Where would a new user start?

J.R. Miller · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/9029#Comment_9029

cool. It occurred to me that every time Microsoft comes out with a new OS, they always have the intro videos on new features that help first time users, lean how to run it. That is what v4 needs. A slick intro with some options to learn for first time users. I personally feel like I would benefit from it!!!!

Ian McAsey · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/9027#Comment_9027

Welcome videos are good but I also recommend training videos too.

I did not start to use v3 effectively until I had gone through all the training videos that became available online. Up to that point I had not used any Bible program software so it was new to me, but I knew it had great potential. I was almost about to give up when I discovered the training videos.

I strongly recommend having training videos (online or otherwise) to help the new starter because the software is too complicated without a basic knowledge of what it can do and more importantly how the features can be used in the real world.

After all the objective is to dig deep into the Word of God to gain understanding, not to dable / play on computers.

You may have guessed, I don't play games on my computer. It is a tool and a great slave, but a tyranical master to work for! [:D]

Rodney Prickett · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/9114#Comment_9114

Honestly I did not fully understand how to use 3.0 until Mo Proctor broke it down for me. While I think the world of him, I was hoping that 4.0 would not need as much step by step training.

I WANT Logos to be used by the masses, but I think in order for that to happen, SOMETHING is still missing at start-up.

Comparison has been made to I-Phone. Am I right that the visual side of interfacing with I-phone is ICONS? If we are looking to be intuitive for new users, where does this fit?

One last thing related to getting Logos out there. Why has my local Lifeway stopped carrying anything but a few LifeWork Collection? They have no base packages. I know that is off topic, but in my mindt these issues all work together, if the desire is to increase the number of users.

TCBlack · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/8880#Comment_8880

Bob Pritchett said:
Also, I'm happy to consider your immediate family members as covered under your non-disclosure agreement, assuming you and they agree. If you've got a spouse or child who is not already a Bible software user, I'd love to hear about your experience watching them try to use it.

Thanks!

I will definitely take my wife who never used 3.0 and place her in my chair for a bit. (If my DVD ever gets here).

Greg Gray · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/9163#Comment_9163

Overall I am finding version 4 much easier than 3. It took a long time (like years) to figure out some of the features in versions 2 and 3.

My biggest frustration in version 4 is not being able to do some of the things I did regularly in version 3 - That aside coming from version 1 to 2 was far more intimidating than from 3 to 4 for me.

My biggest hurdle with version 4 was "what do I do with this homepage" To me the homepage should be a place to lead you into what ever you are opening the program to do (study, read, etc.). it should be simple and informative - The home page looks nice, but is overwhelming (My eyes still don't know where to look).

Some simple non technical options would make more sense to me: Read a Book (takes you to your library to select a book - remembers the last book you were reading) - Start a study (opens either as exegetical or passage guide or word study - remembers your last study) - Be Encouraged (takes you to your daily reading with devotionals, etc.) Read the News (takes you to the current "home page")

You could take up most of the screen with these 4 simple items with a pleasing graphic to go with each one. This way the homepage would be a helpful part of the program, something that leads you into your task.

Greg Gray · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/9188#Comment_9188

A couple more ideas for making the program more user friendly to new users.

I often recommend logos to people in my church and every single person that I have recommended it too no longer uses it. I have recommended it to other clergy, missionaries etc. who have appreciated it, but not so much the average Christian.

From talking to ones that have tried it and given up, the main reason seems to be "its to technical" - Words like lemma, morphology, etc. make many people think "this is over my head".

What if in V4 there was a beginner mode that you could select on your home page. In this mode there would be tool tips that would show up briefly in certain situations. For example when you open a bible with an interlinear - a tool tip would come up pointing to where the interlinear toggle is, and a brief explanation of its functions.

Once the interlinear is open a tool tip would appear over it telling you how clicking on a word in the bible will correspond to the highlighted word in the interlinear. It would also tell you how to turn on or off parts of the interlinear.

When you mouse over the words MSS, Lemma, Morh, etc. The brief simple definition that is in the help file would come up in a tool tip.

There is already a little bit of this in V4 (for example mousing over the top bar initiates a tool tip stating "drag recourses or tabs here to create shortcuts" This would take it to another level.

This would make it so you do not have to watch a video, or read a tutorial to get going - no matter what level user you are the software would walk you through your task as you learn the ropes of the new software.

Timothy Lovegrove · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/8970#Comment_8970

Bob Pritchett said:

we thought we'd made 4.0 infinitely easier for new users (though, by
definition, confusing to experienced 3.0 users).

Our thought was the 4.0 would offer a lot of "places to start" to new
users right away, and that the simple three button interface in the upper left
-- home, library, search -- would be easy to understand quickly.

Please, if you get a chance, do have your wife try it, and let me know where
she gets lost.

Bob, my wife spent about 30 minutes with v.4 last
night. She has a fairly good grasp of basic Bible study (has a Bible college
degree, uses a commentary each day in her Bible reading). She is no techie, but
she does use the computer quite a bit. She has never used any Bible software.

I tried not to give her any preconceptions about the
program. I just asked her to think of some ways Bible study software might be
useful for her (commentaries, word meanings, looking up historical things
mentioned in the Bible), and then I watched as she started playing around with
v.4. She's reading in II Peter right now, so she had some things from II Peter
3 she could try to look up.

First
steps - the big buttons When she was looking at the home page, I asked
"What do you think is on this page?" She said "Stuff they want
me to buy. It looks like a page from a CBD (Christian Book Distributors)
catalog."

Then she went up to the top of the page and moused
over the library and search buttons. She clicked "library," but was
completely baffled by the pop-down box with the first few books in the library
listed. She had no idea how that would be helpful for her, so she moved on.

I think it's extremely important to note that neither the library nor search icons were any help to her. Basic, Bible, morph, syntax? That stuff meant nothing to her, and she couldn't figure out how to find what she needed in either one. So I think this is a big problem - the two most obvious places to go, the two biggest buttons, may need some more work to be helpful for non-power-users.

So after giving up on both of those, she looked briefly at the file, guides, and tools
drop-downs. You could tell she was seeing some things that might be helpful,
but I was fascinated that she chose to keep going and mouse over the resource
shortcuts I had placed on the toolbar. That's where she first opened a Bible
and looked up II Peter 3.

Trying
to find helpful information She eventually did try
out one of the guides, and started to make some progress with that. One of the
major things I noticed was that she had a very hard time figuring out the tabs
and windows. It seems to me that you have intentionally shrunk the navigation
elements to leave as much room as possible for the actual workspaces. But the
navigation elements are so small that she never even noticed them.

Examples: she did not notice the tabs that showed
her the name of the current resource, and allowed her to switch back and forth.
She is used to using a tabbed browser, so in theory she should have been able
to figure it out. But she said the tabs were so small and the colors so similar
that it didn't catch her attention at all. Other elements, like the
"x" for closing the window, were hard for her to find. There was no
way she was going to find the little marker on the vertical scroll bar - it was
way too faint. I could tell she didn't even know it was there - she kept using
the mouse wheel to scroll up and down. Even the different sections in the guide
were separated from one another in such subtle ways that she really didn't
notice the different sections.

Typing a topic in the "go" box on the home
page was not helpful at all. It brought up a large list of library search
results, and she quickly gave up. She was trying to find info on the Nicolaitans.
With a bit of help from me, she did find the "biblical people" guide.

One thing that was very useful for her was the
information that popped up on a mouse-over. She depended on this, almost to an
extreme (she wouldn't click and open the resource - just read whatever was in
the popup).

Trying
v.3 Then
I showed her v.3. Again, I tried not to give her any preconceptions. I just
asked her thoughts on that interface, compared to the v.4 interface. She
immediately said "Oh, this is much simpler," and started playing
around much more quickly and confidently.

After we were done, I asked her to rate her
experience with v.4 on a scale of 1-10. She gave it a surprisingly high score -
7 or 8. I asked why, and she said "There was a lot of information there.
It was just hard to get to." She gave the home page a much lower score,
and obviously felt the v.3 interface was more conducive.

So is v.4 "infinitely easier for new
users"? Maybe once they've had some coaching and training on the basics. But
from my wife's perspective, v.3 was definitely easier for getting started.

I'm trying to be helpful for you!!

Kevin A. Purcell · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/9229#Comment_9229

I just did something that Timothy Lovegrove did. Instead of my wife I put my 15 year old son who is not a Bible software user at all. He has used e-sword when we were homeschooling him, but not a lot and probably doesn't even remember much of it.

I asked him to study John 3:16 and learn more about it using this new Bible software I have.

First thing he did was look at the screen with a glassy look, like "huh?" But then he did what I expected. He right for the search box on the toolbar without me prompting him. He entered John 3:16 and it a quick search finding a bunch of references to John 3:16 in the results. He looked at the list and being a neophyte had no idea what to do with it. I helped him and said, "Did you hit a dead end?" Yes. "Start over."

This time he got it right and typed in the box below the Logos logo and got a lot. But he still didn't know what to do with it.

My point is that if you are trying to make it easier for the new user, you have a way to go. Might I add a suggestion. A simple sentence above the GO box saying "Type bible references here". In the Search box put something that says, "Search for words and phrases here."

Second, in the reulting window, what if, when I moue over the word Commentaries in the resulting list, it gave me a popup describing what a commentary is. Same for each of the other ones. Now power users would want to turn this off, but to make 4.0 more friendly to the new user, this would help hold their hand while they are learning. It would also help them learn how to not only use Logos but how to study the bible as well.

I have lots of complaints, but also want to be constructive in my criticism.

Oh, and the mac like interface is not as glaringly ugly to me after a few days.

Bob Pritchett · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/9229#Comment_9229

Thanks! I really appreciate the reports from testing with totally new users!

Ted Hans · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/9229#Comment_9229

TimothyLovegrove said:

After we were done, I asked her to rate her
experience with v.4 on a scale of 1-10. She gave it a surprisingly high score -
7 or 8. I asked why, and she said "There was a lot of information there.
It was just hard to get to." She gave the home page a much lower score,
and obviously felt the v.3 interface was more conducive.

So is v.4 "infinitely easier for new
users"? Maybe once they've had some coaching and training on the basics. But
from my wife's perspective, v.3 was definitely easier for getting started.

I'm trying to be helpful for you!!

Thanks for this. I am not surprise by the outcome & the Logos 3 Home page.

Ted

Simon’s Brother · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/9377#Comment_9377

Ted Hans said:

TimothyLovegrove said:

After we were done, I asked her to rate her experience with v.4 on a scale of 1-10. She gave it a surprisingly high score - 7 or 8. I asked why, and she said "There was a lot of information there. It was just hard to get to." She gave the home page a much lower score, and obviously felt the v.3 interface was more conducive.

So is v.4 "infinitely easier for new users"? Maybe once they've had some coaching and training on the basics. But from my wife's perspective, v.3 was definitely easier for getting started.

I'm trying to be helpful for you!!

Thanks for this. I am not surprise by the outcome & the Logos 3 Home page.

Ted

Thanks TImothy and Kevin, this is what I would have expected also but was not sure if my experience as a user of LL2.0 and LBX 1.0 - 3.0 (along with lots of other bible software - most noteably Quick Verse 3.0 - 7.0) was clouding my judgement.

Nigel Cunningham · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/8880#Comment_8880

Bob Pritchett said:

TimothyLovegrove said:
When you look at the home page, it doesn't look anything like Bible study software.

Well, that was our goal. :-)

I would question whether it should have been your goal.

Whether a person is a new user or upgrading from 3.0, we're expecting Bible study software when we start Logos. We're also expecting the interface to be somewhat familiar. The more different it is to things we already know, the more effort we have to put in to learning it and the more likely it is that we'll miss functionality that's there but not so obvious (or give up and buy the opposition's work / stick to 3.0 or paper).

My suggestion would be to make the goal be to have Logos be easy to learn for the beginner or the 'expert'. The interface should be intuitive above all - after all, we're using your software because we want to read books, write sermons and so on and not (usually) because we want to play with the software for its own sake.

Perhaps you could do 'skins' so that 4.0 can look more like 3.0 or more like it's current form. I like the suggestion of different modes (beginner/expert..), too.

In His service,

Nigel

SteveF · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/8880#Comment_8880

I am very pleased to be a part of this group, (and I have had no download or indexing problems) but I feel as if I have one hand tied behind my back. Bob, are these "non Bible study people" all going to be versed in command line programming? I'll admit that I missed that lesson back in DOS days. Without specific "how-to" info the new library priority/rating system still makes no sense. (There have been a few helpful suggestions on the forums but they are very hard to find) and on my machine the "draggable" short-cuts are hit-and-miss or glacially slow. If I (as a fairly advanced "Association-collections-keylinks-toolbar" type) person is having trouble making "head-or-tails' of this new approach how is the new "non-Bible study" person to persevere? Or are they just expected to stop at the passage guides? I admit that I am also busy writing sermons and Bible studies and that limits learning time. But I just feel that I can't find or access or "get-at" a lot of my (expensive) resources. New people may find the "news page" interesting but I really wonder if they will be very motivated to buy new resources?

(I will be consulting the help guide - I also don't know if the sluggishness is due to the interminable indexing or if this older P4 2.2 gig machine just can't "cut it.)

Keeping up with ALL the forum posts but already feeling the pressure to get this weeks sermon done.

Thanks, Steve

(‾◡◝) · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/9374#Comment_9374

"Where would a newbie start?" is a very good question. A corollary is, "Would Newbie continue once he found the starting point?" As someone mentioned earlier, Logos is definitely designed for serious study and concepts like morphology, syntax, lemma, etc. are daunting intimidations to many who want the speed and ease of good Bible software but just haven't had the opportunity to attend Seminary or BCollege.

Logos has sort of addressed this dilemma by pre-packaging various collections of Resources - but always with the same engine.

Maybe the one-size-fits-all-engine is what needs to be rethought.

Perhaps, Logos should look at the wildly successful and ubiquitous Adobe Acrobat model. In other words, offer a very simple, easy to understand Reader which has just the most basic of tools. No Greek or Hebrew capabilities. Lots of eye candy. It would be easy for the casual or non-technical student to get their arms around and get involved in some productive Bible study. But then, just as Adobe has the full featured Acrobat software, publish the full blown L4 for the advanced student.

Tom Reynolds · September 2009

The New User and the default English dictionary.

This won't happen to someone with a base package I suppose because they won't have as many resources to choose from but when I first started Logos4 the default English dictionary was Collins Latin Dictionary! How would a new user go about fixing that? I decided they would find an English dictionary in their library and give it five stars. So I faithfully found MW 11th ed and gave it five stars. The results are in and they are puzzling.

It now defaults to MW 10th ed for some English words. Not sure why it is going with 10 instead of 11. BUT when I click on "Savior" or "Thessalonians" or "withhold" or "situation" it goes with BDAG! If I click on "prophet" it takes me to "prophetess" in ISBE 1915 (this dict is quite popular with many words). If I click on "Christ" or "body," etc. it takes me to Yale Anchor. "millennial" takes me to Concise Dictionary of Christian Theology. If I click on "shall" or "phrase" I go back to Collins Latin D. The WINNER for confusion was clicking on "sexual" in 1 Cor 7:2 in the LEB. It took me to "diaspora" in the Dictionary of the Later NT and Its Developments.

It's also spinning around in Not Responding land and throwing these errors, although this may be the Power Lookup tab:

2009-09-15 23:38:41.8940    27    Error    RichTextReference    Could not load reference: bible+bhs.44.4.10
2009-09-15 23:38:41.8940    27    Error    RichTextReference    Could not load reference: bible+bhs.44.23.1
2009-09-15 23:38:41.8940    27    Error    RichTextReference    Could not load reference: bible+bhs.44.23.4
2009-09-15 23:38:41.8940    27    Error    RichTextReference    Could not load reference: bible+bhs.44.51.10
2009-09-15 23:38:41.8940    27    Error    RichTextReference    Could not load reference: tdnt.8.359-60

All this to say a new user will be totally confused about simply clicking on an English word and expecting a definition. Starring the MW11 ed seems to have done nothing to fix the problem. What would a new user try next? How about the Help utility...won't find much help on this issue there. How about phoning Logos customer support and asking them.

Tom

Damian McGrath · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/11062#Comment_11062

TomReynolds said:
The WINNER for confusion was clicking on "sexual" in 1 Cor 7:2 in the LEB. It took me to "diaspora" in the Dictionary of the Later NT and Its Developments.

You really did take the program out for a whirl!

Robert Pavich · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/8970#Comment_8970

Bob Pritchett said:

Our thought was the 4.0 would offer a lot of "places to start" to new users right away, and that the simple three button interface in the upper left -- home, library, search -- would be easy to understand quickly.

In 4.0 even the Passage Guide is smarter; it auto opens multiple Bibles, opens the first commentary, etc. It seems to be just what you're calling a "set design."

Please, if you get a chance, do have your wife try it, and let me know where she gets lost.

Bob,

even though you were addressing Tom, I'd like to chime in if I may.

I'm a tinkerer and a "semi-power-user," I format my machines at least once a year, I keep close track of my files, I'm a "partition head" sort of person...and I did step back a bit and tried to get myself to see the logic of V4.

My impression is that it's a good piece of software. It's NOT like v3; things are done differently, it's a little like getting used to the "new management" who want to do things differently and everyone grumbles because "we've never done it that way"

I have warmed up to v4 and I really like it; there are many features that I've come to like. Having said that; my wife is NOT a power user...she's in the "other" catagory; "I just wanna do my bible study and not mess around"

So my wife and I were sitting at the dinner table and I got her to dive into it and she was impressed. As I said; she is not a tech head, she is in your "non power user" category...she just wants to type a passage in, get all the relevant info and go from there. Right click words; do BWS etc.

So the one thing that really needs to be implemented is what Damian suggested: the "first time user dialogue box" thing....a person like my wife WOULD NEVER figure out what we've been figuring out about setting priorities!

When a first time user fires the app up, he/she should see something like the following to make the setup painless...first impressions are important! If the software isn't set up right...the results will be wrong, and the user will become disenchanted, and tell his /her friends that E-sword was better...not realizing any of the nuances that power users know...

this whole thing should take 10 minutes or less and set all the important things; preferred resources, home page yes or no, whatever...

Mitch Davis · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/8970#Comment_8970

Bob Pritchett said:

Our thought was the 4.0 would offer a lot of "places to start" to new users right away, and that the simple three button interface in the upper left -- home, library, search -- would be easy to understand quickly.

Please, if you get a chance, do have your wife (daughter) try it, and let me know where she gets lost.

Thanks!

Bob,

I had my 14 yr-old daughter to try v4 and here are both her words and my impressions in watching her.

Daughter: "What do I do"? My response: "Just look around and get familiar with the program." After a couple minutes she just was so focused on the Home Page that the three icons weren't enough to help her get started.
I ask my daughter to "play" with the program searching for things to click on that would help her. She clicks on the search icon (with a little guidance from me) and types in "David and Goliath". Because my search had already been used it was preset to "All Passages in NASB95". She didn't know how to set up the preferences to include the whole library.
By now, her interest in the program has waned because there wasn't much success. I then showed her what could be done (with me all excited and she showing no excitement).

I love the program...she was disinterested after no initial success. I truly think Tom Reynold's suggestion for a couple of predefined "study templates". One example: an initial Bible translation with an easy option to change it to another translation from within that window pane; a commentary - also able to easily change to another; a bible dictionary - able to change; an encyclopedic dictionary - able to change; corresponding maps/graphics. Another example might focus on a word study so they open a "word study template" with certain resources automatically opened. Having all this access from the Home Page - would be a more helpful - IMHO - to get someone started like Tom's wife or my daughter.

Bradley Grainger (Logos) · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/11062#Comment_11062

TomReynolds said:

The New User and the default English dictionary.

The default list of "KeyLink destinations" (as we used to call them in LDLS3) is completely unordered in Logos 4 Beta 2. (It may be alphabetical, it may be in order of internal resource ID, it may be the order in which you discovered the resources; I don't know.) A more sensible default ordering will be established in an upcoming beta.

We'll also be correcting resource metadata to stop Latin dictionaries and Greek lexicons being used as destinations for English words.

Robert Pavich · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/11152#Comment_11152

Mitch Davis said:
I had my 14 yr-old daughter to try v4 and here are both her words and my impressions in watching her.

I also had a co-worker test done:

I put him in front of the home page and asked him what he thought he should do with it...and his answer?

"I guess it's like a newspaper....do i just read it or can I do other things?"

so I typed a reference in the box, and showed him what else it did and he said that he'd rather have some helps at the beginning so he at least can get going...

TCBlack · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/11174#Comment_11174

Saw that Bob picture.

Had to supress a shudder.

My first thought was "Clippy" from Microsft office. (Shudder)

The second thought was Microsoft Bob. (gag)

Ken McGuire · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/11155#Comment_11155

Bradley Grainger said:

The default list of "KeyLink destinations" (as we used to call them in LDLS3) is completely unordered in Logos 4 Beta 2. (It may be alphabetical, it may be in order of internal resource ID, it may be the order in which you discovered the resources; I don't know.) A more sensible default ordering will be established in an upcoming beta.

We'll also be correcting resource metadata to stop Latin dictionaries and Greek lexicons being used as destinations for English words.

For the first, YIPPEE!! For the 2nd, while there is certainly clean up work required, I wouldn't at all mind if, say, Jerusalem, were looked up in Greek or Hebrew Resources. If this does not happen, I would at least ask that the BWS report somehow allow us to go between languages to do this.

Ken McGuire

Robert Pavich · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/11194#Comment_11194

tcblack said:

Saw that Bob picture.

Had to supress a shudder.

My first thought was "Clippy" from Microsft office. (Shudder)

The second thought was Microsoft Bob. (gag)

TCB,
that' was the idea...just a bit of a joke....

But I am serious about the "new user" help thing....make it so you can turn it off but if someone cannot be "walked through" the most common set ups and common tasks right from the start....they are gonna go back to E-Sword and wonder what all of the fuss is about with Logos.

There HAS to be a thing right off the bat to tell them what to do...it's not apparent...

When someone does their first search and get's all this crazy stuff and none of it is from the bibles or references that they wanted...they are going to become disillusioned very quickly.

J.R. Miller · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/11174#Comment_11174

great graphic Robert, I hope Bob will consider using it :-)

Tom Reynolds · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/11155#Comment_11155

Bradley Grainger said:

The default list of "KeyLink destinations" (as we used to call them in LDLS3) is completely unordered in Logos 4 Beta 2. (It may be alphabetical, it may be in order of internal resource ID, it may be the order in which you discovered the resources; I don't know.) A more sensible default ordering will be established in an upcoming beta.

We'll also be correcting resource metadata to stop Latin dictionaries and Greek lexicons being used as destinations for English words.

Sounds good. I think that will help the new user and anyone else not proficient in changing hidden settings.

Tom Reynolds · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/11106#Comment_11106

Robert Pavich said:

even though you were addressing Tom, I'd like to chime in if I may.

So the one thing that really needs to be implemented is what Damian suggested: the "first time user dialogue box" thing....a person like my wife WOULD NEVER figure out what we've been figuring out about setting priorities!

When a first time user fires the app up, he/she should see something like the following to make the setup painless...first impressions are important! If the software isn't set up right...the results will be wrong, and the user will become disenchanted, and tell his /her friends that E-sword was better...not realizing any of the nuances that power users know...

this whole thing should take 10 minutes or less and set all the important things; preferred resources, home page yes or no, whatever...

I like your suggestion Robert but it needs to be something that can be re-initiated because if my wife is going to use it she will come along and inherit the way I have set it up. Thus it will not include her favourite Bibles, etc. My wife prefers the older versions of E-Sword because the format is so simple. There are three panes on a divided screen: Bible, dictionary, commentary. If you want another Bible translation you just click on its abbreviation at the top and you can toggle between every translation you have. If you type in a word in the dictionary it will show you every dictionary that has an entry for that word and then you just click on the abbreviation to read it. Ironically she likes it because it's so visual - visual in a way that anyone can come along and understand it in 10 seconds. If Logos is trying to be like an iPhone I think the old E-Sword set up is the way to go. The iPhone is powerful at what it does, but it does little. You can't run PhotoShop on an iPhone. If it was possible to have a basic three panel screen for new users and yet have the option to be what it is for us that would be great. With all the tagging Logos has done I don't see why that wouldn't be possible to have more than one "face."

Tom

Robert Pavich · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/11277#Comment_11277

tom,

I guess that's what I was suggesting...that the default be the "easy" version and people like us could "turn that off" for our needs.

Tom Reynolds · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/11066#Comment_11066

Damian McGrath said:

TomReynolds said:
The WINNER for confusion was clicking on "sexual" in 1 Cor 7:2 in the LEB. It took me to "diaspora" in the Dictionary of the Later NT and Its Developments.

You really did take the program out for a whirl!

Speaking of "whirl" it opens up the Enhanced BDB!

Tom

Tom Reynolds · September 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/11278#Comment_11278

Robert Pavich said:

tom,

I guess that's what I was suggesting...that the default be the "easy" version and people like us could "turn that off" for our needs.

OK, Sound good!

Michael Hite · October 2009

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/8970#Comment_8970

Bob Pritchett said:
Our thought was the 4.0 would offer a lot of "places to start" to new users right away, and that the simple three button interface in the upper left -- home, library, search -- would be easy to understand quickly.

Bob - I too am trying very hard to bring fresh eyes to Logos 4. I am a Power User of L3 and I am struggling. While I agree that the three buttons for home, library and search are easy to find their functionality is not so easy. The Home Page offers a great box that says "Enter passage or topic" but a single word entered here doesn't do a topic search it just locates the word. I tried "marriage" and it isn't searching topically. In L3 the same search gave a list of dozens of resources that had been "topically" searched. In L4 I only get three and then a list of dozens of resources that use the word "marriage" not the topic. That is confusing for a new user for sure. The Home Page functionality of Study Passage, Study Word, or Study Topic was a very easy entrance point for new users. Much easier than Logos 4.

Where would a new user start?

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