Sunday, September 19, 2010

HebrewBible version 4.6 and BiblicalHebrew 1.2 now available on App Store

There is 1 fairly significant enhancement as well as some iPad-specific mods and bug fixes in this version. The new versions are now available on the Apple App Store and I recommend that all current users download the upgrades (they are free upgrades for existing users of the apps). All of the following changes are in the HebrewBible update and the first two are also in the BiblicalHebrew update:

  1. Enhancement: Added Search functionality to Words - if you know the English equivalent of a Biblical Hebrew/Aramaic word, you can search for all words that contain that text in one of their definitions. This function supports wildcards (see below for examples) as well.
  2. Enhancement: Built with iOS SDK 4.1 but will run on any iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad with at least iOS 3.0.
  3. Enhancement: This version contains a number of iPad-specific enhancements to better conform to Apple HIG (Human Interface Guideline) standards. (The Temporary Bible Version change picker is now displayed in a popover element, the "Read Book" button has been replaced with an "Entire Book" switch setting). 
  4. Fix: Re-instated "Translate" button in Words tab on the iPad.
  5. Fix: Some minor fixes were made, fixed issue where switching to next/prev chapters was positioning incorrectly sometimes.

With the new search functionality, "wildcards" can be used (e.g. - you can use a "_" character to represent any single character and a "%" character to represent any number of characters). An example of the search wildcard feature might be useful to understand how wildcard characters can be used - the following show examples of the type of results that would be returned for different searches:

a. Searching for "man" locates all Hebrew words that have the those 3 consecutive characters somewhere in the definition for the word (so, for example, it picks up definitions that contain the words "manger, "Manasseh", "man"):

ex1.jpg

b. Searching for "ma_n" locates all Hebrew words that have the characters "ma" followed by some other character (which is represented by the "_") and then an "n" somewhere in the definition for the word (so, for example, it picks up definitions that contain the words "magnificence", "remain", "Maon"):

ex2.jpg

Searching for "% man %" locates all Hebrew words that have the unique word "man" somewhere in the definition for the Hebrew word:

ex3.jpg

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