We have received quite a few questions about Hebrew support for BlackBerry devices so here is a new development. The developers at ZigZagWorld.com have provided a free solution for viewing Hebrew (and Yiddish) texts on your BlackBerry called Hebrew In Hand. This application includes support for fully pointed Hebrew, including vowels (nekudot) and cantillation marks (te’amim). No Hebrew fonts or other Hebrew support are needed on the BlackBerry. So far this seems to be more of a proof of concept. The integration with your BlackBerry device is minimal but it does work.
They seem to have ported this J2ME application to work on BlackBerry devices but as of now there is not much functionality available. Currently there are only 5 texts available for download and you cannot add texts yourself. You can check out the available texts here as they claim to update them soon. They have notified us that they have a full set of the Haftarot (Weekly readings from the Prophets in the Bible) is in the works. The way the application works is that you first download the reader and then you can download each of the texts by entering in the text code. Keep in mind that the application is pretty primitive as of now. You have no control over font size (which is quite small) and the keys for navigating the program are a bit weird. The menu button does not work when your reading a text and you have to click in on the trackball to get any sort of menu. I downloaded some of the sample texts and they ran quite slow on our test 8800 and 8300 devices. Scrolling through the texts is also a bit jumpy and could use some work. There were quite a few bugs in the program and I even had to reboot once to exit the program. All in all I think this application has some future and we will definitely be keeping an eye on its development. Hopefully in the future they will allow for user submitted texts. Though it may not be ready for prime time yet you can give it a whirl by downloading it OTA at this link.
Marsha Hopp Not Registered
Posted: July 19, 2007 at 11:56 AM EST
Thank you for reviewing our software so quickly!
You are correct that this is an early version of Hebrew in Hand, designed with cell phones in mind, and that it does not make use of the specific user interface features for the BlackBerry. Improvements in this area are on our “to do” list. We are also planning for the other user interface improvements, such as different font sizes and styles, scrollling/paging, bookmarks, search, etc.
Currently though, we are continuing to improve the core text display capabilities — both in terms of efficiency of the implementaion and correctness of the rendering. And, of course, expanding the collection of available texts.
We would appreciate knowing more specifics about the bugs you encountered. Please feel free to write to us directly.
Jay Not Registered
Posted: February 24, 2008 at 8:33 PM EST
Hi, I download the hebrew on hand but when I download text and try to open in the 8830 it wont open? anyadvice
Thanks so much
Marsha Hopp Not Registered
Posted: February 24, 2008 at 9:48 PM EST
Can you tell me what text you were downloading, and if there were any error messages? Were you able to view the Welcome text?
Thanks for letting us know about this.
You can also write to us directly through our website at
http://www.zigzagworld.com/hebrewinhand/writeus.html
Ronen Halevy ( View Profile) Senior admin - Posts: 5298
Posted: February 24, 2008 at 10:27 PM EST
Thanks for handling that Marsha. I like the coverage of all the Purim texts. Very useful. Any chance you will be updating the interface?
Jay Not Registered
Posted: February 25, 2008 at 8:02 AM EST
Hi, Yes I do see the welcome and when I tried to get the text it did show up on the list but when it loaded the screen was all white=blank and kind of froze. When I shut the phone and then turned it back on. I got a message uncaught exception:
Aplication Hebrewinhand (275) is not responding; process terminated
The things I tried to download are stil on the list but when I try to open them it happens,
I have the welcome plus shema and Yiddish Shema-Excerpt
Marsha Hopp Not Registered
Posted: February 25, 2008 at 11:06 AM EST
Jay — Thanks for the additional information. This sounds like a problem that we are aware of, related to the length of the text to be displayed. We do not yet know exactly what is happening, but larger texts can sometimes cause the program to freeze. (The sizes of all the available texts are listed at
http://www.zigzagworld.com/hebrewinhand/texts.html)
We are working on this.
Ronen — We are working on the user interface, including a Hebrew font with a more traditional appearance and a convenient way to handle much longer texts (e.g. mincha). I do not yet have an expected date for when the improved version will be available. Will keep you posted.
jay Not Registered
Posted: February 25, 2008 at 5:01 PM EST from my BlackBerry 8830
Hi r there any files that u suggest I try
Marsha Hopp Not Registered
Posted: February 25, 2008 at 6:00 PM EST
Jay — We have found that files under 8K (8,182 bytes) tend to not have this problem.
Ronen Halevy ( View Profile) Senior admin - Posts: 5298
Posted: February 28, 2008 at 10:40 PM EST
Marsha,
Let me know about the new interface. I really wish you could store text on the BlackBerry memory card. Also the speed on a BlackBerry is pretty slow.
Marsha Hopp Not Registered
Posted: February 29, 2008 at 10:49 AM EST
Ronen–I will keep you up to date as we go. Thanks for the suggestion about the memory card; we will certainly take a look at that for a future version. Regarding slowness: as we rewrite the user interface, we will also be looking at ways of improving that.
David Not Registered
Posted: September 8, 2008 at 11:43 AM EST
to get hebrew font on your BB open the following link and download the file.
http://cheservices.com/blackberry/hebrew.jad
Ronen Halevy ( View Profile) Senior admin - Posts: 5298
Posted: September 8, 2008 at 12:35 PM EST
What device does that work with David?
Leo Not Registered
Posted: January 27, 2009 at 12:28 PM EST
Hi,
I have just downloaded the application and it is working fine. However, whenever I try to download the texts on my blackberry (curve 8320), I get the following error message: “Download failed: Tunnel failed”
Could someone please tell me what the problem is and how i can actually get the texts?
Thank you very much!
Leo
Marsha Hopp Not Registered
Posted: January 27, 2009 at 1:27 PM EST
Leo,
The first thing to check is the APN settings on your BlackBerry. (Your APN settings can be viewed by
going to Options > Advanced and then finding TCP.) The APN settings permit application software to communicate with the Internet.
APN settings are different for each carrier. This web page:
http://www.pinstack.com/carrier_settings_apn_gateway.html
has most of the common settings.
It is a bit hard to read — but, for example, if you were in the US and using T-mobile, your settings would be:
APN: wap.voicestream.com
username: [blank]
password: [blank]
If you need help figuring out which setting to use, let me know which carrier you use, and I’ll get back to you. Once you have completed the APN settings, try Hebrew in Hand again, and let me know how it goes.
Best regards,
Marsha Hopp
marsha@zigzagworld.com
Hebrew in Hand, for your mobile device
http://www.hebrewinhand.com/
Leo Not Registered
Posted: January 27, 2009 at 3:12 PM EST
Hi Marsha!
Thank you very much for your guidance.
I found my carrier (Rogers, Canada) and adjusted the settings. However, now I am getting a different error message: “Download failed: Connection not writeable”.
Do you know how this can be solved?
Thank you very much once again!
Leo
Marsha Hopp Not Registered
Posted: January 27, 2009 at 3:48 PM EST
Leo,
We haven’t seen this particular error before, so I’d like to find out what version of the BlackBerry Device Software is installed on your 8320. To determine the version of the device software, select
Options > About.
Thanks,
Marsha Hopp
marsha@zigzagworld.com
Hebrew in Hand, for your mobile device
http://www.hebrewinhand.com/
Leo Not Registered
Posted: January 27, 2009 at 3:51 PM EST
Hi Marsha,
It is 4.5.0.81
Thank you for your help!
Leo
Marsha Hopp Not Registered
Posted: January 27, 2009 at 7:43 PM EST
Leo,
We have created a test version of Hebrew in Hand which might fix the “Connection not writeable” error. You can download it OTA from
http://www.hebrewinhand.com/test/
You do not need to remove the current version, but you will likely need to reboot your device. Please let us know what happens when you try it out. Thanks for your interest in this!
Marsha Hopp
marsha@zigzagworld.com
Hebrew in Hand, for your mobile device
http://www.hebrewinhand.com/
Marsha Hopp Not Registered
Posted: January 28, 2009 at 10:30 AM EST
Leo,
I realized I should have asked this at the beginning, but when you first downloaded Hebrew in Hand, did you download the J2ME version (Hebrew in Hand 1.10, plain alef icon) or the Hebrew in Hand 2.0 Beta for BlackBerry (3-D style, square alef button)?
Thanks,
Marsha Hopp
marsha@zigzagworld.com
Hebrew in Hand, for your mobile device
http://www.hebrewinhand.com/
Leo Not Registered
Posted: January 28, 2009 at 10:40 AM EST
Hi Marsha,
I installed the Beta version (3-D style Alef) and it worked perfectly – thank you so much for your help, I appreciate it!
Leo