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.
