Disappointed - Timeline

Hi. I took the plunge and decided to try Logos 5 Minimum Crossover. I immediately found myself very disappointed with the timeline because:

1) It showed entries I strongly belive are non-Biblical

2) There seemed to be no way to hide these entries that are non-Biblical

3) There seemed to be no way to add entries (for example to replace the one's that are non-Biblical).

Is is possible to override these dates? For example, I was looking at the timeline using the filter "Daniel". Despite the hogwash that has been spread through the years, Daniel was written primarily by Daniel (some by Nebuchadnezzar) and therefore would not have been written in the timeframe specified by some of the timeline entires.

How do I fix this? It steams me enough I'm ready to return Logos 5 and go back to Logos 4.

Thank you.

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Comments

DMB

Hi Heyedid

(1) Probably most of the entries are 'non-Biblical', meaning that they describe surrounding events. So you're probably correct.

(2) You 'hide' the non-Biblical by clicking on the 'Biblical' in the upper-right. The view may go 'blank' until you move the view around.

(3) Logos4 and 5 timelines are not addable/changable/creatable as they were in Libronix.

I'm not sure why you're so frustrated (compared to Logos4). Logos5 still has the Logos4 timelines (look in your library) plus a WHOLE lot more (the original language tool additions).

I agree the timelines need 'versioning' instead of a 'tossed salad' of various assumptions throughout with no user control and limited labeling.

Mark Smith

Unfortunately the information is taken from books in Logos, mostly those on your computer (if not all, I don't recall). We have no control over those so no control over the dating that shows up. On my Timelines I sometimes have multiple dates for the same event reflecting varying points of view. I find it helpful to know what others are thinking even if I disagree, so I suppose my overall feeling about dates I consider to be incorrect is different from yours.

Regardless, I'd hate to see you judge Logos 5 on the basis of a single tool.

Hayedid

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/440547#Comment_440547

DMB, by non-BIblical events, I don't mean events unrelated to the Bible, I mean that the timing of the event is inconsistent with Scripture (as illustrated by the example above regarding Daniel).

Mark, are you with logos? I don't think the information is taken from books in Logos, is it. I think they defined events and put dates to them and linked the dates to books in Logos. This would be altogether different.

If the tool is inconsistent with Scripture, I consider it pretty much worthless.

Mark Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/440554#Comment_440554

No I am a user just like you. The dates are drawn from various resources. If you click on one of the events as I have done in the screen capture below, it will bring up a list of references to that event in your resources.

Hayedid

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/440559#Comment_440559

I could be wrong, but I think you are misunderstanding what that list is. I think the dates and events are hardcoded and the books shown in the list are references from your library to that date. For example, for many of my dates, there are no books shown at all... just the date and the event.

For example, if I filter by Daniel, I see "James Montgomery and Daniel 1806-1812" if I click on it, "James Montgomery and Daniel 1806-1812" is listed in the popup again with no books listed.

DBM, yes, that is one frustration with Logos. They take great ideas (such as a timeline, and a library) and they just throw it out there without a lot of polishing (ie. poor library management in Logos 4, no timeline editing in Logos 5 with a hodge podge of dates.

Mark Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/440576#Comment_440576

There seem to be what you call hard-coded dates, but in my case they are few in number compared to those that originate from resources in my library. I am not even sure about them being hard-coded or just not having functioning links (which would be a data problem).

I am sympathetic to the somewhat random appearance of the Timeline. Some good suggestions have been made to improve how they look and work. You might have some others.

I think the point is that no one is trying to impose dating upon you or anyone else. You are interesting in imposing what you believe are correct dates in your version of the Timeline. That isn't possible and probably will not be added, but you could suggest it. For the purpose you want the current Timeline function is of no value to you. (I wonder whose Timeline would be completely to your liking? Is there one you know of? If not, what you seem to want is a tool to build your own Timeline which is available in L3 but not L4 or L5.)

As I said, I hope you will not judge L5 by that feature alone.

Bradley Grainger (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/440576#Comment_440576

I could be wrong, but I think you are misunderstanding what that list is. I think the dates and events are hardcoded and the books shown in the list are references from your library to that date. For example, for many of my dates, there are no books shown at all... just the date and the event.

The events on the timeline are ultimately sourced from resources in the Logos library (not just your library, but all Logos books). We perform some cleanup, give the events a short name, unify events that are the same, etc., but ultimately we're not making an editorial choice about what is and isn't an event. (If an event doesn't appear in the timeline, it's probably just because we haven't processed a book that defines that event, or because our automatic text extraction algorithm missed it. Errors and omissions can be reported in this forum, or sent to data@logos.com.)

One UI problem in the timeline right now is that the popup for an event only shows links to unlocked resources. If the only links for an event are to locked resources, it doesn't show anything. We plan to improve this in a future version of the software, to help you understand where the events are coming from.

For example, if I filter by Daniel, I see "James Montgomery and Daniel 1806-1812" if I click on it, "James Montgomery and Daniel 1806-1812" is listed in the popup again with no books listed.

The actual event is "1806–1812 James Montgomery and Daniel Parken maintain friendship". This event is sourced from the Logos library:

Mark Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/440616#Comment_440616

One UI problem in the timeline right now is that the popup for an event only shows links to unlocked resources. If the only links for an event are to locked resources, it doesn't show anything. We plan to improve this in a future version of the software, to help you understand where the events are coming from.

Good to know and thumbs up on improving the info.

Simon’s Brother

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/440554#Comment_440554

A lot of events in the scriptures, including when they were written, we are not provided any date. So tools like the timeline are simply giving us access to the wide scope of scholarship on when these things took place. I totally agree with you Hayedid that some of this scholarship is inconsistent with my belief about scriptures when we talk about when or why it was written. But at the same time I don't want Logos to act as a censor on the scholarship. It would be impossible for them to do this in a way to please everybody. If I were undertaking a research degree I would also want access to all of the information, not just what fits my preference.

Hayedid

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/440759#Comment_440759

I agree that I don't want Logos to act on sensorship (since they publish full Mormon and Islamic libraries [community pricing]).... who knows what would result; however, it seems that modifying your own timeline is such a basic tool and a definate necessity to make the timeline useful. Jumping back to my search on Daniel

You can see the various opinions represented.

Logos, please consider this: In teaching a class on Daniel, a person may do a lot of initial research, pin down the reasonable dates and information. Several weeks later while teaching on Daniel 8, if a question arose about timing, one would want to see the dates previously figured out.... not the broad spectrum of dates composed by everyone who had a theory [many of which are not based upon Scriptural evidence].

Based upon the way the tool works and the comments above it looks like the timeline was developed this way:

Dates & general event descriptions are put in a database
Several books were linked to these dates

When viewing the timeline, the events in #1 appear with a list of any unlocked links from #2. This is a logical way of doing it, but I kindly request a few fixes:

* Users should be able to modify the events in #1 to add to them or hide them. Every time I research Daniel's timeline, for example, I don't want to see the entries about Daniel being written in 1-3BC as the New Testament clearly authenticates Daniel as the author.

* Depending on what you click at the top corner All / Biblical, there seems to be a bug. At times the whole timeline goes blank and I can click on All and Biblical to my hearts content and the timeline will stay blank. I've resolve this by exiting it and starting it again.

* The intro to Logos 5 video says Isaiah 6:1 starts out with "In the year that King Uziaha died..." and that there are links to the timeline to that event. Where? I purchased Minimum Crossupgrade.... I see no links in there from the Bible to the Timeline. Perhaps Logos linked to a particular Bible translation? If so, why not allow the other Bible translations (NKJV, NAS, etc)... to show these timeline links at the beginning of a verse? Scripture is key in Bible Study. Things such as timeline links, notes, highlighting, tagging, etc... should be common / shared among all Bible Translations.

* If you do change the links to something other than Unlocked resources, please make this an option. I would prefer to have an an empty dropdown list than to have references to a bunch of books I don't have.

Thank you.

Simon’s Brother

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/440796#Comment_440796

it seems that modifying your own timeline is such a basic tool and a definate necessity to make the timeline useful.

Logos, please consider this: In teaching a class on

....

Yes I totally agree from a presentation point of view we need to customized this sort of information to be relevant to the needs of the audience...not all academic scholarship needs to presented to all audiences. Not sure the way you are wanting to do this within Logos those is the way to do it, or that Logos would want to support it that way. It opens up a whole new can of worms and customizing data sets by users is one thing I don't think they will be to ready to embrace any time in the near future.

At this point this raises the question should Logos be more than a research/study tool or should it also be a tool to assist in preparation of presentation of material. Or is this outside the scope of Logos and should be handle in Word, Screen Grab and Picture Editing tools like Snag it, etc.

Simon’s Brother

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/440796#Comment_440796

The intro to Logos 5 video says Isaiah 6:1 starts out with "In the year that King Uziaha died..." and that there are links to the timeline to that event. Where? I purchased Minimum Crossupgrade.... I see no links in there from the Bible to the Timeline.

I have a much larger package and can see no link from bible to timeline. Timeline events does not show up in the drop down list of visual filters for ESV like it does in say ISBE. To get to it I have to right click on Uzziah in bible text, choose selection and under my list of prioritized resources choose a bible dictionary e.g. ISBE, go to that article and then look for the information to get the link to the timeline. Workflow should be a timeline event flag in bible next to work year that takes me to timeline and the event, from here I can then choose any of the link dictionaries that are attached to this event. The existing method is hit and miss as I must hope the article I choose has the timeline information encoded. If I could go straight from bible to timeline, I'd be getting direct access to the resources that do have the information I was looking to retrieve.

Hayedid

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/440875#Comment_440875

Andrew,

Hi. I'm not really talking about Logos being a presentation tool. I'm just talking about it being able to filter the results. In programming, this would be very easy. Consider the following as a simple database

index   datetime     description
1            2BC        some event description
2           15AD      some erroneous event description that is not supported by Scripture
3           5BC        some other event description

Now a simple user database could have entries such as:

Rejected Timeline Entries
2

And then the Logos, when querying the data would do:
select * from TimeLine Database WHERE entries NOT IN (rejected timeline entries)

and then for dropdown links.... something like:
SELECT book entries where book.date = timeline.date OR book.date is within timeline.daterange

Logos may do it a bit differently than that, but Logos does something similar all the time with the searches, filters, etc.... Such foundational capabilities for the timeline should be pretty simple and easy to implement.

Thank you for the clarification. It seems that the timeline was definately not fully implemented as it could be. This seems to happen a lot with new logos features. It's nice to know it's not just because I have a small set of books.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/440958#Comment_440958

Such foundational capabilities for the timeline should be pretty simple and easy to implement.

The two difficulties I would see:

I'd like to be able to offer alternative clause analysis, morphology, deixis, and speaker flags ... and would argue that they are higher in priority than the timeline because they directly effect the text.
A number of people are rooting for improved notes, a fuzzy search, a graphic search, references in the Bible Sense Lexicon, outline comparison .... all of which some are more important that ignoring an entry that you disagree with.

To see if there is sufficient interest to give the reject timeline entry function priority, add it to uservoice and make a post directing people to your uservoice item.

Simon’s Brother

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/440958#Comment_440958

I get what you are saying but this is leading into the idea of preparing data for presentation. And it comes down to customizing the data sets, which they would see as a support nightmare. They don't allow us to customize much simpler things in the software.

I am not disagreeing with you just saying based on current Logos policy I can't see this happening.

edit: I have worked with both oracle and SQL server and studied relational databases at Univeristy so totally understand the how of your suggestion.

A further issue beyond the how would be what happens to timeline flags in resources for events on the timeline if you have filtered them out?

Patrick S.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/440616#Comment_440616

I did not read through this posting earlier, but just did so today and have some concerns.

The events on the timeline are ultimately sourced from resources in the Logos library (not just your library, but all Logos books).

All books... can we define 'all books'? Surely we are aware of the reality of the tension between 'sacred and profane', which obviously includes books. I read this and start to get a little concerned. So Logos is going to start populating this with dates from all sorts of non-Christian books, even books antithetical to (mainstream) Christianity. Are we going to see dates from the 'prophet' Joseph Smith (e.g. the tribe of whatever coming to America) what about the so-called 'prophet' Mohammed? Are dates from these going to be put into the timeline simply because there are dates in books about them in the Logos library?

but ultimately we're not making an editorial choice about what is and isn't an event.

Now I start to get really worried. In my opinion there has to be some sort of editorial discernment and discrimination. What if there was a book in the Logos library with the title 'Horrendous Heresies and Salacious Sects' written to disprove and counter said errors. What if that book was full of dates related to junk spewed out by these heresies and sects — are they going to go into the timeline? How will they be presented — as real dates??

The Catholic church has a function for 'vetting' books — Imprimatur which means 'let it be printed' — perhaps something similar should be exercised here.

The actual event is "1806–1812 James Montgomery and Daniel Parken maintain friendship". This event is sourced from the Logos library:

I'm sorry but... huh?!? Who the heck are these guys and what do they have to do with a tool in a Biblical scholarly resource platform? Can we expect Christian romance novels from Vyrso http://vyrso.com/product/24568/her-good-name next? That title looks like it has dates in it.

NetworkGeek

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441654#Comment_441654

Now I start to get really worried. In my opinion there has to be some sort of editorial discernment and discrimination.

Maybe there is a different vision of Logos than you have - this is a library not a magisterium. If you are worried about interpretations that you disagree with or are "too far" from what you or anyone disagrees with, as related to the time line, couldn't the same be said for Scripture interpretations, commentaries, devotionals, dictionaries, manuscripts, encyclopedias, magazines, and more?

That's why it's a library not a single authority - even a Catholic scholar wants to have access to ALL what has been written on the subject. I suspect many people here feel the same, I know I do.

Simon’s Brother

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441659#Comment_441659

Now I start to get really worried. In my opinion there has to be some sort of editorial discernment and discrimination.

Maybe there is a different vision of Logos than you have - this is a library not a magisterium. If you are worried about interpretations that you disagree with or are "too far" from what you or anyone disagrees with, as related to the time line, couldn't the same be said for Scripture interpretations, commentaries, devotionals, dictionaries, manuscripts, encyclopedias, magazines, and more?

That's why it's a library not a single authority - even a Catholic scholar wants to have access to ALL what has been written on the subject. I suspect many people here feel the same, I know I do.

My personal philosophy and approach to the timeline tool in Logos:

Scripture alone is my rule.

The timeline is just a tool.

My library's looking glass.

It's dates aren't all the same class.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441654#Comment_441654

Deleted by author

tom

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441659#Comment_441659

Maybe there is a different vision of Logos than you have - this is a library not a magisterium. If you are worried about interpretations that you disagree with or are "too far" from what you or anyone disagrees with, as related to the time line, couldn't the same be said for Scripture interpretations, commentaries, devotionals, dictionaries, manuscripts, encyclopedias, magazines, and more?

That's why it's a library not a single authority - even a Catholic scholar wants to have access to ALL what has been written on the subject. I suspect many people here feel the same, I know I do.

[Y]

Patrick S.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441659#Comment_441659

Now I start to get really worried. In my opinion there has to be some sort of editorial discernment and discrimination.

Maybe there is a different vision of Logos than you have - this is a library not a magisterium. If you are worried about interpretations that you disagree with or are "too far" from what you or anyone disagrees with, as related to the time line, couldn't the same be said for Scripture interpretations, commentaries, devotionals, dictionaries, manuscripts, encyclopedias, magazines, and more?

That's why it's a library not a single authority - even a Catholic scholar wants to have access to ALL what has been written on the subject. I suspect many people here feel the same, I know I do.

I believe you are extrapolating past what I was saying, putting words in my mouth I did not say, and missing my key point. I am not talking about interpretations as to theology e.g. is Transubstantiation true, or does one (mainline) denomination hold all Christian truth — no, not at all.

I am talking about Logos exercising some 'editorial judgement' as to which books are considered with respect to pulling dates from them to populate the timeline. Currently (as I read it) they have some (and I quote) "automatic [...] algorithm" pulling dates from books, and the source of books are "resources in the Logos library (not just your library, but all Logos books)" and they are "not making an editorial choice". Put together that seems to me to be a recipe for diluted value.

Re: your "this is a library", well, there are libraries, and there are libraries, and then there are.... libraries. What I bought into with Logos, was advertised as, and I believe should be, a (mainstream) Christian, scholarly library.

That means:

Christian = well it isn't espousing Islam, or Hinduism or any other faith. And it makes the statement that Christianity in the person of Jesus is the one and only way to be saved (restored to relationship with God). If it talks about other religions it does so in comparative religion texts, written by Christians, pointing out (dare I say it in these post-modern times) their errors. This does not mean that we should be taking an arrogant, lord it over you, approach to other religions. I believe we have a clear role model from the founder of our faith with respect to humbleness. But we still hold that Jesus is the one and only way.

Scholarly = well this could be open to interpretation, but as a famous lawyer once said "I know it when I see it", and this....

ain't scholarly. This is a Vyrso title. The reason I stopped buying from Vyrso (Bob you listening?) was because — automatically — all Vyrso titles were added to my Logos (scholarly) library. Which just seems silly to me. I have a paper (scholarly) Christian library at home, I wouldn't put titles like the above in that library. That's not saying the title is intrinsically bad, no, just inappropriate for a scholarly Christian library.

And inappropriate is the word I would use for Logos just stuffing the timeline with dates from every book in the Logos library that has dates in it, just for the sake of padding out the timeline — if that is, in fact, what they are doing. Also, given that they say that they use books from user's libraries and that we now have wonderful (cough) 'social' features in Logos does that mean I am going to see in my biblical, Christian, scholarly Logos timeline dates from books in other Logos users' libraries?? Saints preserve us!

Patrick S.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441675#Comment_441675

Maybe there is a different vision of Logos than you have - this is a library not a magisterium. If you are worried about interpretations that you disagree with or are "too far" from what you or anyone disagrees with, as related to the time line, couldn't the same be said for Scripture interpretations, commentaries, devotionals, dictionaries, manuscripts, encyclopedias, magazines, and more?

That's why it's a library not a single authority - even a Catholic scholar wants to have access to ALL what has been written on the subject. I suspect many people here feel the same, I know I do.

Nice - just a shame though that Dominick didn't actually address what I said and put words in my mouth that I didn't say. You should perhaps consider that before 'approving' what someone says.

tom

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441770#Comment_441770

Maybe there is a different vision of Logos than you have - this is a library not a magisterium. If you are worried about interpretations that you disagree with or are "too far" from what you or anyone disagrees with, as related to the time line, couldn't the same be said for Scripture interpretations, commentaries, devotionals, dictionaries, manuscripts, encyclopedias, magazines, and more?

That's why it's a library not a single authority - even a Catholic scholar wants to have access to ALL what has been written on the subject. I suspect many people here feel the same, I know I do.

Nice - just a shame though that Dominick didn't actually address what I said and put words in my mouth that I didn't say. You should perhaps consider that before 'approving' what someone says.

You might think Dominick and/or my thought(s) was/were shame thought(s), but I agree completely with Dominick said.

I am not sure how Dominick put words in your mouth because you said:

So Logos is going to start populating this with dates from all sorts of non-Christian books, even books antithetical to (mainstream) Christianity. Are we going to see dates from the 'prophet' Joseph Smith (e.g. the tribe of whatever coming to America) what about the so-called 'prophet' Mohammed? Are dates from these going to be put into the timeline simply because there are dates in books about them in the Logos library?

and

Now I start to get really worried. In my opinion there has to be some sort of editorial discernment and discrimination. What if there was a book in the Logos library with the title 'Horrendous Heresies and Salacious Sects' written to disprove and counter said errors. What if that book was full of dates related to junk spewed out by these heresies and sects — are they going to go into the timeline? How will they be presented — as real dates??

and

The Catholic church has a function for 'vetting' books — Imprimatur which means 'let it be printed' — perhaps something similar should be exercised here.

I want every date in the timeline. I do not want any censorship (vetting/ or 'editorial discernment and discrimination') of the information.

Patrick S.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441784#Comment_441784

I do not want any censorship (venting/ or 'editorial discernment and discrimination') of the information.

And I could say that he, and then you, have completely missed the principle of what I was saying and instead have latched onto the statement of "Catholic church has a function for 'vetting' books — Imprimatur" and like Paul Revere you are both on your horses yelling "the catholics are coming, the catholics are coming" — I'm not Catholic BTW. The principle of what I was saying is that Logos should a) not just use some computer algorithm to blindly pull out dates and b) they should not just blindly pull dates from every single book in the Logos library. There should be some thinking behind it, some logic, some discernment.

I then gave some examples.

They've already got what I consider to be junk in there — where will it end?

I want every date in the timeline.

Be careful of what you wish for.

Also if you want every unconsidered, unrelated and unmeaningful date in the timeline then I want Logos not to do so until they provide some way to filter out that unconsidered, unrelated and unmeaningful data.

p.s. and it's "vetting" not "venting", you used the wrong word when you quoted me. 'Vetting' is what should be done judiciously by Logos, 'venting' is what I am doing now.

BKMitchell

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441769#Comment_441769

Hello Patrick,

inappropriate is the word I would use for Logos just stuffing the timeline with dates from every book in the Logos library that has dates in it, just for the sake of padding out the timeline — if that is, in fact, what they are doing.

You bring up some interesting points and valid concerns. I haven't played with the timeline much in Logos, but I also hope that each user can have the ability to configure it for his/her personal use.

a (mainstream) Christian, scholarly library

I am not sure how you go about defining mainstream Christian, but I would think a mainstream library(of any sort) should as a matter of principle differ from a Scholarly one.

The German Bible Society Student Edition, is a library or collection of resources that I consider to be scholarly, but would any of the resources of that collection be found in a mainstream layman's library? If, your answer is yes, then Christians where you live are lot better equipped and informed than Christians where I live are. Of, course this is also based on my assumption that the library mention above is in fact a scholarly one.

Grace and Peace

Simon’s Brother

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441769#Comment_441769

This is a Vyrso title. The reason I stopped buying from Vyrso (Bob you listening?) was because — automatically — all Vyrso titles were added to my Logos (scholarly) library. Which just seems silly to me.

Patrick I appreciate you concern in terms of this sort of book. I can't answer for Logos and so we will need clarification from them. My hope would be that since these are of a different type of book i.e. e-book not logos, then they would not be considered as a source of information for the timeline.

If these sort of Vyrso books do interest one from a reading for pleasure perspective but you don't want it to be a part of you main Logos Christian scholarly library then the simple work around it to create a second account and only purchase these type of books under the second account. One can then use the Vyrso app using this secondary account to access and read these books on a mobile device.

Don't wipe out Vyrso just because of these books, there are still a lot of useful books that fit into a scholarly christian library. (What we do though need to take Bob and Vyrso to task on is putting books that are heavily reliant on scripture reference in Vyrso format. These don't nicely convert scripture references and so often point to the wrong bible reference unless the full bible reference is spelled out. This leaves Vyrso in a position where there advertising is misleading because the books are not up to the standard that Vyrso advertising claims.)

Back to your original concern I think you are raising a fair point in terms of Vyrso books. Giving the level of tagging involved though I don't think this is a fully automatic process. Vyrso books are evidence in themselves that automatic tagging can only work to a certain extent. For the timeline to work correctly I would think it would involve manual intervention and thus some level of vetoing on Logos behalf i.e. I don't think dates in Amish Romance Novels will make it into the timeline - but I don't work for Logos so maybe I am wrong. Only they can truly answer that. I think though if a title is of type:Logos (as opposed to e-book or PB) then its fair game to include in the timeline.

toughski

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441667#Comment_441667

interesting thread.

I am also disappointed with the timeline feature. I found it bloated with duplicate, unrelated and unnecessary (to the user) "events" to the point of being useless.

Imagine the rummage sale or even a logos Full library search that you were unable to navigate or sort through. Nice idea, BAD EXECUTION.

However this seems to be a recurring theme with the development team. Problem #1: They seem to deliver half-baked unpolished products. Problem#2: there is a resistance to give users tools to customize their library, features, tools to their workflow and their needs.

YES, it would lead to higher complexity of Logos5, but there is a reason why Cadillac is a status symbol and Yugo is not. For some reason LOGOS team is referring to their product as Cadillac (and charging accordingly), but delivering Yugos. That's a shame.

What I would like to see:

organizing events into categories and allowing user to display only the categories they are interested in (similar to when searching in our Logos Library we are able to specify what specific collections we want to search. They could be auto-generated by Logos or user-made)
giving users the ability to create their own timelines (possibly by creating a Personal Book with Timeline Type, which Logos will then index and display in their Timeline feature)

does anyone know if it is possible to create a Encyclopedia-Type Personal book that is indexed by Timeline?

Graham Criddle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441816#Comment_441816

does anyone know if it is possible to create a Encyclopedia-Type Personal book that is indexed by Timeline?

Bradley commented on a similar question at http://community.logos.com/forums/p/60565/430074.aspx#430074

tom

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441793#Comment_441793

like Paul Revere you are both on your horses yelling "the catholics are coming, the catholics are coming"

Yes, I am jumping with joy that my Roman Catholic brothers and sisters are coming!!!!! And I cannot wait for my Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, and ... brothers and sisters to come. I want their input too.

They've already got what I consider to be junk in there — where will it end?

Yes, you might consider some of the books in Logos junk. I agree that Logos has junk in the library, but does everyone else consider the same items junk? I am going to say some will, and some will not.

you want every unconsidered, unrelated and unmeaningful date in the timeline

Yes I do.

I want Logos ... to ... provide some way to filter

I do believe this is a good suggestion. I just don't think that data going into the timeline should wait until this implemented.

p.s. and it's "vetting" not "venting"

Thanks for catching this. I did updated my post.

tom

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441816#Comment_441816

However this seems to be a recurring theme with the development team. Problem #1: They seem to deliver half-baked unpolished products. Problem#2: there is a resistance to give users tools to customize their library, features, tools to their workflow and their needs.

YES, it would lead to higher complexity of Logos5, but there is a reason why Cadillac is a status symbol and Yugo is not. For some reason LOGOS team is referring to their product as Cadillac (and charging accordingly), but delivering Yugos. That's a shame.

[Y]

toughski

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441819#Comment_441819

They've already got what I consider to be junk in there — where will it end?
Yes, you might consider some of the books in Logos junk. I agree that Logos has junk in the library, but does everyone else consider the same items junk? I am going to say some will, and some will not.

Ok, but if Logos is my personal library, why make me check out ALL THE BOOKS THAT EVERYONE ELSE IS READING (as pertaining to dates). Just like allowing me to HIDE books I don't want, please allow me to "hide" sections of the timeline that are of no use to me and that are obscuring the events that are profitable.

you want every unconsidered, unrelated and unmeaningful date in the timeline
Yes I do.

Here I would have to agree with Tom. Let ALL dates be a part of the database, but create very easy to use filters that could immediately turn on/off all vyrso-derived dates, for example, all secular events, catholic, Pauline, Kings of Judah, Civil War, etc

In summary:

make it A LOT more polished and user friendly
give users options to customize appearance to fit their needs

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441828#Comment_441828

I (and everyone else?) still have the older timeline resources. And it's quite easy to see the difference with the new approach (spagetti) vs the older approach (labeled, organized relative to assumption, author) etc.

Now if they had simply added a menu at the top of the new events panel for 'which assumption', all would have been well. But instead they had to 'force feed' as usual.

Theologically I'm on the far-right. But studying-wise I'm on the far-left (want to evaluate all the choices). But the new events display is a complete disaster for 'all the choices'. You really can't view the sequence under varying assumptions.

A good example is the exodus, where there's assumptions of dating within the Biblical text, assumptions relative to pottery shards etc, as well as the pharoah overlaps. On my own software, my timeline events are coded relative to the assumptions, so that I can do the spagetti routine, or view the groups individually. And the coding is simple (obviously; it's 'me').

But luckily the older timelines are still around (though un-editable).

Simon’s Brother

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441834#Comment_441834

I (and everyone else?) still have the older timeline resources.

Not sure about a user coming into Logos for the first time with version 5. Do they get these resources ?

And it's quite easy to see the difference with the new approach (spagetti) vs the older approach (labeled, organized relative to assumption, author) etc.

I'm all for it to be better organised. I'm have nothing against the option of customizing it, but just don't see Logos going down the path of customizing data sets - but happy for them to prove me wrong because it would make users happy - and that's what counts IMHO.

Simon’s Brother

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441806#Comment_441806

Giving the level of tagging involved though I don't think this is a fully automatic process. Vyrso books are evidence in themselves that automatic tagging can only work to a certain extent. For the timeline to work correctly I would think it would involve manual intervention and thus some level of vetoing on Logos behalf i.e. I don't think dates in Amish Romance Novels will make it into the timeline - but I don't work for Logos so maybe I am wrong. Only they can truly answer that. I think though if a title is of type:Logos (as opposed to e-book or PB) then its fair game to include in the timeline.

Ok Bradley has answered this to an extent in another thread

However, the set of events displayed inside the Timeline tool is controlled by the Timelines dataset (authored by Logos) and is not generated dynamically at runtime from your library; thus, it is not possible to add new events to the Timeline from personal books. We also don't currently support displaying links to personal books when clicking an existing event in the Timeline. (It's possible that the Timeline could be extended to support this in the future, but it's not currently possible.)

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441893#Comment_441893

You're probably right on new users; didn't think about that.

However I pulled my FaithlifeSB out of the trash (battling my PC to let Logos get back on the web ... 'absolutely not!'), but interestingly it has inforgraphics that un-spagetti the BibleFacts display. I'm guessing both use the same source with the FB-SB far easier to see.

For anyone curious, if you try to copy over the timelines from FB-SB, (for me) they arrive really TINY writing similar to the Sense Lexicon. I tried various solutions; the only one I could get to work was to save the image to a file, then bring it back in and resize it (PNGs go out typically 8-20K pixel width). Using 'copy' or >Powerpoint didn't work in readability.

NetworkGeek

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441770#Comment_441770

just a shame though that Dominick didn't actually address what I said and put words in my mouth that I didn't say. You should perhaps consider that before 'approving' what someone says.

Patrick, I responded to your comments about "vetting" what gets into the time line, and asked the question that this is the same issue a reader could face with resource types in their library beyond timelines. You also asked the question of whether dates from Joseph Smith would be in the time line. How do you feel if references to him are in your other resources? That's not "putting words in your mouth", it's a FACT about the Logos software. To use your example, in my library, "Joseph Smith" is mentioned in 430 resources, 3,866 times. Why isn't that an issue? That was my point - it's a library, so it will have stuff in it that people don't agree with.

I am signing off this thread now; you accusing me of "like Paul Revere you are both on your horses yelling "the catholics are coming, the catholics are coming"" is insulting. I responded to your comment about vetting and using the Catholic process as the example. If you read closely Patrick, you will see I made no insult to the Catholic Church or anything it stands for. You see Patrick, I AM CATHOLIC.

Good luck I hope you can figure out a way to get much usefulness out of Logos software.

Simon’s Brother

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441896#Comment_441896

For anyone curious, if you try to copy over the timelines from FB-SB, (for me) they arrive really TINY writing similar to the Sense Lexicon. I tried various solutions; the only one I could get to work was to save the image to a file, then bring it back in and resize it (PNGs go out typically 8-20K pixel width). Using 'copy' or >Powerpoint didn't work in readability.

Yes this is a problem I've noted. Since its supposed to be a subscription based model for FSB maybe the intent is to make it hard for us to use these graphics in a public setting [6]

Bradley Grainger (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441654#Comment_441654

The events on the timeline are ultimately sourced from resources in the Logos library (not just your library, but all Logos books).

All books... can we define 'all books'?

The point I was trying to make was that the events in the Timeline are not filtered down to only events that are mentioned in resources in each customer's individual library, but instead are extracted from the set of all books available in Logos. I was not trying to say that all books are currently used as event sources, or that all books will be used as event sources. (As a ridiculous example, if we ever got The Silmarillion in Vyrso format, you wouldn't start seeing dates from the Second Age appear in the timeline. [:)])

but ultimately we're not making an editorial choice about what is and isn't an event.

Now I start to get really worried. In my opinion there has to be some sort of editorial discernment and discrimination.

My point was not that we just dump everything into the timeline, but that we don't editorialise by enforcing a particular theological viewpoint when creating the events. You'll see both Early and Late datings for the Exodus. You'll see all manner of opinions on when the Epistles were written.

There will be editorial judgement exercised in determining whether the source resource is trying to describe and date an actual historical event.

The actual event is "1806–1812 James Montgomery and Daniel Parken maintain friendship". This event is sourced from the Logos library:

I'm sorry but... huh?!? Who the heck are these guys and what do they have to do with a tool in a Biblical scholarly resource platform? Can we expect Christian romance novels from Vyrso http://vyrso.com/product/24568/her-good-name next? That title looks like it has dates in it.

These dates come from a biographical of an historical figure. You may have sung one of his hymns quite recently. I see no reason why they should be off-limits for a timeline of Christian history.

The Vyrso book you cite is fiction. It should go without saying that its "events" won't be featured in the Timeline. (One might make an exception for real events referenced in historical fiction, but we can wait to make that call until we've finished processing all the non-fiction books in the library... [:)])

Milford Charles Murray

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/442245#Comment_442245

These dates come from a biographical of an historical figure. You may have sung one of his hymns quite recently. I see no reason why they should be off-limits for a timeline of Christian history.

Thanks, Bradley, for helping me personally keep things in perspective! Just thinking ... My Christmas would be 100% without singing in Worship this hymn at least once! *smile*

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/440554#Comment_440554

DMB, by non-BIblical events, I don't mean events unrelated to the Bible, I mean that the timing of the event is inconsistent with Scripture (as illustrated by the example above regarding Daniel).

Mark, are you with logos? I don't think the information is taken from books in Logos, is it. I think they defined events and put dates to them and linked the dates to books in Logos. This would be altogether different.

If the tool is inconsistent with Scripture, I consider it pretty much worthless.

What you mean is that the event as presented is inconsistent with YOUR UNDERSTANDING of scripture. You are therefore asking that Logos accept your understanding of scripture as being normative for everyone. I most likely would disagree strongly with what you consider to be biblical so I would appreciate it if you were to refrain from calling something "non-biblical" simply because you happen to disagree.

Mike Childs

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/440547#Comment_440547

Regardless, I'd hate to see you judge Logos 5 on the basis of a single tool.

I did not expect much from a timeline tool. Didn't really see the need. However, I am very impressed with this resource. This is a great tool! I greatly underestimated its potential value. The link to resources in your Logos library is really nice.

It is impossible to fix the exact date some of these events happened. So it is natural that there are different opinions on many dates. There is conflicting evidence, and one cannot always be certain even if you try to date literally by the Biblical text. So I would agree with Mark that it is "helpful to know what others are thinking even if I disagree."

Mike Childs

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/447336#Comment_447336

I most likely would disagree strongly with what you consider to be biblical so I would appreciate it if you were to refrain from calling something "non-biblical" simply because you happen to disagree.

Good point, George! Something is only "non-biblical" if I happen to disagree! And I will be happy to point out any "non-biblical" entries that I see so that you can take note. It is the least that I can do.

tom

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/447671#Comment_447671

I most likely would disagree strongly with what you consider to be biblical so I would appreciate it if you were to refrain from calling something "non-biblical" simply because you happen to disagree.

Good point, George! Something is only "non-biblical" if I happen to disagree! And I will be happy to point out any "non-biblical" entries that I see so that you can take note. It is the least that I can do.

Hang on just one second. Just to let everyone know, I am the one who gets to decide what is and what is not biblical.