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Xiphos Changelog

What's new in Xiphos 4.2.1

Sep 14, 2020
  • After a long dry spell, Xiphos is back with a new release. This is a release of many bug fixes and much re-structuring, especially for how the build system operates, an important factor for those in development. The older waf build system is gone, having been re-engineered from the ground up with cmake.
  • User-visible changes regard crash-avoidance bugfixes and cosmetic matters: Corrected use of visuals in parallel window, corrected verse displays, status bar repair, corrected alternating fg/bg in parallel, improved/corrected spacing of Strong's and morphology with respect to mainline text, additions to the languages recognized in module displays, increased limits on book name length for exotic UTF-8 languages (encodings too long), and some new and updated interface translations.
  • Ubuntu users, surf https://launchpad.net/~pkgcrosswire/+archive/ubuntu/ppa because Ubuntu no longer supports a certain library package required by Xiphos for editor support. Other mainstream distributions have latest Xiphos in their distribution pipes.

New in Xiphos 4.0.4 (Sep 6, 2015)

  • Implemented dynamic allocation enhancement to replace survivability fix.
  • Updated language abbreviations to eliminate unknowns.
  • Fixed module installation messages so they are not lost.
  • Fixed abbrev support, to show abbrevs in all non-essential contexts.
  • Fixed maximization restoral (mostly gtk3; partial for gtk2).

New in Xiphos 4.0.3 (Aug 12, 2015)

  • Another bugfix release, induced by the discovery that a hard limit on the number of language groups that can be supported is too small with respect to newer repositories supporting far larger groups of modules. The code involved will be re-factored for a better near-term future release but this is an immediate survivability fix.

New in Xiphos 4.0.2 (Apr 16, 2015)

  • This is an urgent bugfix-only release. A serious memory management error
  • has been uncovered in the editor, making it virtually useless in many
  • cases. This release corrects this error.

New in Xiphos 4.0.1 (Mar 31, 2015)

  • Completed webkit editor, due to replace gtkhtml editor
  • Added Abbreviation module configuration support
  • Added Glosses (Ruby) and Morpheme Segmentation display support
  • Added obsolete module audit, during install and on maintenance page
  • Added more informative "About" for modules
  • Added status bar en/disable
  • Removed BibleSync from Xiphos' source tree. It must be referenced as a
  • proper library
  • Fixed studypad directory choice
  • Fixed mis-handling of unreal "multiple verse" reference in URL handling
  • Fixed editor's mis-handling of the link editor subdialog
  • Updated Win32 URL clickability; updated "About Sword" URL properly
  • Huge GTK3 compatibility cleanliness hackery
  • WebKit2 compatibility hackery
  • Fix compiler flag choices
  • Numerous code internals updates due to cppcheck(1) diagnostics

New in Xiphos 4.0.0 (Dec 24, 2014)

  • Bug#508 + feat.req#133: Added alternate versification support (av11n): Xiphos understands book/chapter/verse (BCV) schemes other than KJV.
  • The navbar is blanked and the pane states "This module has no content at this point" if a tab is selected with no content at the current verse indication, e.g. when reading in one tab with an Apocrypha Bible and then selecting a different non-Apocrypha tab, particularly when using Linked Tabs (see View menu).
  • Added module-specific CSS support. This uses configuration directive "PreferredCSSXHTML=style.css", naming a file in the DataPath directory. If present, the file's content is included when rendering the pane.
  • Added default CSS support. Use ~/.xiphos/default-style.css but be aware that this has effects on all displayed modules.
  • Added direct load of history from verse list contents (right-click), plus direct load of verse list from history contents (history menu).
  • Added Feature=NoParagraphs support, default for verse-per-line.
  • Added OSISXlit and OSISEnum global filter configuration support.
  • Added preservation of CipherKey value for re-use when updating a module.
  • Added xiphos.appdata.xml (/usr/share/appdata) for...well, advertising.
  • Added --chatty configure flag to distinguish tracing from debug build.
  • Changed options to default on for Hebrew vowel points, Hebrew cantillation, and Greek accents.
  • Updated navbar behavior: All books potentially available within the module's versification are included. Formerly, books lacking content at 1:1 were excluded.
  • Updated manual text for a couple feature requests.
  • Fixed personal commentary dump, which stopped working in recent Sword.
  • Fixed 1st-time mod.mgr to include Crosswire repo name.
  • Fixed main window internal geometry save on quit.
  • Fixed mod.mgr "button bobble" preventing expand/collapse of mod.tree.
  • Fixed bug#513, stop crash on repeated tab deletion.
  • Fixed crash caused by having a (lexdict|genbook) without (dict|book) key.
  • Fixed incompatibility with GTK3.14's unstable interface, preventing
  • Preferences window from opening. Fixed many related incompatibilities.
  • Fixed several inconsistencies between main & parallel views.
  • Fixed inadvertent realignment-induced re-navigation.
  • Cleaned up internal settings structures.
  • Updated BibleSync interface in accordance with 1.1's updated params.

New in Xiphos 3.2.2 (Aug 25, 2014)

  • Building against GTK3 (i.e. waf configure --gtk=3) should once againbe reasonable. Generally, GTK3 will require --enable-webkit-editor, older editor seems not fully de-lintable for GTK3.
  • Internal use of generic warnings has been updated to re-introduce "modal" warnings, i.e. user acknowledgement before Xiphos proceeds. This is necessary for e.g. startup catastrophes, where the warning dialog must appear and remain for user ACK before the program exits.
  • Added statusbar acknowledgement of alt-[SRM] display modifiers, as well as BibleSync keyboard navigation.
  • The Preferences page for BibleSync has been de-cluttered somewhat.
  • The unnecessary doubling of win32 login name is gone in BibleSync.
  • A build complaint from very new compilers has been fixed.

New in Xiphos 3.2.1 (Jun 7, 2014)

  • BibleSync is no longer integral to Xiphos alone; it has been separated into its own library, to make it available for other Bible programs.
  • There is some activity toward integrating it into others already. BibleSync has gained a number of features, both in the library itself and in how Xiphos uses it. It now uses its own Preferences page, due to additional features and complexity. Notably, BibleSync operates using speaker beacons, limiting the trouble that can be caused by either inadvertent or malicious navigation by others.
  • BibleSync in Xiphos 3.2.1 will not interoperate with 3.2.0. The addition of speaker beacons means that 3.2.0 will not recognize or generate them, and 3.2.1 will not recognize a speaker without them. (As applied to BibleSync 1.0.0 -vs- 1.0.1 differences.)
  • Fixed a very old error regarding inconsistent internal use of the scripture cross-reference option.
  • Consequent to that xref bug fix, exported content correctly no longer contains either footnotes or xrefs.
  • Persistent difficulties with module archive have been resolved.
  • Generic warning dialogs, used all over the place, have been replaced with a non-modal method that is not troublesome in the face of timing constraints.
  • Compatibility issues with Solaris and BSD are resolved.
  • Added populating the verse list directly from a dialog (context menu).

New in Xiphos 3.2.0 (May 8, 2014)

  • New BibleSync subsystem: Multicast group navigation with glue on navigation reception and transmission when navigating locally.
  • Preferences added to support BibleSync options: mode enable, navigation style choice, and activity tracing and privacy toggle options.
  • Updated companion modules (conf directive Companion=Abc,Def,Xyz) for
  • Bibles and commentaries so as to allow arbitrary sets where the 1st opens in the main window and the rest open in detached windows. This is important for organizations such as Wycliffe who produce grouped modules, useful in such a manner.
  • Added kbd toggles alt-S (Strong's), alt-M (morphology), alt-R (red words).
  • Heading generation changed in line with Sword 1.7.3's new internals.
  • Fixed crash on unparseable xref module content.
  • Fixed crash on copy/export.
  • Fixed crash on bogus middle-click on multi-ref bookmark.
  • Fixed crash on handling xref within heading
  • Fixed win32 pango module filesystem placement.
  • Fixed module manager column width setting.
  • Fixed module manager archive function.
  • Fixed NASB-specific lexica references for forthcoming NASB release.
  • Removed gconf query.

New in Xiphos 3.1.6 (May 8, 2014)

  • Incidental improvements and bug fixes:
  • The existence and placement of Preferences, Module Manager, and Advanced Search windows is saved.
  • Major compatibility changes for the underlying Sword interface, especially renderText() and its minions.
  • Live chat nick selection identifies user's platform and Xiphos version.
  • Manual updates to reflect recent additions (eg. Alt-A [annotate]).
  • Journals can be opened in regular display detached window (not editor).
  • "Friendly" (abbreviation) month names for devotional use in the dictionary pane.
  • Export off-by-one error when crossing chapter boundary is fixed. Export also made somewhat more general and featureful. 3.1.5's missing export submenu is back.
  • Addition of repository support for HTTP, HTTPS, and SFTP.
  • Version differences in dbus IPC (xiphos-nav) have been homogenized.
  • Build inconsistencies across Linux distributions are fixed.
  • Removed last vestiges of unneeded, defunct KJV pilcrow (¶) handling.
  • A number of updates to native language support for module tree lists.
  • Sword's OSISVariants now works (had never been added since Sword's OSIS support came into existence).
  • Xiphos internals have moved forward to Sword's XHTML interface, leaving behind the old HTMLHREF interface. Many consequent internal changes.
  • Unicode punctuation is no longer mis-spoken in ReadAloud.
  • The last of the historic gtkhtml3 support has been removed, other than the editor component in GTK2: Xiphos depends exclusively on webkit. This is Xiphos' 5th display engine. We do not intend to change it ever again.

New in Xiphos 3.1.5 (Feb 21, 2012)

  • The WebKit display driver, which finally brings display feature parity to Windows with what has been available on other platforms for some time. WebKit is now our normal display driver for all platforms. Windows users should see §3.9 of the manual for differences from the older gtkhtml3 driver. Mozembed (xulrunner) is no longer in use, replaced by WebKit. Note that certain problems were encountered regarding RtoL languages, especially Arabic and Hebrew (Farsi seems fine) very late in the effort to finalize Win32 WebKit support. Farsi both fully translates and provides RtoL-inverted display; Hebrew translates fully (modulo missing strings) but does not RtoL-invert; most perversely, Arabic translates half strings and does not RtoL-invert. We do not yet understand these flaws but will continue to try to resolve them, perhaps in a 3.1.6 for Windows only, as these problems do not haunt non-Windows builds at all.
  • GTK3 compatibility, for the sake of newly-updated environments such as Fedora 15/16 and Ubuntu 11.10. Other incidental improvements:
  • Module-internal footnote & xref numbering/lettering is respected.
  • Display of headings, footnotes, xrefs, and red words all default On.
  • Image content is resized in parallel windows and the previewer.
  • Module lists include modules' 1-line descriptions as well as short names. Verse numbers will no longer be "widowed" (left alone at the end of a line) by being forced to combine against the first word of their verse.
  • Verse number display is configurable: bold, brackets, superscripts.
  • RtoL consistency improvements.
  • Studypad save respects its default directory specification.
  • Base font is respected in all parallel views.
  • Font selection order has been fixed: Any user specification (per module or per language) supercedes module configuration file specification.
  • In export, avoid more than one dialog, ever, about checking a module's license, and change copy/export defaults to plaintext and 1 verse.
  • Ctrl-0 (zero) forces base font size to 0.
  • Ctrl-[1-9] selects the Nth tab. - Countless internal module, cache, font, and display fixes.

New in Xiphos 3.1.4 (Apr 7, 2011)

  • New features:
  • For the first-time user, the first modules to be installed in order
  • that Xiphos begin operation can be obtained from local media such as a
  • CDROM or flash drive. Also, the first-time user is put directly into
  • the Module Manager, with step-by-step instructions displayed there.
  • There is an entirely new implementation of the full-chapter parallel
  • window (detached or tabbed). It handles an arbitrary number of modules,
  • no longer limited to 5, and supports commentaries as well as Bible
  • texts. Parallel modules are selected exclusively via Preferences.
  • User-requested per-language default font choices are available in
  • Preferences.
  • User annotations are normally marked with "*u" and reverse-highlighted
  • for high visibility, in the "margin notes plus yellow highlighter"
  • metaphor. Now in Preferences, the highlight can be turned off.
  • New defaults: The previewer will be placed in the sidebar by default
  • for new users, and Bible versification display is now paragraph style, not
  • verse-per-line. Both behaviors are selectable. For previewer placement,
  • see the View menu. For versification display, see the context (right-click) menu.
  • Ctrl-F3 raises the search pane of the sidebar, analogous to F3 creating
  • the Advanced Search window.
  • When invoking Xiphos from the command line, the user may specify a tabs filename, such as are found in Xiphos' "tabs" directory.
  • When invoking Xiphos via a sword:// link, multi-refs are handled in the
  • verse list. That is, a single link "sword:///Gen.1.1;Rev.1.1" does what
  • you expect, identically as for clicking a multi-ref bookmark.
  • The journal/prayerlist creation menu is available on the main File menu.
  • Bookmark file import has been generalized to accept any (correctly
  • formatted) file, and import of BibleTime bookmarks has been fixed.
  • The Module Manager's introductory explanation is viewable on demand via a button always present.
  • Similarly, short introductory descriptions have been added to Advanced
  • Search regarding optimized ("lucene") search syntax and attribute-based
  • search.
  • Two separate module list categories have been created: Glossaries, to
  • distinguish glossaries from real dictionaries; and Cult/Unorthodox, to
  • separate those few very questionable modules from the mainstream lists.
  • Footnote and cross-reference markers (*n, *x) are now numbered, as one would expect in a print publication.
  • In mozembed/xulrunner builds, highlighted verses -- both regular
  • current and user-annotated -- are now colored inline, rather than being
  • blocked apart from surrounding text.
  • In Preferences color selectors, buttons are provided to invert main
  • text and highlighted text selections.
  • The existence, placement, and size of the detached parallel window are
  • remembered. If it was present when Xiphos last exited, when Xiphos
  • restarts, it will be reconstructed in the same place and size.
  • Commentaries in by-chapter mode have verse numbers in a left column.
  • Enhancements to existing behavior:
  • Doublespace has been made module-specific, available on the context menu.
  • Verse-per-line, already module-specific, has been moved to the context
  • menu, where it really belonged all along.
  • In Preferences, the user may select whether Bibles' cross-reference
  • lists should be displayed in the previewer (as they always have been) or
  • via the verse list machinery.
  • The previewer now uses a font that is 1 size smaller than is used in
  • main display, after the fashion of smaller-font footnotes in print
  • publications.
  • Bible headings function correctly in all parallel displays.
  • Indexing of journals/prayerlists has been enabled. None of the
  • developers involved can remember why this was disabled to begin with.
  • On first use of locked (encrypted) modules, Xiphos automatically
  • requests the unlock code.
  • Many manual improvements, including all new screenshots.
  • For those users whose desktop environments support user-defined URL
  • handlers (e.g. the GNOME desktop under Linux), opening a sword://
  • reference anywhere will attempt to use an existing Xiphos, and will
  • start a new Xiphos only if one does not yet exist. In related news,
  • Bible Refalizer, a Firefox plugin for auto-detection of Bible
  • references, knows how to put sword:// URLs to use automaticaly, as of
  • its 0.1.8 release.
  • There are tooltips on all Module Manager buttons.
  • Internally, Xiphos now uses consistent pseudo-URLs to reference other
  • parts of the Sword tool universe.
  • The link dialog for journal/prayer list editing can test non-verse
  • references (i.e. general books and dictionaries).
  • The Preference pages for pane visibility selection and module
  • selection have been removed; they were redundant with visibility
  • selection via the View menu and module selection via the sidebar.
  • Problems resolved:
  • Some misbehavior of the newest release of our main display driver has
  • been worked around (also fixed as a patch in 3.1.3).
  • Previewer window headings are now consistent.
  • Non-U.S. keyboards are correctly interpreted in all cases.
  • Freshly-installed modules can be indexed immediately, without closing
  • and re-opening the Module Manager.
  • Images display correctly in all contexts. Previously, they would not
  • display in parallel windows with the older display driver.
  • Commentary-by-chapter has been made available for personal commentaries.
  • Minor differences in the engine regarding Strong's and morphology are
  • handled correctly.
  • Several bugs related to interrupted searches were fixed.
  • Several uses of misspelled "hight" have been replaced.
  • Much cleanup of old, dead code and unused data bits.