A brand new version (not just a point release) of SwordSearcher has become available. For a full list of new features and content, check out this page. You may also want to watch a video that shows some of the new functionality in version 6. Current users of this shareware program can upgrade at a special discounted price.

Incidentally, this release marks the 15 anniversary of SwordSearcher. Congratulations, Brandon!

This new release includes some fine enhancements that will significantly improve your user experience. Here are a few of them:

- Modernized, more functional user interface
- Additional search operators and options
- Filtering boxes available in many dialogs (including Search and TOC of resources)
- Improved highlighting, with more options and flexibility
- Better linking and syncing with grouping and target windows
- Flipping through customized lists of Bibles, commentaries, dictionaries, etc. with the carousel feature
- Ability to remove books from the Library or the hard drive.

For a full list of new features and video demos, check out this page.

Upgrade prices are available for former users of WORDsearch 5, 7 and 8, or you can head over to the current catalog and order one of the WORDsearch 9 libraries. All products are available for immediate download and there are Windows and Mac (running through WINE and X.11) versions.

OakTree Software has just released the Accordance Biblioteca Hispana CD-ROM, comprising the following texts:

Reina-Valera 1960 with Strong’s numbers
Greek Keys
Hebrew Keys
Reina-Valera 1995 – Edición de Estudio
Reina-Valera 1909
Dios Habla Hoy – Edición de Estudio
Traducción en Lenguaje Actual with notes
Parallel passages (Epistles, Gospels, Harmony, Old Testament, OT in NT, Synoptics)
Descubre la Biblia (2nd revised and enlarged edition in 3 volumes)

Unlockable resources: La Biblia de las Américas, Biblia Navarra with notes and Nueva Versión Internacional.

This CD-ROM includes the localized version of Accordance 8 in Spanish.

Introductory special price is $79 (until Dec. 31). Regular price for the standard package is just $89. Previous Compubiblia para Mac users can upgrade for $20 (requires version 8).

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Oaktree Software acaba de lanzar la Biblioteca Hispana de Accordance en CD-ROM, que contiene los siguientes textos:

Reina-Valera de 1960 con números de Strong
Greek Keys
Hebrew Keys
Reina-Valera de 1995 – Edición de Estudio
Reina-Valera de 1909
Dios Habla Hoy – Edición de Estudio
Traducción en Lenguaje Actual con notas
6 módulos de pasajes paralelos (Epístolas, Evangelios, Concordia, Antiguo Testamento, AT en NT, Sinópticos)
Descubre la Biblia (segunda edición completamente revisada en 3 volúmenes)

Biblias modernas que se pueden desbloquear: La Biblia de las Américas, Biblia Navarra con notas y Nueva Versión Internacional.

Este CD-ROM incluye la versión 8 de Accordance en español.

El precio especial de lanzamiento es de $79 (hasta el 31 de diciembre). El precio habitual del paquete estándar es de sólo $89, mientras que los usuarios de Compubiblia para Mac puede actualizarse a esta nueva versión por sólo $20 (requiere versión 8 de Accordance).

What Olive Tree is doing with their BibleReader 4 on the iPhone/iTouch is quite a feat. Holding one of these beautiful mobile devices and searching the original languages must be very impressive. I would love to have my own iTouch. For now, though, I have to be content with watching Olive Tree’s excellent videos (nice revamped site, by the way) and read reviews like that of Kevin Purcell.

The new version of Logos Bible Software is being launched today. LBS 4 sports a completely redesigned User Interface, based on Microsoft’s Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). This allows for a more modern, slicker look and much greater flexibility in handling windows, menus, etc.

Overall, LBS 4 is more visually appealing than its predecessor and makes heavy use of charts, photographs, maps and infographics. If we add to this the new text-to-speech feature we are in for a pretty good multimedia experience.

The Home page now looks like an online newspaper, with plenty of links to both local and online resources for further study, but the familiar Go button, where one enters a biblical passage or a topic, is still there as an easy, no-frills launchpad for beginners.

Version 4 comes with some nice library management improvements. These are a welcome addition amidst the increasing number of titles included in most library packages today. Worthy of mention in this area are the ability to add custom tags to resources, an easier, automated way to create collections of books and an enhanced annotation system (including clippings).

The new Reading mode (F11) turns the computer into a book reader (full screen), whereas the Drawing mode (F8) lets presenters draw lines, shapes and so on while projecting to a larger audience.

Apart from the more obvious changes, LBS 4 now indexes all the resources, which results in a dramatic speed boost when performing searches, and allows users to have more control over reports.

Other features worth noting are the fact that map sites include links to Google Maps and Wikipedia, and that  selecting any word or group of words on morphologically tagged Bibles (or Bibles with interlinears) highlights the corresponding term(s) in the other open resources. This feature, called Sympathetic highlighting (a cross-language highlighting of sorts) is shown in the figure below.

However, not all the changes are necessarily for the better. Personally, I don’t like the new implementation of the reverse interlinears (displayed above), but hopefully Logos will offer the possibility to keep the older v. 3 format alongside the new one in a later release. Similarly, as someone used to typing Greek and Hebrew, I am not enthused with the new input system for writing  the biblical languages (introducing the prefix “g:” or “h:”, the program automatically displays a drop-down menu with all the Greek or Hebrew words, respectively), but I take it as a concession to the majority of user who might find pressing the F2 key and typing away something not particularly easy to do.

Here is a brief list of what we may expect in the near future, as well as the features that have been dropped.

What’s coming in future releases of version 4

Printing
Importing notes from version 3
Sermon File Addin
Personal Book Builder
Sentence Diagramming

What’s missing from version 3

Speed Search
Graphical searches (i.e., Graphical Query Editor)
Remote Library Search

At any rate, LBS 4 and Libronix DLS 3 can live happily together. Furthermore, they can be run concurrently on the same computer, which should make the transition easier for everyone, except, perhaps, for Logos .

So, the release of Logos Bible Software 4 is a clear sign that the company wants to focus on improved  Bible study aids (e.g., the new handouts or the Bible Explorer tool) in the context of a more flexible, adaptive and productive user interface. In due course, LBS 4 will be available on three different platforms: PC, Mac and iPhone (in this case as a sort of extension of the desktop version. See here for more details).

Finally, check out the (many) new resources and configurations available, including upgrade discounts for existing customers.

Laridian’s PocketBible for the iPhone and iTouch is finally here. It is a free application that comes with some free titles and, best of all, works with all the books and Bibles you currently own from that company (check your account).

So, if you’ve got one of these two devices and want to do some Bible study on the go, check it out!

Update (September 19): Lots of screenshots with comments at the ZDNet site.

Version 3 of this great freeware program created by Costas Stergiou has just been released. The Word is a very powerful and highly customizable Bible program that offers great features, and although the online help is still not available, it is fairly easy to explore. For more detailed help there is a very active forum and also a number of independent sites that offer user modules and further instructions. See, for example, this one.

I warmly recommend The Word. Feel free to download it and give it a whirl.

Olive Tree offers a free collection of over 1200 of John Piper’s sermons (made available through Desiring God). The collection, available for any of the many different platforms supported by the company, can be downloaded here, and once installed on the device it can be searched quite easily using the Table of Contents. Note also that sermons can be browsed by title, topic, occasion, sermon series, scripture reference, or date.

Accordance point releases prove to be a great value for registered users, as they are always free and include nice enhancements (apart from fixing bugs). The latest upgrade is out, and here is the official list of enhancements:

Scripture References in Instant Details

• When the cursor is over a multi-verse reference in a Tool or User Notes window, the Instant Details box now displays up to 8 verses of the text.

Spaces Between Book Names and Numbers

• When entering verse references it is no longer necessary to avoid entering a space between a book number and name, so that 2 Kings is now acceptable anywhere in a list of references. However, now you must add a comma or semi-colon after the last number of the previous reference so that it is not interpreted as a book number. Thus Gen 1:1; Ex 1:1 must be used rather than Gen 1:1 Ex 1:1.
• Copy as Citation and Copy as References now automatically add a space between a book number and name, so that 2Kings becomes 2 Kings. This is separate from the setting of Use SBL Standard notation in Preferences/Appearance.

Other Text Export Enhancements

• Accordance now converts to the the correct Unicode characters when exporting NA27 apparatus sigla. Slight changes were also made in the “stripping” of characters in Greek and Syriac.

Reference List Window

• Control-command-R adds the selected verse(s) to the top item in the Add Selection To submenu, making it easier to add verses to a Reference List. The limit of verses has been raised from 1000 to 10,000.

Keyboard Shortcuts

• Command-+ and Command- – now resize the text in the Analysis, Concordance, Table, Parsing, and Text Differences windows, as they already did in the main windows.
• Control-0 changes the current search text to the tenth item in the pop-up menu.

Version 8.2.3 can be downloaded here.

Version 9 of the popular freeware program e-Sword is now available. This is a major new release, that includes a completely different database format for the different resources. This means that it is not backward compatible, and cannot be installed on the same hard disk drive with previous versions of the program.

At the bottom of the Extras section there is a conversion utility that can be used to update earlier user-created modules to the new version 9 format.

This is the official list of new features:

The Bible Search feature now allows the ability to perform case-sensitive searches.

The multi-row tabs are now locked in place, so no more moving targets!

A new Bible book browser has been implemented and is no longer docked to the side of the program. Press the F2 key to display the Lookup Scripture Reference dialog next to the mouse pointer wherever it is located, or access it from the main toolbar with the button next to the “Lookup” combobox.

Study Notes can be made on any verse in the Bible, now including the Orthodox Apocrypha and the Catholic Deuterocanon.

You can now Export the Study Notes and Topic Notes in HTML, Word DOC and Adobe PDF file formats, in addition to the previous plain text and Rich Text formats.

You can now Import both HTML and Word DOC files directly into the Study Notes and Topic Notes.

The Print Preview feature has been updated, and now all printing is performed through it.

Highlighting custom colors are now saved for use between sessions.

Localization of the e-Sword user interface continues with the implementation of fully Unicode compliant controls.