What are the most important things we should solve for Logos 9?
Please specify desktop, mobile, and/or web, where appropriate.
What does your ideal Logos 9 upgrade look like? What would make Logos 9 an irresistible upgrade for you?
If different, what should we do to win the next generation of new users?
Please include links to forum threads, User Voice requests, etc. where applicable.
We've reviewed the User Voice feedback for desktop, mobile, and books, but I want to make sure that the priorities there are reflective of the current priorities of our forum community.
Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback!
Thanks for starting this thread, Phil! I'll probably add more details later, but in general I'd like to see most of the focus put into those areas that were considered/rumored/planned for L8, but didn't make the cut.
Workflows still need a lot of work before they're truly useful.
Notes need quite a bit of improvement/additions:
Search builder...
Context menu:
Bug fixes:
Diagnostic Logs
Thanks for asking!
Here would be my top 10 desired new features/improvements:
Thanks for listening.
Every blessing,
James
Phil Gons (Faithlife):what should we do to win the next generation of new users?
The younger purchasers have never been restricted to paper resources. They expect things to be available to them online in a complete, speedy, and intuitive manner. They have little patience for bugs and incomplete features. Make sure every feature is a complete, tidy, polished product.
Phil Gons (Faithlife):What are the most important things we should solve for Logos 9?
Links are a random sample going back at least 5 years of nagging and not all topics have had a search on the forums for a link ... maybe tomorrow.
In short, I want a package that feels finished for nearly all its functions - I don't like being reminded that I'm limited by decisions made in the DOS days, or that a cool idea was tried without serious thought as to how it is to be used, or that turned out to be a bigger project than expected so it sort of got dropped. With the exception of the LST, the most valuable recent additions to Logos have been in indexing and selection for guide sections. Make sure those always work at an optimum level.
For new features to highlight as "Logos 9's crown jewel":
One way to make sure Logos feels complete:
P.S. Uservoice has not reflected my priorities since the ability to redistribute votes was loss and I was told to take it up with UserVoice.
Orthodox Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."
Will it work on my windows 8.1 system?
Probably for general interest:
1. Better prioritization (user friendly GUI, resource type specific, etc., probably others have many more implementation ideas)
2. Folders for the shortcuts in the top bar
***
These are mostly mine, or for a small special user base
1. User specific fonts. For example for the Latin interlinear, I would like to have a clearly different font for the Latin text line.
2. Hebrew audio (for the beginning, only a small part of the OT is needed)
Gold package, and original language material and ancient text material, SIL and UBS books, discourse Hebrew OT and Greek NT. PC with Windows 8.1
In Notes
Sermon editor
Search
See this thread: https://community.logos.com/forums/t/186839.aspx
If you can’t pull this off, then any other request is pointless! It only means you’ll end up doing whatever you want anyway and you’re just asking this to “make believe” users they’re being taken into consideration when they’re really not.
Also add ability to put pictures in users notes.
Improve graphics. It’s been years EVERYBODY has been asking for this.
Improve drawing functionality.
And that’s it!
Thanks for the thread! At least one thing is within the realm of possibilities — L9 coming soon in the future.
DAL
My #1 (and only) priority is: Make it faster for users with enormous libraries (20,000+ resources; I have 25,474 unhidden ones) and lots of collections (I have 221). Everywhere that being such a power library owner slows down the product needs to be sped up or I cannot use the product. It is such a painful experience for me these days that I'm simply not using it much anymore, even though I continue to buy books in the hope that maybe someday it will become usable again. I even tried buying a new ultra fast computer, and it was still unusable. (See here.) I deleted most of my Visual Filters, since someone told me that might be what's slowing things down. No appreciable improvement.
Some of those areas that are painfully slow are:
How to Ask for Help | Logos Wiki | My Machine Specs | My Blog
Reuben Helmuth: Context menu: Move a labels into the info panel (and improve that).
If this is done, then the building of the search for the label has to also move - the ability to get a pre-built search argument for the label is critical.
Rosie Perera:Make it faster for users with enormous libraries (20,000+ resources; I have 25,474 unhidden ones) and lots of collections (I have 221). Everywhere that being such a power library owner slows down the product needs to be sped up or I cannot use the product.
I second everything Rosie said.
Phil Gons (Faithlife):What does your ideal Logos 9 upgrade look like? What would make Logos 9 an irresistible upgrade for you?
I appreciate that to sell upgrades to Logos 9 you need something new, but I don't think that's what Logos needs right now.
My focus would be on consolidating datasets and tools and improving existing features. Currently, there are so many diverse datasets it's hard to keep on top of them all, and most users don't benefit from them. There are also too many different ways to access the data: factbook, guides and workflows.
I'd favour an approach for beginning users where that would guide them through the process of choosing the right tool, something like this:
Logos would then switch to the right workflow/guide and tailor the output accordingly (removing or minimising certain sections depending on the depth of study and time available).
I'd also like to see significant upgrades to the Workflow tool, which is brilliant already but could be so much better. Reuben is the cheerleader for Workflows, and I'm with him 100%. Being able to specify collections for the Commentary section is one very easy win that would make a big difference.
Leader-->Follower Link Sets please!. Will stop Bible jumping around when using arrow keys to switch between commentaries.
Faithlife Feedback Boards | Logos 9 Commands
Mark Barnes:I appreciate that to sell upgrades to Logos 9 you need something new, but I don't think that's what Logos needs right now.
Agreed!
How about a Format Painter for Notes?
Be strong and courageous. . . for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.
There is no denying that L8 was a HUGE step up from L7 so L9 has some big boots to fill. I also recognise that you need something new to sell L9 on, but on the way please don't overlook the following.
First, I agree with everyone who has mentioned so far:
In addition, I would like to see the following things added to the list:
Where do I sign up to beta test?
Carpe verbum.
Phil Gons (Faithlife):What bugs should we fix?
All of them.
I can not understand why Faithlife doesn't put a higher priority on fixing bugs. If an "update" breaks something, it should be fixed ASAP. For an example of a feature that was broken sometime during an update, see: https://community.logos.com/forums/t/177426.aspx Here we are almost a year later and it is still broken. Why?
I truly can't understand why it is ok to ignore functions that don't work correctly and then wonder if they should be fixed.
Mark Barnes: I'd favour an approach for beginning users where that would guide them through the process of choosing the right tool, something like this: What do you want to study today? (you'd enter the topic, lemma, person, thing, event, etc.) Do you want all the information at once or a step-by-step study? (guide/factbook or workflow) Is this for a devotional study / essay / sermon? How much time do you have? Logos would then switch to the right workflow/guide and tailor the output accordingly (removing or minimising certain sections depending on the depth of study and time available).
Also, I agree with Mark on the need to help beginners come to terms with Logos. With so many features, the beginner struggles in making significant progress unless much time is invested climbing the steep learning curve. For power users, the interface is great. And help for beginners to become power users is really welcome.
Yet, for some basic users who don't in the slightest aspire to ever being power users, the feature-filled interface is simply a stumbling block. I know some people who have given up using Logos because it is simply far too complex for them. Many people just can't cope with that level of complexity in 'any' software. They opt for free Bible software alternatives, not because they are better in terms of the features that they offer, but because they feel more able to simply use them without being overwhelmed (in that sense they are better for some users). And they lose out on access to the many resources that Logos has available, which their free software doesn't.
Logos has two great advantages, one being amazing functionality for Bible study, the other being a great library of resources. The interface is great for Bible study, but that same interface is a hindrance for those who simply want to read (or view) resources without mastering the complex software.
Can I suggest that Logos 9 add a feature that other software products have, by providing different interfaces for different users. For example, other software products have Basic vs Expert (Express vs Advanced, or Reader vs Study) interfaces. That would allow some users to feel comfortable and competent using Logos with a basic interface having a very limited set of features, rather than them feeling overwhelmed and giving up. (There might even be an argument for an intermediate interface too). Recent improvements have made the complex interface somewhat easier to use, but it is still not simple enough for many people I would suggest.
Imagine if Logos were as easy to use to just read theology resources as Kindle is for general books...
1. A background process which would download and index new resources we purchase while Logos is not open. It would also be very helpful if it could handle Preparing library/Updating library catalog before Logos is launched, so we don't have to wait as long for housekeeping tasks to finish.
2. Improve the Notes UI, especially in my preferred 3-column view where controls get truncated, and the formatting ribbon wraps to four rows. (Even when the note is expanded to fill the whole panel, the ribbon still wraps to two rows.)
3. Add missing functionality to the Courses tool which has been on the list of things to do for several years. One example is user-created courses. Another is how the courses tool was possibly intended to be a replacement for reading lists and (customizing) reading plans.
4. Make it easier for a non-power user like me to remember which of the many tools and features might be helpful in learning more about a topic, such as Kabbalah. Some users might start off with the Factbook, while others might search their library for resources about the topic, or post on the forums asking for book recommendations. I tend to pop out of Logos to search the store, but there's probably a way to do that in-app. I often forget that someone might have created a reading list. It would be nice if there was a guide which could do this... wait... is there a topic guide? Why, yes there is! But the Kabbalah topic seems to be lacking. It gives me 3 dictionary links, and a Factbook link. Most of the sections have no results. The Bookstore section shows 8 books, but none of them are specifically about Kabbalah. (I get very different results when searching the store directly for that term.) There's no section for Reading lists, so I've got to open that tool, but a Kabbalah list doesn't exist yet. I've never created a reading list. That link brings me out of Logos to the wiki, where I see I have to learn some markup. I go back to reading a Kabbalah book (on Kindle because it's not available yet in Logos).
I'm still at a loss as to where topical content like that should go, especially since we don't have a roadmap of planned features or improvements. A user-created course? A reading list?
5. FL had posted about adding Theology/Denomination tagging to library resources (so users wouldn't have to wait for helpful third-party collections to be updated). Can this be done for Logos 9?
6. Please provide a Hebrew audio bible. It's frustrating that the NT has Greek audio, yet the OT is still lacking Hebrew audio.
7. Dark mode, please. It's gotten lots of user-suggested support, and we still get posts requesting it. It would really help with eye strain not to have to read such a bright screen in the evening or early morning.
8. Carta. It's frustrating that it's available in two other bible study apps, but not in Logos. I would love to have access to the wealth of information that is in their resources, all within Logos.
Thanks to FL for including Carta and a Hebrew audio bible in Logos 9!
One thing that I think would be good is the ability to make a visual filter off a syntatical search. For example: I'm learning Hebrew and a common construction is the Cognate Infinitive Absolute. I can easily make a syntax search to find those results, but it would be nice to be able to make that a Visual filter so I can see those results when reading an English translation. Also, it would be beneficial to be able to see visual filters on the mobile app.