================ Whetstone ==================
- Introduction
- Dependencies
- Installation / Running
- Notes
- Comments / FAQ
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- Introduction
Whetstone is a simple tool to help you consistently memorise passages of scripture, through a regular plan of verses to learn, and gradually removing parts of the verse over time to help you memorise. We provide you with an initial 100 verses for you to memorise, as well as an interface for adding/deleting verses, and a planner to help you customise your own learning plan.
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- Dependencies
Whetstone was developed on Ubuntu Jaunty, and all dependencies are available from the standard repositories.
Most distributions will come preinstalled with:
- Python (2.4 or later should work)
- PyGTK (2.14.1)
In addition, you will require:
- pysqlite2
- diatheke with ESV module
Diatheke is a command-line front-end to the SWORD Project (http://www.crosswire.org/sword/). You will need to have the ESV module installed (future versions of Whetstone will allow for other Bibles to be used). If you prefer, you can install one of the other graphical frontends for Sword to help install the modules - Xiphos (Gtk-based) and BibleTime (Qt-based) are both good.
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- Installation
Assuming you have installed all the dependencies (see (2) ), you should simply be able to unzip whetstone and run it with python:
$ tar zxvf whetstone-0.0.1.tar.gz whetstone-0.0.1/ whetstone-0.0.1/whetstone.py whetstone-0.0.1/whetstone.glade whetstone-0.0.1/verses.csv whetstone-0.0.1/LICENSE whetstone-0.0.1/README $ cd whetstone-0.0.1 ~/whetstone-0.0.1 $ python whetstone.py
On first run, whetstone will create a blank database for you, and fill it with the memory verses contained in verses.csv, which may take a few seconds. This is a one-time operation.
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- Notes
Whetstone 0.01 is very much in alpha quality - it's rough around the edges! Here's a few things to note:
-
The quiz page hasn't been implemented yet.
-
The menu's aren't functional (apart from the About button)
-
ESV only at the moment, sorry
-
You'll get tonnes of feedback (and errors) in the command window
-
In the Verse editor, double-click on a verse in the left pane to load in the right
-
You can't delete categories
-
In the planner section, you can open up the "manage planners", double-click on the planner name, and then double click on calendar dates to see the verses for those dates
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- Comments / FAQ
Q. Have you tried $other_software (BibleMemorizer, Crosswire Flashcards, e-sword, etc, etc)
A. I tried everything I could lay my hands on which was open source and ran on Linux. Nothing matched what I was really looking for, which was a tool to manage learning scripture via a calendar, with a tool to help you learn by gradually removing parts of the verse (just like I remembered from Sunday School ;) ). The closest match was BibleMemorizer, but it only does full verse quizzing, and no real learning aids.
Q. Are you porting Whetstone to Windows?
A. Yes. Whetstone is about 99% platform independent. The 1% is down to locating and running the diatheke software to pull verses. However, unlike Linux most Windows platforms don't come with Python and PyGTK pre-installed. I will be putting together a Windows version using py2exe in the near future.
Q. Why scripture memorisation?
A. I was listening to a talk where the speaker (Steve Ford - I'm looking at you here) was using training for sport as an analogy for our Christian walk. One of the things he was talking about was whether or not our training schedule matched our expected (hoped) outcome in ministry. If you want to win the olympics, you don't sit on your sofa eating pies! And so I developed a basic "training schedule" for my week, and one of the things I thought it would be good to do is to memorise some scripture passages. And, being a good geek, I then spent hours creating a tool to do something, rather than doing it ;)
Q. Where did the 100 verses come from?
A. I found them online at http://www.mentoring-disciples.org/Best100.html - I have no affiliation with this site, no do I agree or disagree with any other content posted there. I may consider including other sets at a later date - I was particularly interested in a challenge to learn 1 verse from every chapter in the New Testament at http://www.scripturememorychallenge.org/
Q. Whetstone?
A. I was short on ideas, sorry. PyMemoryVerse didn't really cut it. I thought I would play on the analogy of the Bible being the Sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6) and imply that memorisation is like sharpening that sword, thus Whetstone.
Q. Need help/questions/answers/comments?
A. You can contact me at mrben -at- jedimoose -dot- org. If there is sufficient demand, I may put Whetstone onto Launchpad to utilise their bug tracking and forums and stuff.