Welcome to the Ezra Project development site

"Ezra Project" is going to be a new web based Bible software which focuses on providing helpful functions for actually doing bible studies. As opposed to all Bible tools which are available both as open source or in proprietary form, this tool shall actually help you to work with the Bible and end up with real study results.

The motivation of the author is to have all study results (documents) linked together in one database. So ultimately you would have documents like book outlines, paraphrases, word-studies, your personal bible commentary, sermon outlines etc. stored in this database. The advantage would be a very quick way of navigating and browsing your existing documents. It could be described as content management system for biblical data. Since everything would be linked together it would be easier to relate two independent studies with each other. This is not very convenient if you just store files on your file system.

Another goal of Ezra Project is to provide a good digital study bible. Bible software should utilize the advantages of a screen and provide usable functions for note taking, markup, etc. So far it isn't the author's impression that existing bible software meets such requirements.

Site sections:

• Development

Recent news

06/09/10 - Ezra Project 0.3 released

The third release 0.3 is available for productive work and for download. You can now create notes for each individual verse of the Bible. The application can be accessed at  http://ezra-project.net. Please have a look at the release notes.

04/11/10 - Ezra Project 0.2 released

The second release 0.2 is available for productive work and for download. The application can be accessed at  http://ezra-project.net. Please have a look at the release notes.

04/09/10 - Ezra Project 0.2 beta 2 available

The beta 2 of Ezra Project 0.2 is now available on the test site ( http://test.ezra-project.net). The following changes have been made since beta 1:

• New editable attribute for outlines: Author (closes #75)
• The contents of a bible book are now loaded with an ajax request
• Universal tags and book tags are now displayed within a "accordion" menu
• Revamped book selection menu (first version, closes #51)
• First version of Tag Browser implemented (see #70)
• Outline sections can now be deleted from the Outline Tab (closes #40)
• The outline can now be hidden by clicking on a checkbox (closes #76)
• Show a confirmation dialog before a tag would be deleted
• The list of tags within the Bible Browser can now be searched / filtered

03/02/10 - Ezra Project 0.2 beta 1 available

The beta 1 of Ezra Project 0.2 is now available on the test site ( http://test.ezra-project.net). The new functions currently supported for the tagging system are:

• Create tags
• Delete tags (including all assignments)
• Assign tags
• Remove tag assignments

In order to assign or delete tags you first have to select verses by either dragging your mouse or clicking on them. To add verses to an existing selection you can use ctrl + click. For the release there are still functions to be added (Renaming, Search, Usability, etc.).

02/19/10 - Development on Ezra Project 0.2 has been started

A test site of the current development version is available at  http://test.ezra-project.net. The test site is configured with a separate database. If you already have an account at the production site you would have to create a new user account!

01/24/10 - Ezra Project 0.1 released

The first release 0.1 is available for productive work and for download. The application can be accessed at  http://ezra-project.net. Please have a look at the release notes.

01/19/10 - First beta of Ezra Project 0.1 now available

The first beta version of Ezra Project 0.1 is now available on the test server:  http://test.ezra-project.net

In order to use it you first have to register a new user account on the login page. Outlines are now saved in the web-server database and can even be exported as PDF file!

I need people telling me, whether this version works with Internet Explorer versions 7+8, because I don't have the opportunity to test it. If you encounter bugs or unintuitive behavior please create a new bug report, thank you!

01/16/10 - Version 0.1 is almost finished!

The release will be on January 24th 2010.

What about the name?

For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the LORD and to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel. Ezra 7:10

Ezra dedicated his life for studying, practicing and teaching the law, God's word. The tool, which is to be developed, should help users, who can identify with Ezra, to reach their goals more efficiently :-)

Release Process

Until Version 1.0 (Fall 2010) there will be a release every other month. Each of these releases will contain a unique new function. For details please have a look on the  Roadmap.

Requirements

The main requirements are described in the following sections. The functional requirements are based on the premise that Ezra Project will be implemented as a webbased tool.

Functional requirements

Ezra Project shall primarily help the user to accomplish the following Bible study tasks:

• Commenting bible passages
• Marking up the Bible (Like your real Studybible)
• Outlining a book / passage
• Creating an observation chart on a passage / book
• Creating a timeline of a book / passage
• Topic studies (Correlating passages)
• Export functionality (Export to PDF / ODT for the purpose of printing)

There are some secondary requirements which are nice but not required for the first version of Ezra Project:

• Easy Offline installation of Ezra Project (with possibility to synchronize with existing online version)
• Collaboration functions (Working together with different people on a certain bible study)
• Publisher function (Easy way of publishing certain bible studies on the Internet)

Non-functional requirements

• The system shall be web based
• The application and data access shall be protected by a (secure) login
• Supported Browsers: IE (from 7.0, NOT 6.0), Firefox (from 3.5), Other Browsers are suitable very likely (esp. Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Konqueror, Opera)