Tech Forum

Back in 2010 I was able to put my own material into Gospel Library catalog... Also, required a bit of coding...

Now I see that coming back and having time, the library DB has changed and the source code for the App is no longer available?

I really miss that I cannot upload my own material especially Finnish Bible text ... Do not really want to skip back and forth with Apps to read bible and then church material.

Is it really so that the source code has gone to be not open anymore?

I have the same question. I would like to contribute to the project by offering a new feature through a pull request. It would be nice to get an official answer to this post.

Gospel Library for Android and iOS aren't open source, and there's not a system set up for volunteers to contribute to the code. The direction of the app is determined mainly by Church department priorities. You are always welcome to send in a feature request using the Feedback option under Settings. LDS Music for iOS and Gospel Library for Windows, on the other hand, are set up as volunteer development projects, if you're interested in contributing there.

The Church is working to make more content available over time, including Bibles. Previously, there were loopholes put into the code that allowed members to load their own content into the app; however, these loopholes have been closed, in part to protect the Church from legal issues. If you have a jailbroken or rooted device, it may be possible to force your own content into the app, but it's not supported in any way.

I don't know if it had anything to do with it, but originally, GL just worked with public content. It may have "closed" after LDS Account logins were added to sync notations. At least, that's where I'd think developers would start to get nervous about a "open" project.

Yes, Gospel Library uses private APIs for LDS Account login, general content, and role-based content (like Handbook 1).

I can understand the reasoning behind not accepting community contributions, but I don't understand the justification of closing the source. If it has to do with protecting private APIs, that is a very bad practice known as "Security through Obscurity." It also has the very unfortunate side effect of hampering member's ability to use the app in a way that would cost the Church nothing, but improve the utility for the member.

I have personally poured a substantial amount of time and effort into creating highlights and notes, just as I would a paper copy of the scriptures. I ran into a bug that caused some of them to be wiped out, forcing me to recreate them. Now I want to download those highlights/notes to have backed up locally. I would also love to be able to print them at some point (I can build the render code). Obviously I'm not asking the Church to do this for me: I'm a very competent developer and can do it myself. However, closing the app and privatizing the APIs makes this significantly more difficult, to the point where I don't think it's worth it (Parable of the Unjust Steward regarding my own time comes to mind here).

Thank you for making a great app, regardless of closed-source nature of it.

I also would like to extend gospel library study features to content that I add, including ebooks, academic articles, and blog/web articles.

The amazon kindle ecosystem supports making annotations, and collects them all in one place, but does not provide tools for linking, tagging, or otherwise organizing those annotations.

Is anyone aware of a reading/study tool, app, or platform that has similar study functionality to the LDS Gospel Library app, but allows the user to import their own content (in PDF, EPUB, or similar formats)?

I would like to add my comments and thoughts that this could/should be open source. I would imagine there are plenty of people would like contribute their own time and talents to the project.

yes if that is a free sourcecode me either can contribute