Yesterday I spent a good amount of time working on StandardWorks.org. This website will (eventually) provide an easy to use and highly customizable scripture reading RSS feed. This website will also remain ad-free, forever.
UPDATE: Visit http://www.standardworks.org to generate a feed without having to do all the crazyness below.
There are only a few parameters:
- start: The date you want to start reading in m/d/Y format.
- stop: The date you want to finish reading in m/d/Y format.
- volumes: Comma separated list of volumes you want to read.
- 1 - Old Testament (KJV)
- 2 - New Testament (KJV)
- 3 - Book of Mormon
- 4 - Doctrine and Covenants
- 5 - Pearl of Great Price
The RSS script automatically figures out how much you need to read each day, and generates a feed to remind you of your daily reading.
So what makes StandardWorks.org different than a static reading chart or other RSS scripture services? At the moment, just a few items:
- The daily reading assignment is based on the number of words in the assigned chapters. Have you ever tried reading, say, 3 chapters a day? It is pretty easy until you hit a crazy long chapter that takes twice as long to read. With StandardWorks.org, that won’t happen. We figure out how many words are in the volumes you want to read, how many words you need to read a day, and then assign your chapters accordingly. Please note that we only assign full chapters (we don’t encourage stopping part way through a chapter), so some days may still be slightly shorter or longer than others.
- We tell you roughly how many pages you need to read per day. For example, the above reading assignment will take about 3.1 pages per day to complete. Currently this information is based on stats for the entire standard works and not just the volume(s) you are reading, but this will be corrected in a future update.
- We let you pick when you want to start and stop. Want to read the Book of Mormon in 6 months? Or the entire standard works in 1 year? Or the Doctrine and Covenants in 12 days? Our RSS generator gives you a lot of flexibility.
- We let you put more than one volume of scripture on your reading schedule.
I have lots of features in mind that I want to integrate (such as some non-standard works like the Journal of Discourses), and already a few minor issues I want to correct, but please let me know if you have any suggestions or find any bugs!