Annotations for MS Word text files

Scripture App Builder SAB Feature Requests
1

Hi all…The updates from SAB continue to deliver much appreciated important additions.A huge thanks to all the teams involved…We wanted to request for annotations-(Bookmarks, notes,Highlights) be incorporated in Ms word based texts…This will go along way in improving user experience in our non scripture,non paratext based apps…Looking foward to positive feedback

2

Hi Frank,

I’m not a part of the development team, but I was just wondering, could you share more about how you would like to use highlights, notes, and bookmarks in apps?

By annotations do you mean something like the Track Changes feature? As in, you want readers to see revisions done to a text?

By “notes” do you mean document comments? Or something like footnotes or endnotes?

By bookmarks do you mean section headings? Or links to other parts in the document? Or perhaps something else?

What kind of app would it be, and who would the users be?

Just trying to understand better. Thanks.

3

Hi Alex,
Thank you for the reply and apologies for the late relay…Yes something along those lines…It would be a language learning app featuring long stories with multiple language translations divided into chapters and units of increasing complexity with accompanied audio coupled with plenty of vocabulary and grammatical constructs and thus learners would benefit immensley from annotations such as grammatical notes on certain phrases, bookmarking certain sentences with new morphological points and unfamiliar syntax.
It would also help if the individual sentenses also could also have a repeat function as well as being able to handle said sentences as verses in that users could click on them for the repeat function, as it stands this feature is only possible with scripture,Users can only loop an entire chapter in the case of stories.(not sure if this should be on a different feature request post,I would think the two where somewhat related).Thank you!

4

Thanks Frank.

This is certainly an interesting use case. A few notes.

  • This sounds like a complicated app. You may want to consider launching a app with just some key feature and then deck it out with more features in future versions. This is a common method for feeling software products. You get the benefit of user feedback too.
  • It’s possible to format the text as containing verses, but hide the verse numbers in the app. This may help you accomplish some of the functions you desire.
  • Before starting, look also into Bloom and Alfa Tiles. These apps may be a better fit for some of the functions you hope you accomplish.

Descriptions:

Help pages:

Bloom books can be rolled into SAB apps too, I know.

I hope this helps!

5

Thanks for the valuble points…The app is actualy already out and has been for some time…We are looking to follow through on multiple requests from its users about the aforementioned added features…SAB is a better fit due to the app’s complexity

6

Oh okay, I didn’t realize that. Sometimes it can be good to include a link to where the app can be downloaded, to provide some context for a future request, or a request for help.

7

It just occured to me that if you switch from Word documents to USFM, you could make use of footnotes. You could include annotations and notes that way.

For more complicated apps, I always recommend using USFM rather than Word documents. It gives you more control and capabilities.

There are many conversations on this forum and the RAB forum about USFM and making the switch from Word. Do let us know if you choose this route and if you need more help.

I hope this helps.

8

Thanks a bunch…This actually helped

1 Like