Welcome to the new look, fully featured, Daily Readings site at www.dailyreadings.org.uk This guide explains the new features which were added towards the end of 2010, and gives guidelines on how to make good use of them. First we will work our way down the left menu, then consider the comment pages themselves. Month Pages Click on a month on the left hand menu. These have been redesigned to act like a calendar and will display the dates for the next instance of that month. So if you were to visit the site in June 2012, June December would display as 2012 calendars, but because Jan May 2012 have already gone by then, they will display 2013 calendars, representing the next instance of Jan May. Clicking on the current month also highlights today with a blue rectangle. Click a date to display the readings for that Day. Home This is just the home page of the site. It provides information, a link to today s readings comments and a record of the total number of comments currently posted. Mailing List This has now been fully integrated into the site. You can join the list and leave the list on this page, but you can also edit your email preferences on the My Preferences page too. A password has been added so that you can log in whenever you wish and make changes, because now the email is available in different forms. There are 4 layouts to choose from and you can choose which version the links in your email display in when they are clicked. The four layouts available for email are Standard Layout ordered by date - oldest at the top (Site Default) Standard Layout ordered by date - newest at the top Standard Layout in verse order (whole chapter comments precede the verse order list) Standard Layout ordered by Contributor (Alphabetically by Surname) Anyone who was on the email list before the site changed towards the end of 2010 will find that they are set to Standard Layout ordered by date - oldest at the top and reference links in KJV. Also you will have been given a randomly generated unique password. To retrieve the password, go to My Preferences and use the Send my Password link, having first filled in your Email Address, then use this password to log in and you can then change it to something you can remember. More on this in the My Preferences section below. A lot of effort has been made to try to make sure that the email version is in a format that is compatible with as many email browser as possible, but this is notoriously hard to do, so we apologise if there are any features that do not display correctly on whatever email system you use. You must be able to receive email in HTML format to join this list. Chapter Search First select a book. This will populate the dropdown of chapters with the right number of chapters for that book. Choose your chapter. The Include Secondary References tick box determines whether your search results will show just the comments which were made directly on your chosen chapter, or also include those
made on other chapters but referring to verses in your chosen chapter. These will be listed separately, following the primary results, if you tick the box. Verse Search Like the Chapter Search, the dropdown boxes will populate as you go down with the right number of chapters for the book and then the right number of verses for the chapter. The results will show all comments made on that verse, both primary comments made on that verse (if any) followed by secondary comments that refer to that verse, though commenting on a different verse (if any). At the time of writing this guide (Nov. 2010), of the 31102 verses in scripture, 4271 still have no comment made on them directly, but that does of course mean that the other 26831 verses have at least one comment, which is a pretty impressive spread. Contributors Christadelphians throughout the world are invited to apply to become contributors to the site and to contribute small comments similar to those already there as much as they wish. A separate comprehensive guide is available covering the extra aspects needed by contributors so that they can make sure that their contributions are fully indexed and show in all the right places on the site. There is a form on this page that you can use to apply. My Preferences As long as your computer allows first party cookies to be saved on it, the preferences you set here will be remembered each time you come back to the site on the same computer, unless you delete your cookies for some reason, or wait longer than 2 years before returning or someone else uses the same computer and changes the settings on it. The site preferences are specific to the computer user, not the individual who is viewing. You can also use this page to retrieve and set your Email Preferences, if you are on the email list. First you need to put in your email address which is on the list and the password. If you do not know your password, use the link at the bottom of the page to have it emailed to you. Anyone who was on the email list before the site changed towards the end of 2010 will find that they are set to Standard Layout ordered by date - oldest at the top and reference links in KJV. Also they will have been given a randomly generated unique password. Retrieve the password, as described above. You can then change it after logging in if you wish. Log in and your Email Preferences will be on the page below your site preferences. Here you can change the password, the version in which you want your references to appear when clicked, and the layout for your email. We are very sorry that Study Layout is not suitable for email. On the main site you can again choose the default version in which your links will appear when clicked, but on the site, unlike the email, you can change this version later, as many times as you like. There is an exciting new layout available on the site which we have called the Study Layout which we will discuss in more detail later. About this Site Information about the aims of the Daily Readings site Contact Us Please use our contact form for any general comment you may wish to make ask questions, make suggestions for further improvements, tell us what you think, anything you wish to say. The rest of this guide will deal with the main Comments pages which you get to by clicking the Comments for Today link from the Home Page or a date from a Month calendar display page.
Comments Pages The top menu items This an example taken at random and happens to be November 26th The Title Bar For each reading, in all layouts, this is then followed by the title bar for the reading. On this bar the version for Read it online at gospelcom.net will change with the versions bar in the top menu. You will read it in your chosen version. If you are a contributor and you wish to make a contribution for this reading and/or edit an existing one you made before, then you can use the Contribute button. The final button on the right is the Back to Top button if you wish to go and use a different shortcut. The Layout Below this will be the layout you have requested. The standard layouts are all more or less the same. If you choose any of the first 4 layouts on the top menu, you will get comments below each Readings Title Bar, just the ordering of them will be different. You can order by date with oldest at the top, by date with newest at the top, by verse (comments that are not verse-specific are displayed first and the rest in as near to verse order as the system can calculate), or by contributor, arranged alphabetically by surname. However, if you choose the fifth layout, which we have called our Study Layout you will have a host of new features, which we will now discuss. First, you will need to be willing to wait a length of time that is dependent on your internet connection speed for the page to calculate the primary and secondary comments that are available for each verse down the page. You will not be able to use the page until this progress bar disappears.
Once again, like the verse order layout, the non-verse specific comments (if any) for that chapter are displayed first, but this time these are followed by the actual text of the verses of the reading After clicking to open comments, the boxes can then be closed using the x in the top right hand corner Please note that some comments will span a number of verses and be repeated on each verse. Using Strong s Numbers Click a Strong s number to see its definition and to discover the final new feature: Note that this box can be closed either with the cross in the top right or by clicking anywhere on the blue
translucent background of the page. Notice that the Strong s number itself in the top left (in this case 325) is a link. Clicking this will display all of the verses from scripture with that number in them with the comments that the site has for those pages, with the particular Strong's number highlighted in red. Be aware that for a word with a large number of occurrences this can be a long process, as again you must wait while the page calculates the comments for each verse, so check the Total Occurrences value on this screen and assess whether you wish to do it! This screen then behaves just as described above. We hope that these new features will be a great aid to your Bible Study and that it helps to make your Daily Bible Reading a profitable and spiritual exercise. The Daily Readings Team.