The Testimony Online

We've finished getting The Testimony working from our website. Details follow about getting it installed on your phone, as well as major changes and features.

Quick Install How To

Use your phone's browser, and go to our website, https://paleo.in/ then scroll down to the Web Apps section.

The Testimony is the first entry in that section. Click on it, and let the app come up in your browser.

On modern Android, you will be immediately prompted to "Add to your home screen." Follow the prompts and it is done.

On all other systems, use the phone's browser's menu's to "Add to Home Screen." On Apple platforms this function lives behind an icon that is a square with an arrow pointing up. Poke around in the menus behind that icon and you'll find the choice for adding to your home screen.

Of course this works for desktop browsers too. Chrome is the easiest to find in the menus. Other browsers have it too, just hard to find.

TAB Being Dropped

If you have the TAB installed currently, please note... I'll give you to the end of October to get any history/diary data off that app before I drop it from our server... The Testimony replaces the TAB completely.

Please install the Testimony first, and notify me if trouble. I've tested on Chrome browser, Safari browser, Linux, Windows 7, iOS and MacOS platforms. I don't have all the current versions of everything, so there could be trouble I am not aware of. If serious trouble I'll delay dropping the TAB.

Main Features

We are continuing to use Web App technology, but have moved to what are called Service Workers. This is getting a lot of online buzz in developer circles and you will see many more applications available in this way in the next few years. Apple is expected to follow Google in the simplicity of installing these types of applications. Apps built with service workers are far more secure than before, which is a good thing.

Of course this is a rebranding of the old TAB code, so the front cover has been reworked for the change in name. We've updated icons too, since it was a good time to do this. Functionally the 2 apps are essentially the same.

I have reworked several areas in the code, including Search and History. Search was missing certain words under certain circumstances, so I rewrote key parts to make it easy to inspect the code for proper function. On high RAM machines Search is faster.

The History function has been reworked so it works properly when the device is changing time zones. (We're probably the only people using it this way, so in some sense I am scratching my own itch.) The time of entries are now always keyed and stored in local clock time. If you regularly cross the international date line, or change time zones while casting lots around midnight... you may see date headings that are apparently out of order. Trust me, you'll be getting what you deserve. The history list is also better formatted for easier transfer to a diary, fixing another personal irritation.

The Testimony is organized into 8 scrolls, 1 for each day of a long Tabernacles week. The app now includes headings and sections and pages as needed to show off these 8 divisions. There is considerable logic to these divisions, which I'll cover at some point in the future. If you scan the books in each of the sections you may be able to spot the pattern yourself.

The About page has a very brief overview of The Testimony, its loss and recovery. You may find that helpful to read. We will be covering this story in more detail soon.

I have also reworked a table at the bottom of the About page to show off word counts for each book. I understand that average adult English readers can read about 250 words a minute. So, if you want, you can carefully estimate reading times.

Please let me know if you see anything that seems to be broken.

More later.

Phil