I notice this question was asked years ago: Add Markdown and/or OneBox support for BibleGateway
I also notice that years later there is still no add reference feature.
I recognize that there would be complications with multiple translations and copyright restrictions, but I still think it would be extremely handy to have an "insert scripture reference" feature. The hurdle is deciding what the best way of going about accomplishing this would be.
Of course not everyone uses the same website to link their scripture references to, so the solution would not be as simple as picking one site to link to or cull verses from, but has anyone looked into how many sites have have usable api's that could be taken advantage of?
The question linked to above requires writing an api that can glean verses from Bible Gateway, but there are multiple options for linking back to verses on Bible Gateway (see fredsbend's answer below). Other sites, like lds.org for example, has a vey simple link structure that can link to specific verses in a chapter and highlight them. (example: www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/john/3.16-17,21#15 takes you to the King James version of John Ch. 3, but also highlights vs.16-17 & 18, as well as places vs.15 the top of the page so the focus is on the highlighted verses when the page loads.) LDS.org obviously isn't the solution, because they only support the KJV bible, but I like their simplicity and ease of linking back to highlighted verses, I'm not aware of many other bible sites that do this.
This is what I'm requesting:
A feature in preferences where you can turn on scripture referencing in the markdown for Questions and Answers, but you would have the freedom of choosing from a list of available sites, or adding api's to get scriptures from the site of your choice, as well as linking back to them in your preferences.
This would obviously only work for sites that have such api's but once one was set up it would be nice if it could be made available to everyone else. Adding api's for new sites for other people to take advantage of could be made a privilege that you have to unlock, but it would really be nice if you could add your own for personal use. When activated (and working) an option would appear in markdown that would allow you to quickly insert a reference/references, and automatically link them to the site of your choice (if you want them to be linked).
Thoughts?