Wednesday, July 29, 2020

Toraware's App Now Accessible for an Android Install

Two days ago my toraware app got published in Google's Play Store.
(I needed a Private Policy for my site because children can use it too.)

For some strange reason, inside the Play Store, upon searching for "toraware", scores of Chinese apps appear in the results well before mine. My app appear somewhere near the bottom of that very long list.

To get around that problem, I added an image link on my website, in the form of an icon at the bottom right, and now the user can link to the Play Store -- with my app already "found" for him, to have it installed. There's no need for the user to do a search for my app because the my link's API finds the app with pinpoint precision, bringing the user one click away from an install!

The new Home Page of http://toraware.com today, sporting its new icon link, is shown below:


P.S. 
The iPhone version will not be pursued. For one thing, it requires a $100 yearly fee. And this website, as well as its app, are free and generate no income. Google's Play Store charges a one-time $25 fee. I think Apple should pay the developers, and not that developers should pay Apple!

Tuesday, July 14, 2020

A Birthday Present from Hashem, 21 Tammuz 5780

By divine providence, I managed to upload my toraware app to Google Play store. It happens to be my birthday, the 21st of Tammuz. It's now in queue, "up for review".

The Chassidic dictum comes to mind, "Think good; Will be good!"

Exhibit A:
Source: Transaction with Google Play's Console.

It took some hours, but this submission began on my birthday!

By divine providence, after an exchange of emails with a responder to one of my posted questions, as I surf the internet for solutions, this contact suddenly points me to a site - his own site - and sure enough, a few days later, I was well on my way to bringing my goal to fruition. More like a dream than a goal. Because I've been for many years coding and hoping this app would end up portable on a handheld device.

So it happened, that I succeeded following Android's path, after failing to fulfil the Apple Store's pretzel-loop discombobulate requirements. So, Boruch Hashem, and it all happened within a week, and toraware shall be available for download from the Google Play store, where it ought to be catalogued under "REFERENCE" (or perhaps "BOOKS and REFERENCE")

By the way, the product that helped out immensely (by divine providence!) is by a zealous fellow called George Henne, who runs https://volt.build/about/. His web service, which runs from a "cloud": zips your project, uploads to VoltBuilder, and downloads executables for Android or iOS. So here I shout out a thank you to George! (I had visited 3 or 4 other sites promising to do the same; I croaked with each; But his runs like a smooth engine.)

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Thank G-d, Toraware's App is Finally Born!


Thank God, that which I started out planning, several years ago, has finally come to fruition. From the start I meant to create code that I could "stuff" into a handheld gadget. That aimed-for gadget then became the smartphone. And since my design always held that end-goal in sight, it made the final metamorphosis of my website code into an app rather easy to accomplish. The image above is the face of my new app!

It would have been impractical or burdensome to transform my website version into an app because most of its methods are not of practical use. Only its first two search methods have real preacticality for everday use. So I stripped away the impractical and remain with the Find a Word and Find a Phrase methods.

Those other methods on the website I had added in the course of time just in case somebody has use for these eccentric searches.

Any learner of Torah would find the Find a Word and Find a Phrase methods extremely handy.  There are so many times this app finds relevance in everyday experience. Until today I use my own app almost every day.

This app is now suitable for deployment onto an Android. Soon enough it may also be suitable for an iPhone, iPad or a Windows mobile gadget.

It turns out that in the end I did not even need to learn the native languages used by Apple and Android, because other technologies came along to let me bypass these steep learning curves. To master these would have years to learn. As the chasidic saying goes, "think good and it'll therefore turn out good!" I began my project in 2015 or 2016, to be sure, even as Xcode and Android Studio lingered forebodingly on the horizon. Just as I was about 100% completed with my program's code, thank G-d, other easier deployable solutions suddenly came along and showed promise, like PhoneGap, like Chrome developer, the PWA (Progressive Web Application) route, and software products that turned Javascript code into native languages. All of this thankfully vindicated my original choice, namely, to use the browser platform for my code.

Actually, just now, my program can be downloaded for an Android device. It requires the user to go to a specific site and therefrom download my app. So, I must now still give instructions to people on how to download the code. But soon enough - which I'm presently working on - is to get the software into the app STORES and then my instructions to everbody can be to tell them which store to go to to get it.

Because apps require responsible handling of distributed code, which requires that a secure server handle the distribution, this move was something I could not yet afford (I live on a small pension). But just then the GitHub website came along and provided me with a website on which to deploy my site securely, security being a key issue for PWA, for free.

So, for now, here's how you, the reader, can now get this free app.
Using Chrome, type in https://toraware.github.io, and
then "Add to Home Screen".

Did it ever occur to you "Where in Tora is the first mention of a particular word"?
Or, "How many times does such a word repeat itself in Tanach"? Or, instead of a word, maybe you want information on a set of words or phrase.

Toraware is a small, free, handy Torah tool with which you can instantly search through Tanach. In 2 or 3 clicks you can find any word or phrase, instantly. If you can do a "Goggle Search", you can easily learn this adept Torah tool to full advantage. And especially for learners of Torah, this reference tool is perfect for you.

Hope you'll try it, and if you have suggestions or comments, I'd appreciate your feedback.