Olive Tree Url Examples

Olive Tree Bible Software supports a custom URL scheme, olivetree://bible/, to open the app to specific passages. The URL format looks like this:

olivetree://bible/<book>.<chapter>.<verse>

Alternatively, you can put an encoded space (%20) between the book, chapter, and verse:

olivetree://bible/<book>%20<chapter>%20<verse>

Book names are case-insensitive. If there is a space in the book name, like 1 Corinthians or 3 John, you need to encode that space as %20.

Some example links:

• olivetree://bible/romans.8.28 or olivetree://bible/romans%208%2028 for Romans 8:28
• olivetree://bible/1%20corinthians.13.1 or olivetree://bible/1%20corinthians%2013%201 for 1 Corinthians 13:1

In version 5.9.12 of Olive Tree on iOS, we also added support for specifying the book as a number (1 for Genesis, 40 for Matthew, etc). Then John 3:16 would be olivetree://bible/43.3.16, which is shorter, neater, and avoids spelling issues. As of June 2015, almost 90% of our iOS users are on 5.9.12 or later.

Here's how you would write a hyperlink in HTML that would open Olive Tree on iOS:

<a href='olivetree://bible/43.3.16'>This opens John 3:16</a>

iOS

See the example project for a demonstration of how to open an Olive Tree app on iOS to a specific verse reference from another app. The relevant code is in tableView:didSelectRowAtIndexPath: in OTViewController. In summary:

NSString *reference @"2 Corinthians 3:18"; //example reference
NSString *urlBase = @"olivetree://bible/";
// The final URL will be olivetree://bible/2%20Corinthians%203.18

//Replace spaces with percent escape
reference = [reference stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@" " withString:@"%20"];

//Replace colon with period
reference = [reference stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@":" withString:@"."];

//Create the URL, check if it can be opened (i.e. if an Olive Tree app is available), and open it
NSString *strURL = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@%@", urlBase, reference];
if ([[UIApplication sharedApplication] canOpenURL:[NSURL URLWithString:strURL]])
    [[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:strURL]];