Scripture lookup

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cdw3423lds
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Location: Oklahoma City, OK USA
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Scripture lookup

#1

Post by cdw3423lds »

I was called to be a Sunday School teacher about a year ago. I am also a computer programmer. Some lessons required constant flipping from one scripture to another all over the place and it ended up taking more time to look up the scriptures than to read them. So I started work on my "Scripture Lookup" program. I started by having 5 sets of drop down lists and input windows where you select the book of scripture from the drop down and then enter the chapter(s) and verses in the input window using standard notation "12:1-4,6;15:4". Once you use up all 5 inputs you can post the form and it will give you another set of 5 below the first so you can add more.

This worked fairly well for a while but on some lessons with a lot of references like the lesson on Psalms. It was just too time consuming. So now I also have an input for the user to copy and past the URL of the lesson page on the church website into my web page. It will then scan the page for references and display a list to select from. It makes an attempt to find duplication and make intelligent decisions on what references to select by default. After you have made your selections with the check boxes or the drop down list. My program reads the chapters from scriptures.lds.org and scans them for the verses you requested and then displays all of the references on one page for you to read or print out. It also links back to the full chapter at scriptures.lds.org.

I hope that isn't too confusing. Anyway if you would like to try it out and give me some feed back it can be found on my web site at http://chriswoodhouseonline.com Just click on the "Scripture Lookup" link. The server that hosts this site is often slow and could result in DB Errors because the DB timed out. If that happens just reload the page and try again. I may just have to move it to a better server.

Chris W
ggllbb
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#2

Post by ggllbb »

When I study for teaching the SS lesson, I like to do it on line. At lds.org go to "preparing a lesson" and navigate to the lesson. All the scriptures are hyperlinks and even highlight the verses when it displays. I haven't printed them out from there, but I suspect you could.
cdw3423lds
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Posts: 86
Joined: Mon Nov 15, 2010 4:23 pm
Location: Oklahoma City, OK USA
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#3

Post by cdw3423lds »

I know all the links are on the lesson page. That is how my program works. It scans that page and uses those links and creates a single page with all of the referenced on one page. You can read them on the screen or print them. I normally read them on the computer and print them out to take to class so I don't have to spend time flipping around. When I get my new android tablet, I will probably print them all to a pdf file or something similar to put on the tablet. Go to the site and give it a try.

http://chriswoodhouseonline.com/

Chris W
cdw3423lds
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Posts: 86
Joined: Mon Nov 15, 2010 4:23 pm
Location: Oklahoma City, OK USA
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#4

Post by cdw3423lds »

No one has any comments? Surly someone has some idea on how to make the Scripture Lookup page work better. Here is the direct link in case you didn't find in on the menu of the home page.

http://chriswoodhouseonline.com/index.p ... tureLookup

Chris W
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marianomarini
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Joined: Sat Jan 19, 2008 3:13 am
Location: Vicenza. Italy

#5

Post by marianomarini »

It seem at proof stage:)!
Any way. I think it will be more useful an addin to Firefox that open a small popup windows with text of referenced scripture of the text.
Something like the "hint" property. Instead of display an help message it display the referenced pass.
Just a think:D.
La vita è una lezione interminabile di umiltà (Anonimo).
Life is a endless lesson of humility (Anonimous).
cdw3423lds
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Posts: 86
Joined: Mon Nov 15, 2010 4:23 pm
Location: Oklahoma City, OK USA
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#6

Post by cdw3423lds »

I'm not sure, but it sounds like you didn't finish the last step. Once it shows the list of references with the check boxes next to them, you have to select the ones you want, then hit the button at the bottom of the list titled "Lookup Checked References", to have it then look up all of the text of scriptures for those references and then display them all on one page.

The reason I give the step with the check boxes is because the lessons almost always contains duplicate references and there is no need to display the text twice. Some of the duplicates are obvious because they are exact duplicates others aren't because there is overlap which would make the compilation of several references a duplicate of others. My code tries to make an intelligent decision on which ones to check on it's own but it gives you the option to change them.

Chris W
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