Posts tagged Bible Software
Back to the Basics: Creating Notes & Highlights on Android
7Creating Notes & Highlights
If you aren’t already using the notes and highlight features on your Android Olive Tree app, well, you should be. I’m here today to show you just how easy it is to take notes and highlight verses in the app. Now, lets get to the basics:
To add a highlight:
Tap on the verse number where you would like to add a highlight.
A toolbar will pop up, with several options. Select the “Highlight” option. You can now select the number of verses to highlight. Tap the right facing arrow to select multiple verses. Once you have selected the verse range to highlight, tap “Select [number] Verse(s).”
The highlight editor will pop up which allows you to title the highlight, change the highlight color and edit tags for the highlight. Make the changes to the highlight you would like, and tap “Save” to finish adding your highlight.
To add a note:
Tap on the verse number where you would like to create a note. A toolbar will pop up, with several options. Select the “Note” option.
The note editor will pop up which allows you to title the note, add text to the note and edit tags for the note. Tap on the “Edit” button to add text to your note. Tap “Done” when you are finished editing the note. A note icon should appear in the Bible text next to the verse you selected to create a note.
And that’s it! Simple, right? Now go start taking notes and highlights in the Olive Tree app and head back here to see how to sync your notes and highlights to the Olive Tree cloud and make sure you never lose any of them.
Back to Basics: Highlighting on iPad, iPhone
3Check back every Tuesday to see a new “Back to Basics” tip for using the Olive Tree Bible app.
One of the most popular features of our Bible apps is highlighting. While highlighting is relatively easy to do, there are some cool things you can do with highlights in our Bible apps.
Adding a Highlight
There are two different ways to highlight Scripture on your iPad or iPhone. The first is a single-verse highlight and the second is highlighting a specific block of text.
Highlighting a Single Verse
The first way to add a highlight is to tap on a verse number and select the “Highlight” option. You will see the basic color options for the highlighters. By selecting a color, voila! you have highlighted that single Bible verse.
Highlighting a single verse
Highlighting a Block of Text
The second way to highlight is to use the tap and hold function to select an amount of text, maybe a word or two, or several verses, and then tap the “highlight” option from the list.
Tap and hold to select text
One Important Note: Single-verse highlights, made by tapping on a verse number, will appear in every Bible translation that contains that Bible verse. Text selection highlights made by selecting a specific block of text are translation specific and will only appear in the Bible translation that they were created in.
Creating a Custom Highlight
If the default highlighters aren’t what you’re looking for, Olive Tree Bible apps offer the option to create your own highlight. After you have either tapped on a verse number or selected a block of text and tapped “Highlight,” instead of choosing a highlight color, tap on “More” and then tap on the “Edit” button on the top right of the pop-up. 
Select “Add Highlighter” and you will be given a broad range of options for changing the color and type of highlight you create, including creating an underline highlighter. You can name your new highlight and use it over and over again.
Managing Your Highlights
Once you have created a highlight, it will appear in your “My Stuff” folder, represented by the suitcase icon. Tap on the icon and tap “Highlights.” Select the color of highlight you want to edit or select “All Highlighters” to see all of your highlights.
If you tap on a highlight, you will be taken to that location in the main window. If you tap on the blue arrow, you can edit the title, add a tag, change the category, change the highlight color, and delete the highlight. I’ll talk more about the awesome ways to sort and organize your notes and highlights using Tags and Categories in later posts. For now, go experiment with the different highlights, create your own custom highlighter and check back with us next week to see how to organize them all.
If you have any more questions about highlighting in the Olive Tree Bible apps, let us know in the comments and we’ll be sure to help you out. Head to our video page to watch highlighting in action on the different platforms, including highlighting on iPad.
A New and Exciting Future
0July 11, 2012
Monday, July 9th marked the beginning of a new and exciting future for Olive Tree Bible Software. Stephen Johnson, Olive Tree’s Chief Technology Officer, was promoted to the position of Chief Executive Officer. Drew Haninger, who had been carrying both the President and CEO roles, will now focus his energy on the president’s role.
As CEO, Stephen will take care of the day-to-day operations of Olive Tree allowing Drew to focus his energy on setting the vision and strategy of the company, including developing his many creative projects and ideas. Stephen and Drew will work closely together to drive the technological innovation for which Olive Tree apps are known.
From the beginning, Stephen was involved with both the business and engineering sides of Olive Tree, from meeting with publishers to developing BibleReader for early platforms like Palm OS to making marketing decisions.
“When I started at Olive Tree in 2004, it was a small company, so you did a little of everything,” Stephen said. “We worked out of Drew’s basement and had company meetings in Drew’s living room or at Olive Garden.”
With the release of the iPhone in 2008, Stephen became the engineering department manager, and in 2009, Stephen took on the role of Chief Technology Officer. In order for Drew to focus on the core message of Olive Tree, someone needed to take over the daily responsibility of running the company. To Drew, Stephen was the obvious choice.
“For years, I watched Stephen grow into many areas of the company and knew Stephen could eventually take over this company,” Drew said. “He’s a young, committed Christian, experienced and knowledgeable about Bible software technology, and full of energy.”
Harnessing Stephen’s excitement in technology and business and Drew’s experience in Bible software, this new teamwork places Olive Tree in a position for immense growth and development. Olive Tree has experienced steady growth since its early days and continues to build apps that God uses to change lives. This transition positions the company to build on its momentum, and Stephen is excited to lead the amazing team at Olive Tree.
In a presentation on Monday, Stephen reminded Olive Tree employees that God uses their work to change lives. When they sync a user’s notes and highlights, they sync a pastor’s sermon on marriage from his desktop to his iPad that God uses to save a marriage or they sync a young woman’s highlights that she uses to share the gospel with a coworker.
“It is exciting and humbling to be involved in this awesome and eternal work,” said Stephen. ”I have the privilege of coming to work every day to collaborate with an amazing and passionate team.”
This leadership transition will continue to build momentum on a history of vibrant growth for Olive Tree and a commitment to a core message: that God uses Bible software to transform lives for the glory of His Kingdom.
Windows 8 Bible+ App!
June 29, 2012
With the release of Olive Tree’s newest Bible app with Microsoft’s Windows 8, we decided to interview our lead Windows 8 developer, Adam H, about the app’s new features.
Elizabeth B: What is exciting about this version of Bible+?
Adam H: With Windows 8, Microsoft is looking for a very fast and fluid experience. Our goal with this version of Bible+ is to leverage that design and have the whole experience of the app be fast, smooth, and engaging.
EB: What are your thoughts on the Windows 8 experience?
AH: I love it. Microsoft has done an incredible job of providing a cohesive experience through Windows 8, Windows Phone, and Xbox. On top of that, they’ve added features that make things work well and are fun to use.
EB: Can you give us an example?
AH: Sure! The Share Charm, which debuts with Windows 8, enables apps to connect not only to the Windows operating system but also to each other. For example, when I’m reading a Bible passage in Bible+, I can bring up the Share Charm and am presented with a list of other apps that interact with that verse, such as Facebook and Twitter. This Share Charm feature is entirely dependent on the apps that the individual user has installed on Windows 8, giving users a lot of flexibility in customizing their experience.
EB: What would you say are the top highlights of the app, Adam?
AH: A major highlight to me is the fast experience of the app. Reading, searching, the verse chooser…they’re all incredible. Searching is still unbelievably cool to me. It’s accessible from anywhere through the Search Charm, and provides an amazing scope of search results, from a broad view of your whole library to a detailed look at individual books. Within a Bible, results are grouped by each book, and can easily be filtered by section, like the Gospels or Prophets. On top of that, searching is fast.
EB: What distinguishes the Windows 8 Bible+ from Windows 7 BibleReader?
AH: The experience around our Windows 8 app is about beauty and simplicity with a focus on the reading experience and speed. We’re excited for the future features and development that we will add to the Bible+ Windows 8 app.
EB: What was the most enjoyable part for you of creating this new app for Windows 8?
AH: I think the most enjoyable part was seeing how Microsoft made it easy for developers to do what they wanted in order to provide the experience our users want. I’m really looking forward to seeing how all apps can leverage Windows 8 features to create an awesome user experience.
EB: Anything else you want to add, Adam?
AH: I’m sure I have a tendency toward a starry-eyed view of this app, and not just because of my part in creating it. I genuinely feel that it’s a joy to use. My prayer is that it can help someone connect with God’s Word in a way they never have before.
Download the Windows 8 Release Preview here to check out the Windows 8 Bible app for yourself!
Olive Tree Videos & Webinars
June 27, 2012
If you are like me, when you get something new you just want it to work: a camera, a coffee maker, a DVD player. However, as technology advances, simple tools have become more complicated and instruction manuals end up looking more like novels or complex origami to try to fit all the information.
We’ve designed the Olive Tree Bible app to be easy to use, but we understand that sometimes you just need to see it in action to understand how it works. This is why we’ve added an instructional video center and developed interactive webinars for our Bible app. Learn how to use the Olive Tree Bible app on your device whenever you want with our helpful videos or get your questions answered by one of our customer support reps in a live webinar.
See a schedule of webinar times and topics here: Interactive Webinars
Visit our video center here: Instructional Videos
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