Go Bible

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Go Bible
Design by	Jolon Faichney
Developed by	Jolon Faichney
Initial release	2003-09-28
Latest release	2.2.6 / 2008-03-31
OS	Java Platform, Micro Edition
Size	1.5MB (typical for a whole Bible)
Available in	English, and with translated user interfaces
Development status	Active
Genre	Bible Study Tools
License	Freeware, New BSD License
Website	Go Bible

Go Bible is a free Bible viewer application for Java mobile phones (J2ME MIDP 1.0 and MIDP 2.0). It was developed by Jolon Faichney in Surf City, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, with help from several other people who assisted in making versions for other languages and translations. Go Bible is installed like any other midlet by copying the .jar and .jad file to the cell phone by USB or Bluetooth. The English KJV Go Bible 1.1 can also be installed using WAP download.

1 Features
2 Releases
3 Languages
4 Phones with limited memory
5 Developer application
6 Distribution
7 Go Bible in Java ME emulators
8 Similar products
9 References
10 See also
11 External links

[edit] Features

Go Bible 2.2.6 features:

Christ’s Words in red
SMS scriptures
Bookmarks
History
Coloured themes
Fast search^[1]

[edit] Releases

The news page on the Go Bible website provides more details. For more detailed development history up to March 2005, see also [1].

2008-03-31 Go Bible 2.2.6 – latest version of English KJV Go Bible and twenty two other languages^[2]
2008-03-26 Go Bible 2.2.5
2007-08-09 Go Bible 2.2.4 – improvement to Go Bible Creator^[3]
2007-04-12 Go Bible 2.2.3
2007-02-06 Go Bible 2.2.2^[4]
2006-07-30 Go Bible 2.2.1
2006-03-16 Go Bible 2.2
2004-06-28 Go Bible 2.0
2003-09-28 Go Bible 1.01

[edit] Languages

[edit] Go Bible site

Including the King James Version which heads the list, Go Bible is already available in 23 languages. These include:

English - Afrikaans - Arabic - Bulgarian - Chinese - Danish - Dutch - Finnish - French - German - Hungarian - Indonesian - Norwegian - Portuguese - Romani (Gypsy) - Romanian - Russian - Spanish - Swedish - Tagalog (Filipino) - Ukrainian - Vietnamese -

[edit] Other websites

Third-party developers^[5] have already published Go Bible translations in the following further languages:

Albanian - Armenian - Basque - Breton (gospels) - Burmese - Cebuano - Chamorro (portions) - Croatian - Czech - Esperanto - Estonian^[6] - Farsi - Georgian^[7] - Greek - Haitian Creole - Hebrew (OT) - Hindi^[8] - Icelandic - Japanese - Kabyle - Kekchi - Korean - Latin (Vulgate) - Latvian - Lithuanian^[9] - Malayalam^[10] - Manx Gaelic (portions) - Maori - Mizo^[11] - Nepali^[12] - Polish - Potawatomi (portions) - Serbian - Shuar - Slovak - Slovenian^[13] - Swahili - Uma - Tamajaq (portions) - Tamil^[14] - Thai - Turkish - Wolof - Xhosa -

These lists are likely to grow as more people become involved in using the developer application.

Many of the Go Bible translations still use English for the Bible book names, and for the user interface, though that is now starting to change as developers become more familiar with the features of the developer application.

[edit] Unicode fonts

Go Bible uses the Unicode fonts installed by the mobile phone manufacturer. Some translations may not display correctly on all phones due to missing code pages or individual codes. Also, there are problems with some Sony Ericsson phones with regard to displaying Arabic script and other right-to-left languages. Rendering such languages properly depends on having a correct implementation of the bidirectional algorithm.

[edit] Phones with limited memory

It is possible to divide Go Bible into several smaller collections so that the JAR files can be installed in mobile phones with limited memory. For some models, splitting into Old Testament and New Testament is sufficient. For older models, splitting into files smaller than 512KB, 256KB or 128KB may be necessary. Go Bible 1.0 is suitable for phones with 64KB JAR file limit.

[edit] Developer application

The author has also provided a developer kit called Go Bible Creator. This enables further translations and language versions to be generated by users. Go Bible Creator takes as data input Bible files in Theological Markup Language (ThML) or Open Scripture Information Standard (OSIS). Go Bible Creator supports two useful additional features:

Book name mapping – this enables translated Bible book names to be mapped to English book names.
Translated user interface – this requires the translation of 72 words or short phrases from the English default UI.

Go Bible Creator was used successfully by the author of the Mobile Bible site in Belgium to create several Go Bible collections in various languages.^[15]

Another user has started a Go Bible Google Group^[16], from which several more Go Bible collections may be downloaded.

The author has subsequently started a separate Go Bible Dev Google Group^[17], for discussing the Go Bible source code.

Go Bible Creator is not limited to making Bible collections. It can also be used to create other types of e-Book, such as an electronic hymn book (words only).

The source code for both GoBibleCore and GoBibleCreator is now available online under the new BSD license.^[18]

One member of the Theologische Initiative Freiburg^[19] has written software scripts to convert Zefania XML Bible modules into the ThML format for use with Go Bible Creator. Though the description is "Converts a Zefania XML bible modul to a SWORD -modul", the download includes a tool for Go Bible. The host language is German.

[edit] Distribution

Go Bible is listed in a number of free and open source software distributor sites, such as:

Softpedia^[20]
GetJar^[21]^[22]
HandyByte^[23]
Game-Thing^[24]

Go Bible is also being used on a number of Christian websites.^[25]^[26]

[edit] Go Bible in Java ME emulators

The Go Bible application can be previewed in the following Java ME emulators:

It is also possible to run Go Bible applications on a Pocket PC by installing the following:^[27]

IBM MIDP 2.0 Java Emulator

It is even possible to run Go Bible in a Sony PlayStation Portable by installing a Java emulator for the PSP.^[28] See:

PSPKVM

[edit] Similar products

PhoneyBible is a remarkably similar application - also for Java enabled mobile phones, but unlike Go Bible, it is not freeware. It is completely independent from Go Bible.^[29] ChristianMobile offers for a number of years copyright versions of the Bible - also Java enabled mobile phones. Funds generated are utilized by Bible Societies to spread printed Bibles across the globe. [2]is a site of the IBS-STL where the NIV version for mobile phones can be downloaded through over the air installation.