Maximizing search potential

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Mark Barnes | Forum Activity | Replied: Tue, Jan 17 2012 2:41 AM

Ted: When you have time, you'll benefit from working your way through http://wiki.logos.com/Detailed_Search_Help - which tells you all you need to know about searching, and is (hopefully) written in a way that can be understood. To answer your specific questions:

• The indicators < and > are used to indicate that we're searching for a datatype (a special link). Logos doesn't look at the text, when it searches, but where the text points to. For example a commentary on Acts that said "see chapter 12" would not be returned for a search for "Acts 12" (the word Acts isn't mentioned), but would be returned for a search that said <Acts 12>, because the underlying link points to chapter 12. Incidentally, the full syntax would be <bible ~ Acts 12>, but Logos recognise that the most usual datatype to be searched is the Bible datatype, and therefore if you leave out the datatype name, it assumes you mean the Bible: http://wiki.logos.com/Detailed_Search_Help#Searching_for_Bible_Verses_and_other_References
• Quotation marks " and " mean that you're searching for a specific phrase: http://wiki.logos.com/Detailed_Search_Help#Phrases
• Parentheses ( and ) do group together search terms. When the items in the parenthesis are separated by a comma, it creates a list, where each of the search terms are examined in turn. So the search (a, b) NEAR c, means first search for a NEAR c, then search for b NEAR c, then show me the results that match either search: http://wiki.logos.com/Detailed_Search_Help#Using_parentheses and  http://wiki.logos.com/Detailed_Search_Help#Using_lists
• Commas don't need to be used in parentheses if there's nothing else being searched for. The search string a,b,c is perfectly valid (like the one in my second paragraph). But as soon as you introduce any additional criteria, you need to add the parentheses, e.g. (a,b,c) AND d. That's because otherwise Logos would think you meant (a,b,c AND d) which is quite different. Putting parentheses around a list when it's not necessary won't harm your search, so it's probably best to always do it, unless you're sure you'll remember to add them when needed.

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Tim Engwer | Forum Activity | Replied: Thu, Jan 19 2012 4:34 PM

Mark Barnes:

It doesn't necessarily matter if you return hundreds of thousands of results if you have a good query, and your results are Ranked or By Count. The best results should come to the top.

What is the difference in functionality between By Count and By Title?  Obviously both show the titles.  COuld you explain why one would use one over the other?

BTW  I know a lot of people have complained about topic searching not being as effective as in L3 but as I have learned and used the techniques you mention above (particularly large text search) I have found topic searching to be better for me in L4.  I am eagerly waiting to see the further improvements that are said to be coming soon for topic searching!

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Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :) | Forum Activity | Replied: Thu, Jan 19 2012 8:23 PM

Tim Engwer:

What is the difference in functionality between By Count and By Title?  Obviously both show the titles. 

Search results By Count groups Titles by number of results within Title, when number of results is the same, then Titles are alphabetical.  In contrast, By Title alphabetizes all resources that have results.  Depends on search whether By Count and By Title have the same (all titles have the same number of results) or different order.

Keep Smiling

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Jonathan Vliet | Forum Activity | Replied: Sun, Feb 8 2015 6:41 AM

In the Logos 6 video for Literary Typing, we see them using a search query which looks like this:

In my opinion, there's some pretty sophisticated stuff going on here.  My question is, where does one even go to learn

1. A comprehensive explanation of what the search options even are? (This kind of stuff isn't spelled out in any wiki or training video I've found so far) 

2. How to use them to in practical ways?

Thank you