The Macintosh Biblioblog

Savvy Synoptic Text Coloring

2025-02-12T14:43:00.001-06:00

When doing synoptic studies work, you will inevitably want to display text with coloring (&/or underlining) that presents the data. Some words found only in Matthew, then these words shared between Matthew and Mark, etc. The worst way to proceed is to pick a random color scheme that is easily accessible to you, and then proceed to directly add that text color/highlight color/underline format to selected text as you go. You can quickly find yourself in a place where you are repeating work to change the formatting for another context. Here is an example of the scheme and style sheet I use that represents a savvy scholarly approach that enables your work, illustrating two points:

The two points are:

Choose a color scheme that has logic to it
Apply character styles to the text rather than applying direct formatting

1. Since 1995, I have used and advocated for a logical synoptic coloring scheme that uses the primary colors. Given that there are three synoptic gospels, a red text and a blue text and a yellow text can combine to make orange text, green text, purple text, and brown text (or light grey when on a dark background). After extended use, the logic of the color scheme prompts you to see the one, two, or three colors (texts) underlying the coloring information. The colors make for beautiful charts. As in these:

The coloring can be dramatic with shading background coloring, or more subtly as text color. When only using text color on yellow text with a white background, you need to pick a yellow color with a brightness close to 50% (which will look like a very light brown). But bright yellow looks great for text on slides with a dark background . The point is, you can adjust the shade of your colors depending on the context, which leads to the second point.

2. DO👏NOT👏ADD👏FORMATTING👏DIRECTLY👏TO👏YOUR👏TEXT. Use character styles in your word processor. This applies to all writing, really. Your published works will look better and make it through copy-editing better if you use style formatting, rather than direct formatting. If you do not know much about the subject of using styles, find a tutorial learn more. While you can apply a style to a paragraph, something more folks are familiar with (headings, block quotes, etc.), you can also create styles that are character styles, which only add formatting to a selected text. When you apply direct formatting, if you decide to change the shade of a color, you can maybe get by with a savvy change-all but you most likely will be going through and directly applying the color all over again. My suggestion for a style sheet setup is seen in the Word document image above; create a character style for each agreement category (Mark, Matt, Luke, Mark+Matt, Mark+Luke, Matt+Luke, and Mark+Matt+Luke). You can then make each of those styles match your formatting scheme, and then apply those styles to selected text as you go. Upgrade your workflow by adding a custom keyboard shortcut to each of those seven styles.

But here's the beauty and genius of applying styles rather than direct formatting… you can with one step adjust your formatting for Mark+Matthew agreements, and once you make the change in the style, it applies the change EVERYWHERE the style has been applied. Want to adjust the shade of orange everywhere? Boom. Want to add underlining? Boom. Want to change from text coloring to text shading? Boom.

Once you've done the work, you don't have to redo the work. This is so helpful once you've accumulated a long bit of text, possibly across table columns. A side benefit in Word, you can even do things like do a search and restrict that search to a style. Let's say you have a few long pericopes you've applied synoptic character styles to… you can with a search have it highlight everywhere a style is used, or everywhere a particular string occurs but only in one source class.

Being smart about how you set up your work can make the tedious work of doing your formatting go further and serve you across multiple uses.

Daily Posts From Now On

2023-04-01T00:19:00.000-05:00

I have so much free time these days, I have an 8-point plan to make a blog post every day. This will allow me to monetize it... I could use the cash.

Accordance Insert Verses using Shortcuts on macOS

2023-03-11T12:04:00.002-06:00

The most current automation technology on macOS is Shortcuts. Here's an example of a Shortcut that

either grabs a selected verse reference or
queries you to provide on, and then
grabs that text from Accordance, using the text module specified in the Shortcut.
It then inserts that resulting text or copies it to the clipboard if that is not possible.

It can be downloaded here. Insert Accordance Text

You change the text module by launching Shortcuts, and editing the module short name in the text block to whatever you like.

macOS and Accordance running on Apple Watch

2021-04-01T01:06:00.002-05:00

I wouldn't have thought it possible, but tweaking the kernel from the package at mini vMac I have now been able to install macOS on my Apple Watch. It is smooth as butter, even scrolling the window panes. The caveats are:

I need my 3.0x reading glasses
Processor tasks are sloooow. For instance, on Accordance, it takes 10 seconds for the simplest word search
I haven't figured out how to select an object or text. But, connecting a Bluetooth trackpad solves that problem. Maybe just keep that in my back pocket?
macOS 10.4.1 is the latest version that will run stable.

I'm still thinking through use cases, but it is thrilling to see nonetheless.

Accordance Better Touch Tool Preset

2020-08-10T04:07:00.001-05:00

For those who use Better Touch Tool to customize the Touch Bar on a MacBook Pro, I created a preset that contains a load of triggers for Accordance.

You can download the preset at the BTT community forum here.

The list of triggers include:

New tab… various
Copy as… various
Toggle Library
Toggle Instant Details
Change current field
Bookmark selection
Highlight selection
Global font size up / down
Previous / Next Hit
Context Increase / Decrease
Reader View Toggle
Display as Paragraph / Verses
Search selection on the web
Lookup selection in lexicon
New Workspace
Duplicate Current Tab
Get Verses… function
An AppleScript to simply paste the current selection in the open TextEdit window (this is simple to change to Word or Pages, etc.)

You will want to disable the ones you don't use. I'd suggest turning off the Control Strip to give more room for the Accordance-specific triggers.

Touch Bar Customizations for Accordance

2020-07-26T14:33:00.001-05:00

Here is a quick video to show off how I've customized the Touch Bar on my MacBook Pro to work well with Accordance Bible Software. You may want to view it in YouTube for best results.

In general, I only find the Touch Bar useful in specific contexts. I'm now using BetterTouchTool to customize the Touch Bar. If there is interest in this setup for Accordance, I can see about sharing the preset.

New position

2020-04-01T01:51:00.002-05:00

I am pleased to make public that I have accepted the positions of Campus Chaplain and Associate Professor of Religion at the University of Farmington.

Inconsistencies in Counting Overlapping Synoptic Stories

2019-05-23T13:19:00.000-05:00

A side note to the previous posts on how best to graphically display overlap among the synoptic gospels. When we are using the pericope/section/story/number divisions as provided in the Aland Synopsis, I ran into places where I was having to make a judgment call in how I counted a section. What that means is, my resulting data was not above reproach. It would be simple if the gospel sections were all in the same order, and all discreet sections. Where an outline would be:

§	Matt	Mark	Luke
§1 Birth	1	-	1
§2 Baptism	2	1	2
§3 Healing A	3-4	2	3
§4 Healing B	5	3	-

But that's often not the situation. Because they occur in different order, sections in Aland are repeated, in particular, they are repeated each time that collection of verses occurs in the order for a given book. We even have a couple stories that occur in three different places in the triple tradition. Sometimes this is innocuous.
The Parable of the Great Supper that is in Matthew and Luke shows up twice in the synopsis and both times with the same verse reference:

§	Matt	Mark	Luke
§216 Great Supper	22.1-14	-	14.15-24
§279 Great Supper	22.1-14	-	14.15-24

The bold indicates that this is the place that it occurse in that books order. Luke's §216 occurs before the parables of salt and lost sheep. In Matthew, §279 is well after that, in a completely different act of the book. No problem. But one must use a consistent method so that the results are repeatable, because sometimes it's tricky.

My method for listing "which gospel sections overlap with sections of another gospel" has been:

note the bolded sections in Mark, counting whether that section is also in Matt &/or Luke
note the bolded sections in Luke that aren't also already bolded sections of Mark, counting whether that section is also in Matt or is stand alone, and
note the bolded sections in Matthew not already accounted for that don't have corresponding material in Mark or Luke and count them.

A synoptics person might say, Mark sections, plus Luke's Matthew and Luke's sondergut, and Matthew's sondergut.
I also do it again switching Matthew's and Luke's place for comparison. And that's where I get most of my problematic results.
As one example, look at the The Women at the Tomb and Jesus Appearing to the Women.

§	Matt	Mark	Luke
§352 The Women At the Tomb	28.1-8	16.1-8	24.1-12
§353 Jesus Appears to the Women	28.9-10	-	24.10-11

When I'm trying to count how many pericopes/sections/stories/numbers overlap using the Aland divisions, I will get a different result depending on my method. In my first count, looking at bold Mark, then bold Luke, then bold Matthew, I will get one less Matthew and Luke count than when I prioritize Matthew's divisions before Luke's. This is because the same story is broken into two sections in Matthew, but remains as one primary section in Luke, according to Aland's method.
Of course I'm tempted to count them both no matter what, but methodologically, that's problematic since I'm not counting stories like the Great Supper twice.
This issue introduces subjectivity and bias into the procedure. I can't just make it up as I go along. This is one of the reasons that using Aland sections as a datapoint for this purpose falls short. Aland was set up to be descriptive of each book's order and divisions, and include it all. It was not set up to ensure 1 to 1 parity between content.

To further illustrate the flaws in what I'm doing, Goodacre (and Larsen) find 107 overlapping pericopae between Matt and Mark. My tables have 106 sections. They both have published books and I haven't, so I yield to their intelligence, but in looking over, I can't even see what I'm missing.
My sections are:
Matt and Mark only: 34, 130, 147, 148, 151, 152, 153, 162, 272, 275, 342
And Triple Tradition: 1, 13, 16, 18, 20, 30, 32, 37, 38, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 117, 118, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 128, 136, 137, 138, 139, 142, 143, 144, 146, 150, 154, 155, 158, 159, 160, 161, 163, 164, 166, 167, 168, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 262, 263, 264, 269, 271, 273, 276, 278, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 287, 288, 289, 290, 291, 292, 293, 294, 305, 306, 307, 308, 310, 311, 315, 330, 331, 332, 333, 334, 336, 339, 341, 343, 344, 345, 346, 347, 348, 350, 352

Unless they are counting the long ending? Still, the big issue is between Matthew and Luke, and my counts are different from theirs.

Having said that, when our purpose is inputing the data into broad-stroke Venn diagrams, a few differences in data points won't even perceivably alter the graphic.
Arbitrary decisions on how you decide to display the data make a much bigger impact. I hope to post on that in time.

Circles and Boxes and Comparing Gospels

2019-05-22T01:17:00.000-05:00

Following on two previous posts looking at the efficacy of rectangular shapes in Venn diagrams for displaying synoptic overlap, I'd like to offer a bit more discussion of the options. For consistency, I'll continue to use the pericope divisions in the Aland Synopsis (as long as we all agree that we could and should do better).
I looked first at side by side two-corpus diagrams and then at a 3-way combination diagram. I'd like to reflect on the difference between the two, as well as one more look at circles and rectangles. The data I displayed in a rectangular diagram in that last post can also easily be displayed in a more typical circular Venn diagram:

Again, circle diagrams are fantastic for today's ASMR sensibilities. But other than the aesthetic, I can't think of a single advantage of circular diagrams over rectangular Venn diagrams for two- and three-way comparisons. Look at the same data, displayed both ways, side by side. The Matthew blue circle and the Matthew blue square have the same area. Same goes for Luke and Mark, and each overlap section.

Both are able to display the data very well. To my eye, the circles are more pleasant to look at. However, the rectangles are more illustrative, in particular in ascertaining proportional relationships to the groups. In the circle diagram, I'm confused for instance in the area difference between the red uniquely Markan section and the orange Mark-Luke overlap. In the circle diagram, how do the slices for Mark-Matthew and Mark-Luke compare to each other. It's easy to see this in the rectangular diagram.

In the circle diagram, I have a hard time guessing the proportional relationships among the blue, green and yellow (uniquely Matthew, Matthew-Luke, and uniquely Luke) sections. It is much more apparent in the rectangular diagram. For pedagogy and research, I would always choose the rectangular Venn diagram.

But is the three way comparison always the ideal? Is it everything you need? Maybe not.
Here is the data in three separate two-way Venn diagrams:

If you are not focusing on the triple tradition shared component, three discreet diagrams give information you can't see in the combined graphic. Of course, it gives you, for instance, the whole amount of Mark (red) not in Luke (yellow), without regard to whether it is in Matthew. In other words, these red sections are larger than in the combined three-way diagram.
Also nice is that this configuration allows you to line up each pair so that their relative lengths stand out better. The main point is that it is illustrative, even necessary to look at both styles. They each display information not available in the other.
It is easy to say, "Well, I just need the one, because the combined three-way diagram contains all the info that was contained in the three separate ones." But because you must make decisions on how to display the diagram (what edges align, which shape/proportion to make a given area), this is far from the case. I may, in one final blog post, explore the "prolegomena"—the assumptions/decisions—when making such a diagram.

Graphically Displaying Three Synoptic Gospel Data

2019-05-20T12:46:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I offered why prefer to use rectangular shapes when displaying synoptic data in a Venn diagram. I have created several instances of these examples using verses, sentences and even words as data points. Using the Aland Synopsis Index as a quick and dirty (very dirty) easily accessible set of data, displaying each pair of synoptic gospels could look like this:

However, the superiority of rectangular shapes really shines when combining all three. I did ~~not~~ take the time to gather the specific numbers ~~(yet maybe)~~, but this is approximately what a resulting Venn diagram looks like compairing all three gospels.

Again, the proportions are very accessible upon examination. You can see that Unique Luke is what proportion larger than unique Matthew, and how it relates to what Luke shares with Mark, etc.
It is only when you add a fourth source that you need to create it as a polygon. And with that... the result is still a series of variously overlapping rectangles. Visually comparing rectangles is much more helpful for proportional comparison than common circles and ovals of Venn diagrams.

Note that there are still advantages for keeping the three separate pairs overlap comparison side by side, as three discreet diagrams.

Graphically Displaying Synoptic Data

2019-05-20T02:00:00.000-05:00

A surprising thing popped up on my newsfeed today. (Yes, I still consume my RSS newsfeed daily. Call me a dinosar.) Mark Goodacre has reanimated his NTBlog for the purpose of reflecting on Matthew Larsen's book (which I have not seen). Mark @Goodacre has since microblogged (ie. Tweeted) on one particular feature in Larsen's book as a teaser for his next blog post, namely, the displaying of proportional synoptic data between two gospels. How much of Mark is in Matthew? How much of Matthew is in Luke? Etc. He has repurposed (colorized) Larsen's "proportional Venn diagram".

I do so enjoy such discussions, but seeing Larsen's graphic prompts me to revisit some work I have done for years but never completed on models for visualizing synoptic data.
I would like to publicly come out (momentarily reanimating my own blog in the process) in favor of rectangular Venn diagrams for comparing Gospel Synoptic Data. To explain:
Venn diagrams are most commonly thought of, and produced, as overlapping circles. This is because circles are gorgeous and tremendously satisfying.
However, a Venn diagram can be comprised of any shape (or variety of shapes). And given that the goal of comparing synoptic data is to, well, compare it, a rectangular application of Venn diagrams serves much better. Two primary reasons:

1. Visualizing proportionate size

Circles are fine for highlighting "relative" sizes, but not proportional ones. The areas of circles are very difficult to ascertain. To illustrate, look at these two diagrams:

In the first diagram, what proportion of the blue shape is overlapping with the red shape? What proportion is uniquely blue, or uniquely red?
One third. One third each. It's easy to tell. Immediately.
Now, what proportion of the blue circle is overlapping with the red circle?
Uh... er... Hmmm... "Honey, where are my calipers?"

2. Compare diagrams to each other

In the same way that rectangular shapes are easier to get a sense of their not just relative, but also proportionate size within a diagram, two or more diagrams beside each other can also be better evaluated in rectangular format.
To illustrate, let's look at the synoptic data that Mark Goodacre and Matthew Larsen are wrestling with. They are looking at how many "stories" or pericopes in one gospel are also in another. There will be stories unique to each, along with some overlap. This can be seen in the graphic tweeted above, where the unique blue Matthew passages and the unique red Mark stories overlap with purple. Likewise, yellow Luke pericopes and blue Matthew pericopes in another graphic would also share green overlap.
Ignoring for the moment how horrible it is to do this kind of comparison based on the pericope divisions in the Aland Synopsis (which doesn't inspire me to read Larsen), let's have a look at all three Venn diagrams (Mt-Mk, Mt-Lk, Mk-Lk) in the much more useful, boxier formats:

There are a lot of decisions that go into making such a diagram. I won't go into all those. But look how easy it is to compare the relative differences in each section. I don't think I need to say more about the graphics… they speak for themselves.

See here for a followup post on visualizing a comparison of all three gospels using a rectangular Venn diagram.

Couple notes:
I should say that my count of Aland pericopes shared among Mark and Luke was hasty and is bound to be off some, but I find that data point so useless, I didn't care to spend more time on it.

I've thought Mark Goodacre was brilliant for years, and consider myself his student though I've never been in his classroom, but I knew I was going to like Mark the first time I read his stuff many years ago and saw that he advocated the same primary-color-based system for marking a gospel synopsis that I had begun using in seminary (to Gene Boring's dismay). Though, I prefer to use 60% transparent white versions of the primary colors for true blending, because, you know, ugly.

Switching to Windows

2019-04-01T17:59:00.002-05:00

Note:
I've switched to Windows, so won't be posting here at all anymore.

Script to Return Every Version of a Verse Reference from Accordance

2018-10-20T18:42:00.003-05:00

In a conversation on the forum, someone wondered how you might include a script to do a multi-version lookup. The idea is to take a verse reference and show a result that gives that text in every relevant version you have installed in Accordance.
Here is an example of how to do this.

multiModuleVerseLookup("John 2:1", true)

on multiModuleVerseLookup(theReference, quoteAsCitation)

-- set the delimiter between versions

set theDelimiter to return & "----------" & return

-- get moduleList

tell application "Accordance" to set moduleList to «event AccdVerL»

-- prepare textResult

set textResult to theReference & theDelimiter

repeat with thisModule in moduleList

-- lookup theReference in each module

tell application "Accordance" to set thisResult to «event AccdTxRf» {thisModule, theReference, quoteAsCitation}

-- add the result if the module contains theReference

if thisResult does not start with "ERR-" then set textResult to textResult & thisModule & return & thisResult & theDelimiter

end repeat

return textResult

end multiModuleVerseLookup

The results would look like:

"John 2:1

----------

GNT28-T

Καὶ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ γάμος ἐγένετο ἐν Κανὰ τῆς Γαλιλαίας, καὶ ἦν ἡ μήτηρ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ἐκεῖ· — John 2:1

----------

CEB

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and — John 2:1

----------

NRSVS

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. — John 2:1

----------

…

It is self-explanatory for those who do any Applescripting. You could include it in an Automator workflow, etc.
Here is a simple complete script that when called from Quicksilver/Launchbar/a Workflow/etc. would bring up a dialogue box and then open the result in a TextEdit window.

-- use a display dialog to ask for valid verse reference

set dd to display dialog "Enter a valid verse reference:" default answer "John 1:1"

set theReference to text returned of dd

multiModuleVerseLookup(theReference, true)

on multiModuleVerseLookup(theReference, quoteAsCitation)

-- set the delimiter between versions

set theDelimiter to return & "----------" & return

-- get moduleList

tell application "Accordance" to set moduleList to «event AccdVerL»

-- prepare textResult

set textResult to theReference & theDelimiter

repeat with thisModule in moduleList

-- lookup theReference in each module

tell application "Accordance" to set thisResult to «event AccdTxRf» {thisModule, theReference, quoteAsCitation}

-- add the result if the module contains theReference

if thisResult does not start with "ERR-" then set textResult to textResult & thisModule & return & thisResult & theDelimiter

end repeat

-- display the result in a new TextEdit document

tell application "TextEdit"

activate

set textDoc to make new document at the front

set the text of textDoc to textResult

end tell

end multiModuleVerseLookup

Siri Shortcut Verse Lookup in Accordance

2018-09-27T11:38:00.002-05:00

Here is a proof-of-concept video demonstrating that we're getting close to voice verse lookup. The problem right now is that you have to spell out the reference: “romans twelve colon three hyphen seven”.

With some work, a javascript shortcut could be made to take a normal string like “romans twelve three to seven” and format it properly into "Romans 12:3-7".

Easter April Fools

2018-04-01T01:17:00.001-05:00

Adding Non-English Book Names to Acc-Insert Verses Service

2017-04-03T01:23:00.001-05:00

Update: Version 12.0.5 has fixed this issue. The tutorial now stands as an example of how to do your own custom changes of any sort to an Inserted text.

The Accordance Services allow you to pull all kinds of text out of Accordance and into your current program, without ever leaving the program you're working in. You can see an overview here. It was pointed out on the forums that when using the "Acc-Insert Verses" Service to insert scripture text into your document, that the book names are always in English even if your default language is non-English.
Since the Accordance Services are a type of Automator Workflow, you can customize them to your hearts content. A simple solution, then, is to add a step in the workflow that substitutes all English book names, with the name of your choosing. Here is an example of how to do it.

You can download the Service here, and install it.

All I've done is add a "Run AppleScript" Action that dissects a tab-delimited list of
EnglishName[tab]nonEnglishName
EnglishName[tab]nonEnglishName

EnglishName[tab]nonEnglishName

…

Hence, you can open up the Service in Automator and customize the list yourself, and save it.

For the Service to work, you need to make sure the "Get Text from Accordance" action has checked to "Use Citation Format", and that in Accordance:Preferences:Citation that you have not checked "Abbreviate book name".

That's all you really need to know to use the custom Service. For the curious, what I did was open the "Acc - Insert Verses" Service and duplicate it and named it with German in the title.

Then I added a new "Run Applescript" action and wrote a script that parses a tab-delimited list, making it easy to edit. The script looks for every instance of the original bookname followed by a space and a digit, replacing as directed. Here is the full text of the AppleScript:

on run {input}

set substitutionList to "Genesis Genesis

Exodus Exodus

Leviticus Levitikus

Numbers Numeri

Deuteronomy Deuteronomium

Joshua Josua

Judges Richter

Ruth Rut

1Samuel 1Samuel

2Samuel 2Samuel

1Kings 1Könige

2Kings 2Könige

1Chronicles 1Chronik

2Chronicles 2Chronik

Ezra Esra

Nehemiah Nehemia

Esther Ester

Job Hiob

Psalms Psalmen

Proverbs Sprichwörter

Ecclesiastes Kohelet

Song Hohelied

Isaiah Jesaja

Jeremiah Jeremia

Lamentations Klagelieder

Ezekiel Ezechiel

Daniel Daniel

Hosea Hosea

Joel Joël

Amos Amos

Obadiah Obadja

Jonah Jona

Micah Micha

Nahum Nahum

Habakkuk Habakuk

Zephaniah Zefanja

Haggai Haggai

Zechariah Sacharja

Malachi Maleachi

Tobit Tobit

Judith Judit

Wisdom Weisheit

Sirach Sirach

Baruch Baruch

1Maccabees 1Makkabäer

2Maccabees 2Makkabäer

1Esdras 1Esdras

Manasseh Manasseh

3Maccabees 3Makkabäer

2Esdras 2Esdras

4Maccabees 4Makkabäer

Matthew Matthäus

Mark Markus

Luke Lukas

Acts Apostelgeschichte

Romans Römer

1Corinthians 1Korinther

2Corinthians 2Korinther

Galatians Galater

Ephesians Epheser

Philippians Philipper

Colossians Kolosser

1Thessalonians 1Thessalonicher

2Thessalonians 2Thessalonicher

1Timothy 1Timotheus

2Timothy 2Timotheus

Titus Titus

Philemon Philemon

Hebrews Hebräer

James Jakobus

1Peter 1Petrus

2Peter 2Petrus

1John 1Johannes

2John 2Johannes

3John 3Johannes

John Johannes

Jude Judas

Revelation Offenbarung"

set theString to input as string

-- Create a tmp sed command file

-- s/foo\( [0-9])/bar\1/g

set tabReplace to "\$ [0-9]\$/"

set paragraphReplace to "\\1/g

s/"

-- parse the replace string into lists

set commandString to ""

set otid to AppleScript's text item delimiters

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to tab

set commandString to text items of substitutionList

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to tabReplace

set commandString to "s/" & commandString as string

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to return

set commandString to text items of commandString

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to paragraphReplace

set commandString to (commandString as string) & "\\1/g"

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to otid

set commandFilePath to ((path to temporary items from user domain) as text) & "bibleBooks.sed"

try

set fileRef to open for access file commandFilePath with write permission

set eof of fileRef to 0

write commandString to fileRef

close access fileRef

on error

close access fileRef

end try

set posixPath to POSIX path of file commandFilePath

set scriptText to "echo " & quoted form of theString & " | sed -f " & quoted form of posixPath

set theResult to do shell script scriptText

return theResult

end run

Clergy Robe with a Handgun Pouch - Have I Now Seen Everything?

2017-04-01T02:42:00.000-05:00

I've been looking for a clergy robe that looks better without a tie, and was very surprised to come across this, a preacher's robe with a designated pouch for carrying your gun:

When I did my SBL paper last year on the use of NT passages by Evangelical Christian national leaders when advocating for gun carry, I encountered stories of several ministers who not only went on record as carrying a gun daily, but thought it their vocation to encourage others to carry a gun.
But a preaching robe designed for carrying a gun while leading in worship on Sunday morning? Could it be that prevalent? How big could the market be for this? I guess they've sold some, since the description mentions it just came (back?) in stock today of all days.

I'm not saying that now I've seen everything… but this sure gets me closer.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary Lookup Bookmarklet

2017-02-26T23:49:00.003-06:00

Here's a bookmarklet for doing a lookup in the online Merriam-Webster Dictionary site.
Just drag this into your favorites bar or bookmark bar.
Mer-WebDict
Once you've done that, you can just highlight any word in a web page and then click on the bookmark, and it will take you to the page for that word.

Cause looking up words is cool.

Please Don't Phase out Mac Automation

2016-11-17T10:47:00.000-06:00

News broke this week that Apple has eliminated the position of Product Manager of Automation Technologies. Sal was the primary advocate for the continued success and implementation of Applescript and System Services for macOS.

This does not bode well for the future support of Applescript and System Services. I'm guessing Apple wants to phase them out in favor of adopting Siri for everything. The problem is, Siri is not a substitute for the kind of inter-application use many of us rely on. I use scripting daily for my workflows. And, it was essential for some of my research, including my dissertation, over the years.

If you have found any scripts or services useful in your work, including those for Accordance, feel free to join others tweeting out that plea to Apple, using the hash tag #AskApple.

Here was my tweet:

Worried that Apple eliminated the Product Manager of Automation Technologies. I need Applescript for my academic work. Is all ok? #AskApple

Insert Verses Accordance Service Within Microsoft Word List Paragraph

2016-09-19T18:13:00.000-05:00

It turns out that the "Insert Verses" Accordance Service breaks when highlighting a verse reference that begins the line of a List formatted paragraph in a Microsoft Word document.

So, in the above screen shot, you can select the first line and the Insert Verses Accordance Service will work great, but if you try it with the second line (which is formatted in a List style), it results in an error something like:
ERR-A valid book name must be entered at the selection point.
This is true for both Word 2011 and 2016. The reason for this is that when a selection in Word is copied and sent to the clipboard or the Accordance Service, Word "helpfully" includes the list item number or bullet in the copied text. (This is only an issue when the verse reference is at the beginning of the paragraph.)
Instead of just the reference, Word is actually sending:
1.[TAB]Gen 1.1

In Word 2010 for Windows, there is an option in File -> Options -> Advanced -> "Cut, copy, and paste" where you could change "Keep bullets and numbers when pasting text" to "Keep Text Only". This Advanced option does not exist in Word 2011 for Mac. (I do not know if it is available in Word 2016.)

As a fix, you can Get-Your-Geek-On and add a step in the Insert Verses Service to remove everything leading up to any TAB in the selection before sending the reference to Accordance. You can find information about editing or customizing Accordance Services in this blog post: Creating a New Automation Service for Accordance, but here are the basic steps for this tweak:

1. Find the "Acc- Insert Verses" workflow file in ~ / Library / Services.
2. Double-click that file to open it in Automator.
3. Drag a new "Run Applescript" Action from the Actions sidebar into the workflow, above the "Get Text From Accordance" Action.
4. Change the script text to:

on run {input}

set input to input as string

if input contains tab then

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to tab

set input to item 2 of (text items of input)

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""

end if

return input

end run

The result should look like this:

5. Save and use.

Accessing Accordance from the Command Line in Terminal

2016-04-29T00:40:00.000-05:00

I was talking with someone today about how you might grab a text reference from Accordance without leaving the command line in Terminal. So, I thought I'd share one way to accomplish it.

You can use Applescript to retrieve the full text of verse references from a given text module, all without bringing Accordance to the front or interacting with its interface in any way. This is how my old scripts and actions have worked, as well as some the OS X Services that OakTree packages with Accordance.

A raw Applescript line to get the text of John 1:1 from the NRSVS module using the citation format (true) is:

tell app "Accordance" to get «event AccdTxRf» {"NRSVS", "John 1:1", true}

You can call that from the shell using osascript:

osascript -e 'tell app "Accordance" to get «event AccdTxRf» {"NRSVS", "John 1:1", true}'

But, no-one wants to type that out each time you want to lookup a verse, so you'll want to create a shell script that passes the verse reference as an argument to the script. Here's an example:

------------------------------------

#!/bin/bash

# This script takes a verse reference as an argument to return the full text of the reference to stdout

# chmod +x getverse.sh

# ./getverse.sh

# set the short name of module to use

modulename="NRSVS"

# set to "true" to use citation format

usecitation="true"

# trap for a null argument passed, since Accordance crashes if it receives a null parameter

if [ -n "$*" ] #[ "$#" -gt 0 ]

then

# retrieve all passed arguments as one string, so you can pass references with spaces and without quotes: John 1:1

verseref="$*"

# get the text of the reference from Accordance

textresult=$(osascript -e "tell app \"Accordance\" to get «event AccdTxRf» {\"$modulename\", \"$verseref\", $usecitation}")

echo "$textresult"

else

echo "Must pass a text reference as a variable, as in: getverse John 1:1"

------------------------------------

Save that as a text file in your home folder ( ~/ ) with a name like 'getverse.sh'. You'll also need to make it executable by going to the Terminal and using:

chmod +x getverse.sh

After that, you can call the script from the command line in Terminal with:

./getverse.sh John 11:35

An additional, welcome, step is to create an alias that calls that script, to further reduce what you have to type to run it. Open up your bash profile at ~/.bash_profile (it likely doesn't exist yet, so you'll have to create it), and then add a line to it to create the alias:

alias gv=./getverse.sh

After that, you'll need to initiate the bash shell environment with this command in Terminal:

source ~/.bash_profile

Then, you can just type: gv John 1:1, 3

to lookup your verse references.

I glossed over some details, assuming that if you're at all interested in doing what this post suggests, you are already familiar with the subjects and functions covered.

New Tesla Design Makes It the Apple of Autos

2016-04-01T10:10:00.001-05:00

Tesla is the high-end electric car company, headed by an eccentric and high-profile CEO, that makes the incredible electric car that so many want but so few can afford. This has earned them the moniker "the Apple of Automobiles".
Tesla made big news today for revealing the design of their Model 3, which is still in production, but will start at $35,000. In just a day, 115,000 people have reserved their car, all based on the dramatic release of this one photo. Just take a look at the design photo they released, and you can see what has so many people excited:

Tesla Model 3

I am excited about this.
The single photo offers a limited scope of what's in store for the newest electric car, but a couple things revealed here have me thrilled. Immediately most controversial I suspect would be the two discreet passenger compartments. The world of tech and social sciences both have skyrocketed into the pursuit of specialization, so the inevitable result is division between passengers and operators. Several may find this off-putting, but I have two kids, and it strikes me as genius.

You can also notice Jobsesque attention to detail, such as the step ladder and the doubled headlights. Many have already been speculating about the extra headlights. What could they be for? Extra visibility. Some are suggesting that the second pair of headlights could be designed to shift the light spectrum away from intense blue light after 10pm.
The company is not saying much more, other than the availability of a few luxury and tech-related add-on options. The most intriguing the description of a deck, that then became associated with this (leaked?) picture.

They are calling an "eight track deck". I assume it is some sort of audio (bluetooth?) interface that allows you to connect up to eight iOS devices at once. At the press release, a design engineer Max Campbell was very enthusiastic about this technology.
Here's my speculation: could this new car, along with this add-on, be some type of coordination between Tesla and Apple into the new frontier of self-driving cars? Maybe you set up the directions on your phone, and then just plug it into the deck and the car takes over from there? One can dream.

Without much revealed, we'll have to wait for more info, though that's not preventing auto and tech pundits alike from already drawing their own conclusions.
Technology aficionado John Gruber tweeted this about the upcoming car: "I think it has a classic, almost Homeric quality."

Script to Paste Clipboard with Specific Font

2016-03-03T00:33:00.000-06:00

A friend asked about a script to copy selected text and paste it into Word in a specified font face. My mind explodes with all the different ways, technologies one could do this with—Applescript, Automator, VBA within Word, and launcher/macro programs like KeyboardMaestro and Quicksilver.

Let's say you found the relevant text or from a PDF or website or in Accordance and you want to copy and paste it into your Word document, but you want to specify the font because it's a different language than your other normal text.*

I'd like to illuminate one little trick I learned some time ago that can be incorporated into several of those. Namely, you can use the command line textual tool to markup the text with the much-maligned HTML tag and then copy it to the clipboard converting the HTML text to styled text. The syntax for the line is:
echo '<i>I am some italicized text</i>' | textutil -format html -convert rtf -stdin -stdout | pbcopy -Prefer rtf
I normally would wrap that into a script which grabs the text and then pastes it wherever I want it. Here's an example of a script, which copies the selected text in the front app, then reads the clipboard into variable, adds a tag to the text of the variable, then copies that newly-styled text back onto the clipboard, and then brings Word to the front, and pastes the directly formatted text.

-- copy the text

tell application "System Events"

keystroke "c" using {command down}

end tell

delay 0.1

set myText to the clipboard

delay 0.1

-- add HTML style data to the text

set myText to "<font face=\"SBL BibLit\" size=3>" & myText & "</font>"

-- convert the styled html text as styled text on the clipboard

do shell script "echo " & quoted form of myText & ¬

" | textutil -format html -convert rtf -stdin -stdout | pbcopy -Prefer rtf"

-- paste the newly styled keyboard into an app

tell application "Microsoft Word"

activate

tell application "System Events"

keystroke "v" using {command down}

end tell

You could, of course, convert much of this script into Automator or other macro environment.

Another way of accomplishing this for Word would be to have the script set the Font info for the current selection point in Word, strip any style data from the clipboard, then Paste and Match Style the text into Word.

* Note: I would suggest that the best practice for writing in Word is to use Styles to format the document, not direct formatting. You could have a script environment that pasted a text and then selected that text and then set the style for that text using VBA or Applescript.

Taming the Symbols in Accordance

2016-01-12T15:42:00.000-06:00

In the latest release of Accordance Bible software, one of the new features is the addition of Highlight Symbols. These function identically to previous word highlighting, but place instead symbols below words you attach them to. The image set that comes included in Accordance is clearly intended to be kid friendly (fun?). As a result, the color choices are not unified and lack any consistent style. So, if you find the image palette rather unpalatable, just alter them.
To find the resource folder of the images:

Right-click or Control-click on the Accordance application icon in a Finder window.
Select "Show Package Contents"
Navigate to /Contents/Resources/ where you will see a "watermarks' folder with images 1 thru 130.
Backup that folder elsewhere to be safe.
Quit Accordance and have fun editing the images.

You can download a set of updated images that you see in this post. They add a consistent bluish-greyish color theme on top of Accordance's default images. You can install them by dragging the icons into the watermarks folder you navigated to. The images are available here.

Note: Here's an example of doing the same kind of thing in Dropbox, altering images in the application bundle to customize your look.

Accordance Web Browser Bookmarklets

2015-11-06T01:30:00.000-06:00

Tired of all those scripture links on web pages opening up in biblegateway? Looking for a quick way to look up some text in your browser not in wikipedia, but in your Accordance tool?

Since Accordance has added the new URL Links (accord://) protocol, it has enabled new ways of interacting with Accordance, even while working in other applications. The URL Links are designed primarily for you to add links to Accordance modules in your own webpages and documents, handy indeed, especially now that you can even URL Link to a specific point in an Accordance module (as of 11.1). For more information on URL Links, visit the very informative help page on the topic.

However, there's an additional way of making use of URL Links: incorporating them into bookmarklets. Bookmarklets are a way to code advanced functionality into the bookmarks/favorites saved in your web browser (Safari, Chrome, Firefox, etc.).
This trick allows you to select text in a web page or pdf that's open in your web browser, and then select the Accordance Bookmarklet that searches based on that text. This essentially duplicates the functionality available in the Accordance Services, but they're much quicker when in your browser:

reading a selected verse reference in either the default text or a specified text
searching for a selected word or phrase in either the default text or a specified text
searching for a selected word in any of your Accordance tools within a stated search field
looking up the study topic function of either a verse list or an article from the default study tool

In the table below are a series of Accordance Bookmarklets to get you started. You can drag any of these links into the "Favorites Bar" (as it's called in Safari) or "Bookmarks Bar" (as it's called in Chrome). Then, you simply select the text in a web document and then click the Bookmarklet you wish. In Safari, you can also use the keyboard shortcut Command ⌘ + Option ⌥ + 1, 2, 3, etc. to activate the corresponding bookmarklet in the bar.

Open a verse selection to read in Accordance
ReadVerses	= Open the verse selection in your default text module.
Open the verse selection in a specifically named text module:
ReadNRSVS	ReadNIV	ReadESVS
Search for a selected word or phrase in an Accordance text
SearchWords	= Search for the selection in the default text module.
Search for the selection in a specifically named text module:
SearchNRSVS	SearchNIV	SearchESVS
Search a specific search field of a specified tool module:
SearchAnchorEntry	= Search for the selected text in the Entry field of the Anchor Bible Dictionary.
SearchAnchorEnglish	= Search for the selected text in the English Content field of the Anchor Bible Dictionary.
SearchNIB-NTReference	= Search for the selected text in Reference field of the New Interpreter's Bible NT.
Search the Study Topic function in Accordance
StudyTopicVerses	= Display a list of verses related to the selected topic.
StudyTopicArticle	= Show an article on the selected topic.

You can test out your Bookmarklets.
Let's say you want to research, say: dung
Just highlight the word and click the appropriate bookmarklet.
Same goes for looking up a text reference, such as: John 11:35 or Micah 6:8

You can customize a bookmarklet by right-clicking (control-clicking) on the bookmark in the bar and select "edit address". At the end of the long javascript address, you'll see where you can alter the Accordance URL Link.

Here is a video showing how to install, use and edit the bookmarklets: