular map location is found.
Fix: Fixed bug that was causing intermittent Bible text display issues on rotation to landscape mode.

HebrewBible Release 2.2 now available on App Store

2009-11-05T05:35:00.001-08:00

I've made a number of usability enhancements to the HebrewBible iPhone app. These are primarily enhancements that a number of users have requested that I add to the application. This update is a free upgrade for existing users of the app and I recommend that all existing users take the update. The changes:

Enhancement: When in the Bible text screen, swipe-left will hide the tab bar and swipe-right with display it. This makes more room available for reading the text when you're reading the Bible.
Enhancement: When playing the audio in the Bible text screen, the Play button now changes to a Pause button when pressed (instead of the Stop button previously displayed). This lets the user pause and resume audio playback.
Enhancement: The Translate functionality (in the Words tab) now has an additional button for "Swap Languages" to allow the source and destination languages to be reversed. For example, if the user had selected French as the "from" language and English as the "to" language, pressing the Translate button converts French to English. Pressing the "Swap Languages"button reverses the two languages so that the translation will be from English to French.
Enhancement: The languages that are used for the Translate functionality (in the Words tab) are now "sticky" (e.g. - once a translation has been done between 2 languages, the selected languages are the defaults the next time the application is started).
Fix: Moved the "i" button on the Bible screen further from the tab bar (to prevent accidental touches).
Fix: Corrected positioning of popup box in the Hebrew Torah with Commentary version (in certain cases, the popup would not appear on the visible screen).

Interesting presentation: "How the Rabbis Invented Web2.0 Before Their Time"

2009-10-30T09:11:00.001-07:00

I came across this interesting presentation done by Ellen Frankel, the CEO and Editor-in-Chief of The Jewish Publication Society (I've heard now that she's recently left JPS) which she gave at the BibleTech:2009 conference:

How the Rabbis Invented Web2.0 Before Their Time

View more documents from YAVNET.

The audio for the presentation is here (open in a separate tab to follow along with the presentation).

HebrewBible Release 2.2 submitted to Apple for approval

2009-10-19T13:15:00.001-07:00

I've made a number of usability enhancements to the HebrewBible iPhone app. The changes have been submitted to Apple for approval. Usually, changes take about 2 weeks to be approved for release on the Apple App Store and I'll post here again when they're available (it's a free upgrade for existing users of the app). These are all enhancements that a number of users have requested that I add to the application. The changes:

Enhancement: When in the Bible text screen, swipe-left will hide the tab bar and swipe-right with display it. This makes more room available for reading the text when you're reading the Bible.
Enhancement: When playing the audio in the Bible text screen, the Play button now changes to a Pause button when pressed (instead of the Stop button previously displayed). This lets the user pause and resume audio playback.
Enhancement: The Translate functionality (in the Words tab) now has an additional button for "Swap Languages" to allow the source and destination languages to be reversed. For example, if the user had selected French as the "from" language and English as the "to" language, pressing the Translate button converts French to English. Pressing the "Swap Languages"button reverses the two languages so that the translation will be from English to French.
Enhancement: The languages that are used for the Translate functionality (in the Words tab) are now "sticky" (e.g. - once a translation has been done between 2 languages, the selected languages are the defaults the next time the application is started).
Fix: Moved the "i" button on the Bible screen further from the tab bar (to prevent accidental touches).
Fix: Corrected positioning of popup box in the Hebrew Torah with Commentary version (in certain cases, the popup would not appear on the visible screen).

Hebrew Learning Resources

2009-10-14T13:13:00.001-07:00

The following links are useful resources for learning Hebrew:

The Boulders 2 Bits blog has a nice summary of vocabulary resources for people learning Hebrew (including a few that I suggested). The summary is in 2 separate posts (Part 1, and Part 2). The blog also has a Hebrew Resources page with some more useful material for people learning Hebrew.
The Codex Biblical Hebrew Resources page has a lot of links to resources for learning Hebrew. It's broken now into:
Ehud Ben Zvi's Resources for the Study of Biblical Hebrew page ha s a large number of links to useful resources.
Rahel Halabe has another large collection of Hebrew Links that are primarily focused on learning Hebrew.
The Biblical Hebrew HTML Keyboard is useful for entering small amounts of text for copy/paste to a word processor.
Learning new Hebrew words via Hebrew Songs is a nice way to pick up new vocabulary.

Review of HebrewBible iPhone app

2009-09-22T10:00:00.001-07:00

Karyn Traphagen has published a review of my HebrewBible iPhone app and compared it to Olive Tree's Bible iPhone app on her blog. Her comments on my Hebrew Bible iPhone app were all accurate; however, one thing that readers might assume from her article is that only a subset of the Bible text can be downloaded and stored locally (cached) on the iPhone. In reality, the user has the option to download either individual Bible books/chapters or entire Bibles (any or all of the eight Hebrew Bible versions that are currently supported) at no additional cost. In addition, they can download the root lookup functionality pages to provide an offline way of researching Hebrew words. If the user wants to minimize the amount of storage space taken up by the program on the iPhone, then they can choose to access all content over the Internet. For people who always have access to high-speed 3G or wifi connections or who have little remaining space on their iPhone, this makes the program usable while consuming minimal iPhone storage.

HebrewBible Release 2.1 now available on App Store

2009-08-20T21:01:00.001-07:00

I've made one fix and a nice enhancement to the HebrewBible iPhone app. The changes were approved after only 10 days this time, so that's really great (in the past, Apple has taken at least 2 weeks to approve my updates)! This update is a free upgrade for existing users of the app and I recommend that all existing users take the update. The changes:

Fix: Fixed problem where crash occurs if a book later than Deuteronomy has been bookmarked and the user has changed the default Bible version to a Torah-only version (e.g. - one of the Aramaic versions) using the iphone preferences.
Enhancement: Added Google Translate functionality to the "Words" tab with a segmented control that allows user to switch between "Roots" lookup functionality and "Translate" functionality. A generic translation facility (which uses Google Translate to do the translations) is also provided in addition to the existing "roots" lookup functionality. One can either copy/paste words/sentences from the Hebrew Bible or directly enter text to be translated. Note: in order to enter Hebrew (or any) text correctly, the relevant keyboard needs to have been enabled in the iPhone Settings application (under General/Keyboard/International Keyboards). The input and output text automatically adjusts to the appropriate "left-to-right" or "right-to-left" text orientation based on the translation languages that have been selected.

HebrewBible Release 2.1 submitted to Apple for approval

2009-08-10T16:51:00.001-07:00

I've made one fix and a nice enhancement to the HebrewBible iPhone app. The changes have been submitted to Apple for approval. Usually, changes take about 1-2 weeks to be approved for release on the Apple App Store and I'll post here again when they're available (it's a free upgrade for existing users of the app). The changes:

Fix: Fixed problem where crash occurs if a book later than Deuteronomy has been bookmarked and the user has changed the default Bible version to a Torah-only version (e.g. - one of the Aramaic versions) using the iphone preferences.
Enhancement: Added Google Translate functionality to the "Words" tab with a segmented control that allows user to switch between "Roots" lookup functionality and "Translate" functionality.

New Version of Hebrew Bible iPhone App Available

2009-07-18T17:30:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, Apple approved Version 2.0 of my Hebrew Bible iPhone application. In addition to providing 8 different versions of the Hebrew Bible (which can either be read online with no content stored on the iPhone or cached locally for off-network reading) and Hebrew word lookup/lexicon, this version includes links to over 200 Wikipedia articles and provides Google Maps of over 1,000 locations.

Apple made me change the rating of the app to "17+" to indicate that there are "Frequent/Intense" types of "Mature/Suggestive Themes". Their reasoning for this was:

"Our review indicates that the application content is not consistent with the current rating. HebrewBible allows unfiltered access to wikipedia.org, where content with mature or suggestive themes can be accessed."

Hmm, a rating of "17+" seems to boost sales of certain movies - maybe I can expect a sudden spike in downloads now! ;-)

HebrewBible Release 2.0 now available on App Store

2009-07-17T14:18:00.001-07:00

I've made a large number of enhancements and a couple of fixes to my Hebrew Bible iPhone application. Since it's pretty major, I've made this the 2.0 release of the app. The changes have been approved by Apple and the new version is now available on the App Store (it's a free upgrade for existing users of the app). The changes:

Enhancement: Added Maps for over 1,000 locations mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.
Enhancement: Added Wikipedia links for over 200 topics mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.
Enhancement: Added ability to access Bible content by Parashah (weekly synagogue Torah/Haftarah reading).
Enhancement: Added separate flip-side view for Bible version selection and Cache operations (accessible via the "i" button in the bottom-right of the Bible screen.
Enhancement: Added a "Clear Cache" button to clear stored content to free up space on device.
Enhancement: Automatically turn "On" caching when user downloads Bible or Root content.
Enhancement: Due to user requests, have changed the Bookmark default to "On" so that the picker positions to the last Bible chapter read on application start.
Fix: Corrected problem with caching of the Hebrew/French Bible version.
Fix: The above flip-side view enhancement also fixes the problem that people have had (following the iPhone OS 3.0 upgrade) with the "Hebrew with vowels" option not being selectable from within the app.

HebrewBible Release 2.0 submitted to Apple for approval

2009-07-05T15:19:00.001-07:00

I've made a large number of enhancements and a couple of fixes to my Hebrew Bible iPhone application. Since it's pretty major, I've made this the 2.0 release of the app. The changes have been submitted to Apple for approval. Usually, changes take about 1-2 weeks to be approved for release on the Apple App Store and I'll post here again when they're available (it's a free upgrade for existing users of the app). The changes:

Enhancement: Added Maps for over 1,000 locations mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.
Enhancement: Added Wikipedia links for over 200 topics mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.
Enhancement: Added ability to access Bible content by Parashah (weekly synagogue Torah/Haftarah reading).
Enhancement: Added separate flip-side view for Bible version selection and Cache operations (accessible via the "i" button in the bottom-right of the Bible screen.
Enhancement: Added a "Clear Cache" button to clear stored content to free up space on device.
Enhancement: Automatically turn "On" caching when user downloads Bible or Root content.
Enhancement: Due to user requests, have changed the Bookmark default to "On" so that the picker positions to the last Bible chapter read on application start.
Fix: Corrected problem with caching of the Hebrew/French Bible version.
Fix: The above flip-side view enhancement also fixes the problem that people have had (following the iPhone OS 3.0 upgrade) with the "Hebrew with vowels" option not being selectable from within the app.

New iPhone + New Apple Developer Provisioning Profile

2009-06-21T21:09:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, I took some time off from the nice weather and gardening tasks to go out and get a new iPhone 3GS. First off, let me say that the speed difference is really great! I've only played around with a few of the new features (such as the video camera and compass), but the speed increase is a huge plus. Today, I got around to creating a new developer profile for my new iPhone 3GS. My old iPhone was having some problems a few months ago and Apple replaced it, so I remembered the hassles I had then setting up a new provisioning profile for the replacement device (this seems to be a common iPhone developer complaint). I had similar problems this time with the 3GS, so I've decided to note down all the things that I did to get it setup properly. Hopefully, this will help someone else (or, at least, it might remind me of the necessary steps the next time I have to do it!). Not all these steps may be necessary (and it's probably a lot easier if you're just adding a device to an existing profile rather than replacing a provisioning profile); however, I wanted to make sure I knew all the steps this time and it's what worked for me!

When you upgrade to a new device, you need to do the following:

In Apple's iPhone Developer Program Program Portal:

Create a new provisioning profile for the device
Set up a new device profile
Download the new provisioning profile to the Desktop

On the Mac:

Delete the old provisioning profile from ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/
Drag the new provisioning profile from the Desktop into ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/

In the Organizer window in Xcode:

Click on the device (in the left-hand pane)
Drag the new provisioning profile into the "Provisioning" box
Click on the "Provisioning Profiles" (in the left-hand pane)
Double-click on the new profile name (in the top pane) - it should appear in the "Included Devices" bottom pane with an "Installed" status
Close the Organizer window
Press the Xcode/Empty Caches... menu option
Close Xcode

On the Mac and iPhone:

Power off both the Mac and the iPhone
Power on both the Mac and the iPhone
Attach the iPhone to the Mac

For each project you previously built with the old provisioning profile:

Right-click on the [projectname].xcodeproj file and select "Show Package Contents"
Make a backup copy of the project.pbxproj file
Use a text editor (I used Emacs) to edit the project.pbxproj file:
1. Delete any lines that have the key CODE_SIGN_IDENTITY
2. Delete any lines that have the key PROVISIONING_PROFILE
3. Delete any lines that have the key "CODE_SIGN_IDENTITY[sdk=iphoneos*]"
4. Delete any lines that have the key "PROVISIONING_PROFILE[sdk=iphoneos*]"

In Xcode, for each project you previously built with the old provisioning profile:

Open the project
Press the Build/Clean All Targets menu option
Press the Project/Edit Project Settings menu option
On the Build tab under "All Configurations", chage the "Code Signing Identity" value to iPhone Developer
On the Xcode dropdown menu, select to build on the Device
Press the Build/Build and Run menu option (the application should build and load on the device)

That's what worked for me. If anyone has an easier/alternative approach, let me know and I'll publish relevant comments in updates to this post.

Flyer for HebrewBible iPhone Application

2009-05-26T08:31:00.001-07:00

I've just created a PDF flyer for my HebrewBible iPhone Application. It's suitable for posting on a bulletin board and gives a brief description of the application along with some "tear-off tabs" that make it easy for people to remember how to get the app. Click on the image to download the PDF:

HebrewBible Release 1.1 now available on App Store

2009-05-17T23:12:00.001-07:00

Wow, that was quick. After only 4 days, my update was approved by Apple and is now available (as of May 16th) on the App Store as a free update. The changes:

Enhancement: Added Prev/Next segmented control for navigation between chapters.
Enhancement: Added Bookmark preference setting to "remember" last book/chapter read and position picker to that book/chapter on application start.
Fix: Corrected issue that prevented caching of the Hebrew/French bible.
Fix: Minor corrections to the text on the "About" page.

HebrewBible Release 1.1 submitted to Apple for approval

2009-05-12T10:50:00.001-07:00

I've made a number of enhancements and fixes to my Hebrew Bible iPhone application. They have been submitted to Apple for approval. The changes:

Enhancement: Added Prev/Next segmented control for navigation between chapters.
Enhancement: Added Bookmark preference setting to "remember" last book/chapter read and position picker to that book/chapter on application start.
Fix: Corrected issue that prevented caching of the Hebrew/French bible.
Fix: Minor corrections to the text on the "About" page.

I'll report here when the new release is available on the app store.

Background on Mechon Mamre Hebrew Bibles

2009-05-07T10:56:00.001-07:00

I recently exchanged some emails with the creator of the Mechon Mamre site (from which I retrieve the Hebrew Bible content for my Hebrew Bible iPhone Application). I was discussing with him the sources that he used for developing the different Hebrew Bible versions on his site. He sent me an interesting explanation which I've reproduced here (with his permission). My previous email comments (which he was replying to) are interspersed in his reply and I've highlighted my comments in italics (there are several email exchanges that I've merged together as a single conversation for this post). I've also added some links that were not in his email and slightly edited the post:

I took a look at your web page and noted a glaring error or two:

The Hebrew versions are NOT just based on the Leningrad Codex, but are our own syncretic works based on several fine old Tiberian manuscripts, with emphasis on the Aleppo Codex (rather than the Leningrad Codex, which was consulted, however). The Aramaic is based on the Yemenite versions (tijaan) of Targum Onkelos.

> I've changed the web page. Could you please have another look
> at it and let me know if it is correct now? Also, you mentioned
> "several fine old Tiberian manuscripts" but I don't remember
> seeing mention of other Tanakh documents anywhere on your
> site. Are they listed somewhere on your site or can you point
> me to an online reference? I would like to make certain I am
> accurate in my description. On the web page, I revised my
> comment to read: "The Hebrew versions are syncretic works
> based on several fine old Tiberian manuscripts, with emphasis
> on the Aleppo Codex, and with consultation of the Westminster
> Leningrad Codex (WLC)."

Actually, the BHS version of the Leningrad Codex was consulted, but not the WLC.

> Would it be better to say:
> "The Hebrew versions are syncretic works based on the
> Westminster Leningrad Codex, corrected with content from
> the Aleppo Codex and several fine old Tiberian manuscripts."
> Does that sound better and would it more clearly represent the
> Tanakh content on Mechon Mamre?

Not better in my opinion and not correct, due to my not even having the WLC (other than in the "Sword Project", which I did not consult in preparing our Bibles).

> I am assuming that you originally started with the WLC
> version (since it was already available in digital form)
> and corrected that copy with the Aleppo Codex and other
> manuscripts - is that accurate?

No, I did not start with it, and in fact do not even have a copy of it. I actually started with the "BHS" of CCAT at Shamash which is much much older than the WLC. From that 1970s ASCII set of texts I generated a set of letter only, letter+vowel, and letter+vowel+cant versions in various encodings from macros in a DOS editor (I wrote and maintain the site in that DOS editor from vedit.com written originally in about 1987). It took only about 8 hours to turn the funny ASCII files into a whole Bible with cantillation marks in standard HTML4 UTF-8 encoding. But then there were years of editing. @:-D

> It would be nice to know what other Tiberian
> manuscripts were used - you have sparked my interest!

You can see them all described and explained in the works of the Rav Mordechai Breuer, such as "The Aleppo Codex and the Accepted Text of the BIble" (Mosad Harv Kook, Jerusalem, 1976), his notes to Da`at Miqra' (same publisher), his various Bible editions and their notes (same publisher and Chorev), BHS notes, Jerusalem Crown notes, and the like. I used Breuer's data and other data, but here and there came to different decisions from Breuer's on what the best text is; most of the time my versions and the various Breuer editions are very close to each other (as would be expected). Clearly, the text in "modern full spelling" without vowels is rather subjective, as full spelling is wont to be. The letter text of the Torah is identical to the best Yemenite manuscripts and scrolls, aside from poTi fera` (3 times), which is poTifera` (no space) in the Yemenite nosaH.

This project, by the way, started way back in 1990 when I worked in DOS3.3 without lots of the resources that became available much later allowing lots of fine tuning of the originally letter-only texts. Still more added resources may become available and be used to further tweek the texts. Who knows? @:-D

I have compared our letter texts with other electronic versions and was consistently shocked by the low quality of electronic texts (a Bible from a famous publisher in the US had 87 errors in spelling in the Torah alone, including `asitem spelled without the y-t-m ending!!!). Many such texts were obviously typed and not proofread, including those from the most famous electronic publishers, who demand hundreds of dollars for their badly broken texts.

Fascinating to hear some of the history of the creation of the Hebrew Bible texts on Mechon Mamre! I've since revised the description on my Hebrew Bible iPhone Application) web page to read:

"The Hebrew versions are syncretic works based on several fine old Tiberian manuscripts, with emphasis on the Aleppo Codex, and with consultation of the Leningrad Codex. The English versions are based on the original Jewish Publication Society (JPS) translation of 1917. The French version is based on the "La Bible du Rabbinat Français" translation. The Aramaic versions are based on the Yemenite versions (tijaan) of the "Targum Onkelos" translation."

Brochure for HebrewBible iPhone Application

2009-05-05T16:47:00.001-07:00

I've just created a brochure for my HebrewBible iPhone Application. Click on the image to download the PDF:

My First iPhone Application is on the Apple App Store!

2009-05-04T07:59:00.001-07:00

Woohoo - I just found out that my Hebrew Bible iPhone Application has been approved for release on the Apple App Store! The iTunes link is: http://itunes.com/app/HebrewBible. That's really neat!

I've already posted previously about:

Resources that I found useful while learning to develop on the iPhone.
Development notes that highlight some of the problem areas that I encountered while developing the app.

I've setup the following resources for the application:

Hebrew Bible iPhone Application web page
Support blog

Any comments or suggestions for improvements to the app would be appreciated!

On the whole, the entire iPhone development experience has been quite fun and mostly hassle-free.

Fonts for Hebrew Bible with Cantillation Marks / Safari Mac OS X

2009-04-29T12:18:00.001-07:00

In addition to the other Hebrew Bible versions that are available on the excellent Mechon Mamre site, there is a version with cantillation marks. As is explained on the Mechon Mamre "Fonts for Bible with Cantillation Marks" page, the normal Hebrew fonts that are available on most Internet browsers do not support the display of cantillation marks properly. The site goes on to look at some options that are available for Windows PC's but Mac options are not discussed as the author does not have a Mac. So, I decided to have a look at the different font options available for Hebrew (with cantillation marks) on the Mac.

Both Safari 4 beta and Firefox 3 on the Mac display Hebrew quite nicely (with and without vowels); however, I wasn't sure whether they would display cantillation marks properly. I decided to test the various alternative options to see what would work best. In all cases, I used the default Mechon Mamre CSS file with just a modification to the font family to select the desired font. All tests were done on a MacBook Pro laptop running Leopard 10.5.6. Screen shots are from Safari 4 (public beta but the new version is supposed to be released in mid-2009).

To start off, here is a snippit that illustrates some of the different types of marks - I've used it as a "canonical" example for comparison purposes:

Gen. 1:9 And God said, "Let the waters be collected".

Letters in black, vowel points and d'geshim (letter doublings) in red, cantillation signs in green

Here is an extended selection from Genesis that includes that same phrase using different fonts (some of the font comments I've taken from the Mechon Mamre site). First off, I'll show an example of how this is displayed in IE under Windows. Then, I'll show how the same text is displayed under Safari with a number of alternative fonts:

Internet Explorer on a Windows PC using the Ezra SIL font:

No font specified (default Hebrew font for Safari 4):

Ezra SIL SR, which has traditional rounded marks:

Ezra SIL, which has straight marks as in most old manuscripts:

Code2000:

Cardo:

SBL:

Safari Arial Unicode font:

As can be seen, there is quite a lot of variance in how the cantillation marks are displayed with the different fonts. To my untrained eye (for the most part), it looks like the default Hebrew font for Safari 4 displays the cantillation marks as well or better than the 3rd party fonts under Safari. An exception: the default font is putting the cantillation mark above the Qof instead of above the vav in the example; but, the default Safari font is displaying the letter doublings and vowel points better than many of the 3rd party fonts. However, when you compare any of the Safari examples with the IE/Windows example, the Safari ones are far inferior. I believe this is due to the way that Microsoft is handling the placement of the special cantillation marks in their usp10.dll. It would be really great if Apple could improve support for Hebrew and Arabic vowels and cantillation marks in Safari so that they are displayed as well or better than Microsoft's Internet Explorer. I have submitted a bug report to Apple and I'll update this post when I get a response.

iPhone App Development Notes

2009-04-29T11:09:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm learning how to write code for the iPhone. While working on my first iPhone app (currently awaiting app store approval!), I came across a number of "gotchas" and things that required a bit of research to resolve. Not to say that they were particularly difficult to resolve; however, they did require a bit more work on my part to find solutions. In case my experience can benefit others (and also to record these things for my own benefit), I'll list them here on my blog. In no particular order:

Initialize Settings: When you create an iPhone app, you'll often want to store user preferences in the standard "Settings" location. This is really easy to setup. However, what isn't mentioned is that the settings aren't "initialized" until the first time you access them (this isn't intuitive as they appear as initialized values when you access them the first time in Settings). This one was difficult to diagnose as the application worked sometimes (e.g. - when I had already gone in to check the preferences before starting the app) but not others (e.g. - when I had removed the application and re-installed from scratch on the iPhone and had started up the app before looking at the preferences). Unfortunately, there's no error message and some functionality works and some doesn't, so it's a tricky one to catch. It's easy enough to initialize the preferences, but you need to know that it's something that you have to do (see Apple's AppPrefs sample code. Also, see this post for some generic code that you should be able to reuse easily - but note that there is a memory leak in the example provided in the post. There should be a "[defaults release];" statement at the end of the sample code.).
Internet Connectivity: My application needs Internet access in order for some functionality to work properly, so I test for a connection on startup and get a notification if the connection is lost. Apple has some good sample code that demonstrates how to do this (see the Apple Reachability example).
Dependent Components in a Picker: I needed to have dependent components in a picker (e.g. - Books displayed in component #1 of the picker and Chapters displayed in component #2 of the same picker - therefore, the Chapters component values needed to vary based on the Book that had been selected). There is a good example of how to setup dependent components in Chapter 7 of the excellent Beginning iPhone Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK book.
Re-using Buttons: I have a navigation bar with a button that plays/stops audio playback and I wanted the button description/action/shape to change (e.g. - I have a "Play" button and I wanted it to change to a "Stop" button once "Play" has been pressed). To enable this, you can do something like this:
```
[doPlaySoundBarButton release];  
doPlaySoundBarButton = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc]
     initWithBarButtonSystemItem:UIBarButtonSystemItemStop
     target:self      
     action:@selector(stopSoundPressed)];  
self.navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem = doPlaySoundBarButton;
```
Memory Management: There is no GC on the iPhone, so you need to make certain you aren't leaking memory anywhere. There are some good explanations on how to do this (see here and here) and some good tools. I used a combination of Xcode's "Leaks" in the "Instruments" tool for interactive analysis (see this tutorial for a great set of instructions on using Leaks) and clang for static analysis (see these step-by-step instructions and this user script for running clang from inside of Xcode. Getting clang setup is a bit of a fiddle; however, once you've used it, you'll be happy you did. While Leaks helps you track down the memory leaks you discover during testing, clang catches potential memory leaks in code branches that you may not be testing. It's a really cool tool!
Caching web content locally: I access web sites in my app and wanted to give the user the option to cache some content locally on the iPhone (both for performance reasons and so that the content is available when there is no Internet connectivity). To see how to do this, have a look at Apple's URL Cache sample code.
File Encodings: If you're saving content to the iPhone that you're reading off the Internet, you may encounter files that are encoded in odd formats. NSStringEncodings only supports a subset of encodings; however, CFStringEncoding supports a more complete set of encodings. So, for example, to read a Hebrew HTML page encoded with "charset=Windows-1255" and write it to a location on the iPhone, you can do something like this:
```
NSString *fileString = [[NSString alloc] initWithContentsOfURL:url   
     encoding:CFStringConvertEncodingToNSStringEncoding (kCFStringEncodingWindowsHebrew)         
     error:nil];  
[fileString writeToFile:filePath    
     atomically:YES  
     encoding:CFStringConvertEncodingToNSStringEncoding (kCFStringEncodingWindowsHebrew)   
     error:nil];  [fileString release];
```
Disabling Sleep: For certain long-running actions, I wanted to ensure that the iPhone didn't go to sleep while it was performing those activities. To prevent this, do the following:
```
[UIApplication sharedApplication].idleTimerDisabled = YES;
```
Remember to undo this after your long-running action has completed!
Streaming Sound: Most iPhone sound examples effectively "take over" the device while the audio is playing. I wanted to be able to "stream" sound from a remote site in a background thread while the user was scrolling though text in a foreground thread. Luckily, I found Matt Gallagher's excellent article to help me figure this out.
Using WebViews: This isn't hard once you've done it; however, I initially had trouble finding good examples. The free "Network I/O" sample chapter from the upcoming iPhone SDK Development book had a good basic example of how to create a WebView that loaded both local and remote URL's. Once I had played around with that a bit, the rest of the WebView stuff that I had to do came pretty easily. One thing that I did that others may need to do is to open cetain types of links using another application (e.g. - in Safari or Mail) rather than in the WebView.

Executing JavaScript: After loading a remote HTML page, you can execute JavaScript from Objective C to manipulate the content. I do this mostly for stylistic reasons - for example, to remove any HR elements in an HTML page:

  
#define kJavaScriptCmd @"var tagArray = document.getElementsByTagName('hr');for(i = 0; i < tagArray.length; i++){var j=tagArray[i];j.style.display='none';}"  <br/>  
NSString *jsCmd = [NSString stringWithFormat:kJavaScriptCmd];  
[self.webView stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString:jsCmd];

Landscape Mode with Tab View Controllers: My app uses a Tab View Controller but the Tab View Controller template supplied by Apple doesn't support landscape mode. There are a number of different solutions to this; however, this one was easy and worked well for me.
SCM: Setting up Subversion for my project was pretty easy. However, it was easy because I followed Jeff LeMarche's great step-by-step instructions. Be sure to read the comments. In particular, the one about setting up the Subversion "global ignores" to exclude Xcode settings and other cruft that shouldn't be put into your Subversion repository.
Xcode Customizations: I'm a long-time Emacs user and I prefer Emacs to IDE's like Xcode, Eclipse, and Visual Studio. However, I'm still learning iPhone development and developing without Xcode would be too much of a pain at this stage. Also, as IDE's go, Xcode isn't bad (it's definitely better than Eclipse and Visual Studio which I've had to use in the past). For the time being, I've made do with just some customizations to key bindings, color theme, and some user scripts. At some point in the future, I might write a blog post about these customizations. In the meantime, I wanted to digress to "ask the lazyweb" about some Xcode issues:
1. Digression#1: Has anyone discovered/created a key binding for the "get api documentation for symbol at point" functionality in Xcode (similar to C-h-v and C-h-f in Emacs)? It's available using option-double-mouse-click when you're on a symbol; however, I couldn't find a key binding for it so that I could avoid using the mouse. I could create a user script; however, there must be a key binding for it somewhere!
2. Digression#2: Another Xcode "nit" is that I have to use the mouse (using the little icon under the "lock" icon in the upper-right-hand side of the view) to split the text editor view, to close the split, and to switch between the splits. I would like to have keybindings similar to C-x-2, C-x-0, and C-x-o in Emacs but I can't find equivalents in Xcode - anyone?
Alternative Development Approaches: I initially prototyped my application using PhoneGap (an open source development tool for building fast, easy mobile apps with JavaScript). In combination with PhoneGap, I tried out both the iui and DashCode-specific frameworks for creating iPhone-like UI's. I liked the idea of being able to create an iPhone app using just HTML and JavaScript as I knew how to code in those already. However, after some experimenting, there were certain things that were too slow and certain functionality that wasn't available. In the end, I decided that it was better to "bite the bullet" and learn how to develop iPhone applications using Objective C. I don't regret making the effort; however, if you want to develop an iPhone application that you can easily port to other mobile platforms, you might want to have a look at PhoneGap.

Update-2009-08-11: Under "Xcode Customizations", I listed 2 nits. I've discovered solutions to these:

A key binding for the "get api documentation for symbol at point" functionality in Xcode: I found that I can do this by creating two bindings:
- Bind C-x C-s to "Select Word"
- Bind F1 to Help/Find Selected Text in API Reference
Now I can find the API documentation for the symbol at point by pressing "C-x C-s F1". It would be nicer to have just a single keybinding but...
A key binding to split the text editor view: Cmd-" will split the window vertically, and Alt-Cmd-" splits horizontally (thanks to Chris for pointing this out). You can close the splits with Cmd-'

Starting ...

2009-03-30T09:19:00.001-07:00

I've recently been developing an iPhone application. It's been an interesting experience since, although I've been a Mac user for years, I haven't really developed for a Mac platform in the past. All of my programming in recent years has been for server-based applications, so I haven't really done any UI stuff (outside of HTML/Javascript-based UI's) for a couple of decades. Learning a new programming language (with it's libraries and frameworks) and development environment is (in some ways) like learning to program again. Sure, you aren't learning everything from scratch; however, there are all the little "gotcha's" that you have to find out about and you have to look up documentation a lot more to figure out how to do certain things.

Learning to program in Objective-C was not a big jump. In the past few years, I've been mostly programming in C and Lisp (with a bit of Java and proprietary languages thrown in as well), so picking up Objective-C wasn't a big deal. For anyone who has programmed in C and who has had some exposure to an OO language, Objective-C is pretty easy to pick up. However, learning to program on the iPhone is a bigger jump. The resources that I found most useful were:

Beginning iPhone Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK: Excellent introduction to developing on the iPhone.
Sample code from Apple (you'll need an Apple developer account to click through the link): Great for figuring out how to do things.

An "honorable mention" goes to the following:

The iPhone Developer's Cookbook: Building Applications with the iPhone SDK: The author of this book develops without using Interface Builder (IB). This is extremely useful as most books and example code use IB and it is good to know how to do things without IB as well.
Learn Objective–C on the Mac: I just read a few chapters of this one and skim it when I need to.
iPhone in Action: Most useful for illustrating and comparing web-based and SDK-based development approaches for the iPhone. Better as an overview than as a programming tutorial though.

I only bought the PDF versions of the books as I tend to toggle back and forth between reading a book and writing code. I've had to Google around a lot to find answers to some programming problems and to figure out how to do certain things. I haven't come up with a definitive list of "must read" forums/blogs yet; however, the following sites have been useful on multiple occasions: