Android app of Pope Shenouda's books

A app to read all books of HH Pope Shenouda III in Arabic. Install the app from Google Play.

Mainly there are 2 old codebases:

1. Java programming language + plain text files as database
2. Java programming language + SQLite db

But this new codebase (3rd) is written in Kotlin with UI in Jetpack Compose + SQLite db with more features.

If you are wondering why I migrated the storage from plain text files to a local SQLite db, read my reasoning on this post.

My vision for the app

I want this app to be the goto app for reading all books written by or about HH Pope Shenouda III.

In brief, the goals of the app are:

• all books of Pope Shenounda III
• the app size must be as small as possible to enable more people to keep the app on their phones
• the app must support new and old versions of Android OS as possible

Current state of the app according to the vision:

• all books were added
• the app is around 40 MB which is great as it has all books
• the app is available for smartphones with Android 5.0 (2014) up to Android 15 (2024, the latest version)

Roadmap | timeline of release versions with tasks

• older app releases
  • use plain text files as a database for each chapter of each app (I will explain this in a blog post and/or video)
  • touch gestures to navigate pages of the books
  • written in Java with available Android/Java APIs/ABIs
• v2.0.0
  • 18 books added
  • remember last opened page (from old codebase)
  • migrate from plain text files to SQlite db (from old codebase)
  • still written in Java with XML Android Layouts
  • support Android 6.0 up to Android 14 (SDK 34)
• v2.0.1
  • upgrade AGP
  • upgrade Kotlin
  • upgrade kotlin coroutines
• v2.0.2
  • fix an issue with R8 minification called "missing classes". I wrote a blog about this incident.
• v3.0.0 (1)
  • app source code is now open source
  • rewrite the app in Kotlin with Jetpack Compose
  • touch gesture to swipe between pages of a book
  • remember the last open page
  • search in the content of all books
  • search in the content of a specific book
• v3.1.0 (2)
  • ui: use theme colors in search input and results views/widgets
  • run SQL functions in IO coroutines for better performance
  • show loading indicator while running the SQL search process
  • sanitize user input in search
• Next Version
  • 0 poems added