Note that some details may have changed since the initial post but all the principles remain the same.
i have been frustrated with some of the tools in a Passage Guide (or custom PG). After digging back into some of the other tools which are found in the Tools menu i have come to prefer a new layout which replaces some of the tools which i used in the PG.
1. The Explorer tool supplies more info for my commentaries than the PG's commentary tool. When you hover your mouse over one of the commentaries in Explorer, you get a pop-up which shows me what i will see in that commentary relative to my passage. But when i hover over a commentary in the PG all i get is info on that book (similar to clicking the (i) icon to find out about the book, not info in the commentary on that passage). Also notice that the order of commentaries shown in both are the same, since they are arrange per our priorities.
2. Also in Explorer i find several tools which i would see in the PG. So if i use Explorer i can create a very abbreviated custom PG (see item 4 below).
3. Another tool which i find useful is the Cited By tool. It allows me to see references to collections which i often would place in a PG. This may not be as useful, but i often see it finding good nuggets relative to my study that i would not find in the PG. And as Explorer does, it shows me a pop-up showing what i will see in that resource, which the PG does not.
4. So when i create a layout which has these tools in use, i can create a abbreviated custom Passage Guide and there place some tools which are truly unique to PG. This layout seems to load faster that the custom Guide as it only populates as i click on specific items.
just thought i would share this info in case some of you have forgotten about these other tools.
i also find CitedBy useful in searching my Topic collection (Nelson's Topical Bible Index and such), it yields various Topics which the current passage is listed.
For instance (my favorite one) the Commentaries tool
A. In the Commentaries tool in PG, when you hover over one of the commentaries the pop-up only shows you information about that book, not any information regarding the passage that the commentary has on it.
B. But when you hover your mouse over a commentary in Explorer you get a pop-up which shows you an excerpt of what that commentary has for your passage. I find this much more useful in that i can more quickly see if there might be a reason to open that commentary.
Another tool in Explorer which i like is People, Places, Things. Explorer combines these into one tool while in the PG you have to set these up separately. And in PG you have to click on each to try to expand it, and often only to watch the progress bar while it looks and then often it comes up empty.
I can certainly see where the pop-up would be beneficial. For me it is not worth two trade offs you have to make. 1) having to click the "more" button to see all your commentaries and 2)not being able to divide your commentaries up according to academic, devotional, pastoral, etc.
Just for kicks I tried something out with the Personal Book tool currently in beta. I exported one of my saved guides to word, saved it, then imported it to L4 as a personal book. Here is what I got back in L4. I can now go into word, delete out the commentaries I'm not interested, add comments to each commentary, Put some stars beside the ones I really like or re-order the hyperlink, add hyperlinks to other, non-L4 resources. then all I have to do is save the doc, go into L4 and rebuild the Personal Book. I could even keep one master document with all my guides, add a tag to the beginning of each import and it becomes scrollable along with my Bible. Then whenever I come to a verse that I have generated a guide for it automatically comes up with all my additional notes.
I can't wait till Personal Books go Gold!
