Plugin / AMD Bible Reading

Installation

1. Upload “amd-bible-reading” to the “/wp-content/plugins/” directory.
2. Activate the plugin through the “Plugins” menu in WordPress.
3. Select Your Reading Plan by navigating to AMD Settings and set the ‘Selected Plan’ option. This will set the reading plan for the [amd_bible_daily] shortcode and the widget
4. Set Standardize References Option by navigating to AMD Settings, and set your preference for the ‘Standardize CX References’ option. Leaving this option checked will force Complex References to become formatted before displaying on the front-end using the [amd_bible_daily] shortcode or widget.
5. Create a Bible Reading Page by editing or creating a new page and enter the [amd_bible_daily] shortcode into the content and publish the page. There are 14 attributes that can be used to control how the passage is displayed. The defaults vary depending on the inline attribute. Please refer to FAQ for more information.
6. Add the Daily Bible Snippet Widget to your selected sidebar. There are 8 options for the Widget.
   1. Select the Reading Plan to use for the widget instance.
   2. Scripture starts with Reference inline? When this option is checked, the scripture will begin with the reference. This is helpful if using a custom widget title.
   3. Use Reference for Title? When this option is checked, The title will default to the Reference for the daily scripture passage(s).
   4. Title: this input will be used as the title given that the reference is not used by the previous option.
   5. Limit Type: this will define how the passage is limited. The options are ‘words’ or ‘verses’. If the limit type is set to words, the last verse will most likely be interrupted, but the content will be more of a standard length.
   6. Limit: using the limit type in the previous option this option defines how many items to display.
   7. Full Reading Page: select the page created in the previous setup step. This will show the full daily Bible reading utilizing the [amd_bible_daily] shortcode.
   8. Read More Text: this input controls what text is displayed on the page linked to in the previous setting. make sure to save your settings.

Displaying the Daily Devotional Morning/Evening

I have found Charles Spurgeon Devotionals to be very encouraging and uplifting and have decided to include them in this plugin by utilizing another shortcode [amd_bible_devo]. The steps to adding this into your content are very simple and can be done on any post or page. Simply add the [amd_bible_devo] shortcode into your content at the desired location. At this time there is no option to display a different devotion than the one that is current for the specific time of day and date.

Displaying a random verse

Random verses can now be displayed using the new shortcode [amd_bible_rand]. There are four main attributes that can be utilized to determine where the random verse is selected from:
* ot – (boolean) when setting to true this will show verses from the old testament only
* nt – (boolean) when setting to true this will show verses from the new testament only
* book – (numeric or string: book name, or book abbreviation) when set verses will originate from selected *book
* chapter – (numeric) when setting along with book attribute, this will determine from which chapter the verses will originate
* most_read – (boolean) when setting to true this will show verses from a list of the top read 100 Bible verses from a study conducted by biblegateway.com
* essential – (boolean) when setting to true this will show verses from a list of Bible verses essential to the Christian life. These verses cover the following topics: Victorious Life, Romans Road, Assurance, Baptism, Believe in Christ, Bible, Biblical Inspiration, Christ’s Sacrifice, Dedication, Friendship, Forgiveness of Sins, Guidance, Hell, Home, Law, Local Church, One Way of Salvation, Others, Peace, Principles, Problem Solving, Procrastination, Salvation without Works, Second Coming, Victory over Satan, Witnessing

Displaying Passages directly using shortcodes with complex references

Bible verses and passages can now be displayed anywhere shortcodes are accepted using the shortcode [amd_bible]Your Reference[/amd_bible]. Replace ‘Your Reference’ with any simple or complex Bible Reference. There are eight attributes that can be used to control how the passage is displayed. The defaults vary depending on the inline attribute. Please refer to FAQ for more information.

Local hosting your Libraries

Decide to use either the default API or import and use local database library. On the AMD Settings page, you will see two settings: Use local Bible database and Use local devotional database. Before activating these check-boxes, you will first need to import the library data using the AMD Library admin page.

1. Navigate to AMD Library and download the CSV files using the two download links.
2. For the KJV Bible, choose your downloaded amdbible_kjv.csv file
3. Click the Import Bible button.
4. For the Devotional, choose your downloaded amdbible_devos.csv file
5. Click the Import Devo button.
6. Navigate to AMD Settings and check the box for ‘Use local Bible database’ and ‘Use local devotional database’

Editing Reading Plans

Complex and Custom Reading Plans are Here! It is now possible to edit existing Bible Reading Plans and even add new plans. Navigate to AMD Settings -> Plan Editor, and either create a new plan or choose an existing plan to edit. New plans cannot have the same names as existing plans. After creating the plan please add the plan details before selecting the plan in AMD Settings as the chosen plan. This will prevent your widget and shortcodes from displaying no passages. Plans can either use complex references or simple references (leaving complex references unchecked). With simple references there will be two input fields for each date, starting reference and ending reference. Only simple, single verse references can be used in this format. To easily indicate the end of the chapter verse ‘999’ can be used, for instance, ‘Genesis 4:999’ will show up to all of the verses in chapter 4 of Genesis. Book abbreviations can be used such as “Gen” for Genesis. With complex references, you have an additional option to upload a CSV file to easily and quickly insert your custom reading plan from your favorite source. CSV files must be comma delimited with no headers and column 1 being the day of the year and column 2 being the corresponding complex reference. Complex references can consist of varying diversities.

Be sure to Save Changes before navigating away from the plan editor page or your changes will be lost. CAUTION! changing a plan from a simple to complex or vice versa and saving valid data will erase the alternate settings. You could easily erase an entire plan this way.

Restoring All Data to original

In order to restore all data to the original installation, you will need to delete the plugin and all associated data and reinstall. To do this before uninstalling or deactivating the plugin, you will need to check the “Delete Database Data” option. This will erase any custom reading plans you may have created.