MacSword

I've been playing with MacSword as of late. MacSword is the Cocoa/Mac OS X front end to CrossWire's SWORD Bible study software project. It has some really good design ideas that seem to raise the bar over what I've seen in BibleTime and Sword for Windows.

First, and perhaps most importantly, MacSword has an extremely clean interface with very minimal clutter. There are only a few tool bar icons and each translation is placed in a completely separate window (MDI interfaces are a no-no on the Mac) with its own bookmark drawer that can be “pulled” out. This decentralizes the feel of the application, emphasizing the individual modules as distinct and able to exist “autonomously” on the desktop.

I also appreciate the arrangement that Sword modules are simply dropped into the folder that is right next to the MacSword.app file instead of hidden elsewhere on the system (although a global Sword location is possible). These individual modules folders, if renamed with a .swd extension, will be converted by Mac OS X into package files similar to how .app files are arranged (e.g. they are really folders but respond like files), and by doing so provide an easy way to launch straight into the module you want: just click on its .swd file and MacSword comes up and opens to that module.

MacSword is not necessarily feature rich just yet, but it is well thought out overall. I'd recommend taking it for a spin if you are around a Mac, it definitely shows that SWORD can be developed into a user-friendly package that I think non-technical users will actually enjoy for what it does rather than stumbling around the interface (a problem that is not, by any means, specific to SWORD-based tools).