Logos 4 Philosophy
Comments
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George Somsel said:Ted Hans said:Well said Andrew, i salute you. There is a lot i like about V4 but it is what has been left out of V4 from V3 that is the problem. Some think to reference V3 is to say V4 is rubbish( to right it off) or to say one disapproves of V4, that is not the case! Logos success is also ours. I thank Logos for the hard work they have put into V4 & wanting to make it a success. They are going in the right direction, and we all want to see that V4 succeed. Be encouraged Logos. Thanks.
I'm not about to write of 4.0, but unless and until they get the morphology search and a few other items fixed it will be of no use to me other than as a platform to read certain books in my collection. It is useless for serious study at this point.
I've never considered a need for Bibleworks because Logos has always grown with me in my understanding of OL's and superceeded my growth rate...what I've seen in v4 has resulted in me thinking wether or not I need to cancel some of my Logos prepubs and invest in Bibleworks because this product no longer seems to be headed in the direction of supporting serious bible study. I am not about to make that decision anytime soon as this is only a beta and I really am hoping I have got the wrong end of the stick in terms of the programs direction.
That said bring on the change, 3.0 wasn't never there, nor will 4.0 be for that matter , but it can be a whole lot closer, but we need to carefullly weigh up the cost of that change ( I don't speak of monetary value but the way in which we do our bible study and how this tool enriches this process). And that is what people who are being loud about the changes are doing. We are not against change, we are not saying we dont' want change, we are doing what I believe we are supposed to do as one of our tasks in a beta program, we are looking at this beta and seeing how adequately the vision of the designers and developers matches our needs as user of this software in our daily task of bible study.
A beta program with a generational change like this needs open honest feedback. And sometimes that means saying we don't like the particular change as implemented. It maybe that it hasn't gone far enough, or that its gone too far, or that in fixing one problem its created another, or satisfied one type of user at the expense of another type of user. Bring on the change but lets do so, with open eyes, a willingness to say when that change is not helpful, a careful evaluation of the cost of that change, what impact that change has had on the 'saltiness' of the software and above all a respect for others who might be a different type of user to us and so see the change different to we do. It doesn't make either of us wrong, just different.
I hope by the time we get to the end of the beta process Logos Bible Software has a great new shiny product ready to launch to the market with a group of beta testers who are strongly behind that product. I hope that Bob has takes on board enought of the concerns raised during this beta process by a variety of users and as a result most of my personal concerns are addressed in some way and I can put to bed any thoughts of needing another application to fill in any gaps that I and others currently perceive as opening up at the moment n Logos 4.0
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AndrewMckenzie said:
this product no longer seems to be headed in the direction of supporting serious bible study.
I am excited about the 4.0 changes but I must admit that I was think today is seems like Logos is moving more towards library features and less towards
Bible Study. Hopefully this is a wrong impression.0 -
Chris Roberts said:
Andrew,
The Apple/Command key on a Mac is the same as a Windows key on a PC so the trick still works and is what I've been doing to pull up the taskbar.Thanks Chris, its a long time since I've seen one of those up close, maybe an Apple II I thik it was, back in my high school days, I think we had the one Apple for some reason...I never used it so not sure.
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Philip Spitzer said:AndrewMckenzie said:
this product no longer seems to be headed in the direction of supporting serious bible study.
I am excited about the 4.0 changes but I must admit that I was think today is seems like Logos is moving more towards library features and less towards
Bible Study. Hopefully this is a wrong impression.Hmm, I hope you are not right, guys. I don't want to buy some other program. I don't want to, and I am not able to afford it. I invested into Logos seeing it does everything I can ever need. I hope we will not get less in v4, but more, isn't it logical to expect that from a newer and using more advanced technology software?
Bohuslav
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AndrewMckenzie said:
I hope by the time we get to the end of the beta process Logos Bible Software has a great new shiny product ready to launch to the market with a group of beta testers who are strongly behind that product. I hope that Bob has takes on board enought of the concerns raised during this beta process by a variety of users and as a result most of my personal concerns and I can put to bed any thoughts of needing another application to fill in any gaps that I and others currently perceive as opening up at the moment n Logos 4.0
I am finding that i am agreeing with your assessment more & more. I find it hard to understand why some cannot see that it is what has been left out from V3 in V4 that is raising concern. If concerns are not raised at this stage in the process we might get an inadequate product & Logos will be nonetheless wiser. Logos might say no one raised these concerns with us at the Beta stage, we would have done something about it. Thanks to you & George, i hope your contribution even makes V4 a better product. Some see raising concerns as being negative which i disagree with in this case. Why would Logos have Beta testers if they did not want honest feedback? We all want a better product & we should respect each others views.
I pray for the success of V4 & wish Logos all the best .
Ted
Dell, studio XPS 7100, Ram 8GB, 64 - bit Operating System, AMD Phenom(mt) IIX6 1055T Processor 2.80 GHZ
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Philip Spitzer said:
I must admit that I was think today is seems like Logos is moving more towards library features and less towards
Bible Study.You guys are freaking me out. Really. :-)
Internally, we think we're moving completely towards Bible study. We're trying to put more and stronger Bible study support into the product precisely because we're worried that the Kindle, iPhone, Google books, etc. are all making "digital books" common and cheap. We're trying to build ever more powerful tools for Bible study.
The fact that you see us moving in exactly the opposite direction we think we're moving is scary. Either we have a communication problem, or we're way off base.
First of all, let me say again that we expect to have every key Bible study feature in 3.x in the 4.x platform -- some of them are just a little behind. And this isn't some vague promise -- we've literally got specifications drawn up for these features, with what we think are significant improvements. There is a 20 page spec for sentence diagramming, a dozen pages on the improved Vese List documents, and plans to do visual markup. Sermon file and PBB are both already specified. The only features we're planning to drop with no alternate solution are Remote Library Search (because you can do it on the web now), Graphical Query Editor (superceded by better search and syntax searching), confusing overhead (Library Maintenance, Account Management moving to the web), and, um, I can't remember. But nothing big.
What's also scaring me is that we thought we'd put dramatic Bible study improvements in the 4.0 you already have, but you're telling me (kinda) that there's nothing there. So, just in case it's a communication problem, let me lay out some of what we thought were big wins for Bible study (vs. simple library functions):
Guides: You can edit the content of the guides. You can take notes inline, and have them saved right there on the guide for a passage or word, so they're at your fingertips when you look at it again. If you do a study on didasko in this passage, you'll see it when you encounter the word in another passage.
You can build your own custom guide templates to match your own study process.
Bible Word Study Guide: Cooler visualizations, and smarter integration of syntax searching directly into the report. Example uses of the word in different grammatical constructs, in Greek/Hebrew and English. A new graphic that helps you see the word in relation to prepositions it is used with. (Some of this may not be visible, if you don't have the syntax resources yet.)
Exegetical Guide: Smarter, better use of the reverse interlinear. All the data shown in parallel in both languages. No more confusing choice of morphologies. (Remember how 3.0 had a morph scheme dropdown in addition to the text?) 4.0 integrates multiple morph schemes and shows you the consensus parsing of the word, using +- to show labels from schemes that disagree. This should make it easier to use, remove confusion, and give you access to multiple databases in one report, instead of requiring you to consult several.
Syntax searching: This isn't quite finished, and some people don't have it all in Beta 1, but we've invested heavily in what we thought was an easier query editor, with drag-drop of terms in a graph that mirrors the syntax graphs, (with copy and paste, too), and with a (still to be finished) template system that will deliver more than a dozen complex syntax queries as simple fill in the blanks. Our hope was that this would make the power of syntax searching available to more users.
Power lookup: The ability to have Bible references, footnotes, etc. automatically looked up -- and to focus the lookup on a tight range by simply selecting text in the resource -- should make it even easier to dig deeper.
Reverse interlinear: I know many of you want the full-screen view back, and we're looking into that. But the point was to make it easier to use, and more accessible to people who'd started in the surface text and then want to dig into the original languages. We even offer to run Bible Word Study on Greek (or Hebrew) words from the context menu in texts with reverse interlienars, without forcing you to switch to the rev int.
Inline notes: You haven't seen this yet... but in 4.0 we'll be able to release books that have note fields directly inline, making the product better suited for Bible study guides and courseware.
Sympathetic highlighting: To help people get from English to original language, or to better compare translations.
Visual filter documents: Letting you highlight text with saved queries, for both words and morph characteristics. (By release, the morph queries will work for English Bibles thave have rev ints.)
I think these are all positive moves in the direction of Bible study, not library features. Where's the disconnect? Are they different features than you want? Are we not making them visible enough? Are they just still too broken/hard to discover in the beta? Did we make a mistake in not being clear up front about which things were missing and exactly when they'll be "put back"?
Clearly someting's wrong -- and I know it's Logos' fault. I just want to find out which thing we're weak on so we can work on improving it.
Thanks!
(I really do appreciate the feedback, especially the criticisms, and if I'm coming across too defensive, please forgive me -- it's been over 3,400 messages in a week, and I'm reading every one. Sometimes I get overwhelmed!)
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Bob Pritchett said:
Bible Word Study Guide: Cooler visualizations, and smarter integration of syntax searching directly into the report. Example uses of the word in different grammatical constructs, in Greek/Hebrew and English. A new graphic that helps you see the word in relation to prepositions it is used with. (Some of this may not be visible, if you don't have the syntax resources yet.)
If that means more of those snowflake designs, I think they're about as worthless as the proverbial appendages on a boar, but I'm not particularly a visual person. Perhaps others will feel differently. I noticed there was no real mention of the morph search (unless you include it under BWS). This is the sine qua non so far as I'm concerned. The syntax search sounds interesting, but it has a steep learning curve which I've never taken the time to climb. Perhaps your improvements will help.
Bob Pritchett said:Sympathetic highlighting: To help people get from English to original language, or to better compare translations.
I don't understand what this is supposed to signify. Perhaps it has a meaning among the computer literati, but I don't understand its significance. Perhaps you could explain.
I hope we aren't freeking you out too much. It is only natural that we will tell you where it DOES NOT meet our needs or desires. I have confidence that when the process is complete it will have been worth the effort so don't take my criticisms as an absolute "I don't like it (and never will)." Rather, understand it as saying that here are the areas where I think work needs to be done.
george
gfsomselיְמֵי־שְׁנוֹתֵינוּ בָהֶם שִׁבְעִים שָׁנָה וְאִם בִּגְבוּרֹת שְׁמוֹנִים שָׁנָה וְרָהְבָּם עָמָל וָאָוֶן
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George, I'm a bit out of the loop on morph search. Is it just not working in beta 1? Because you're talking like we've dropped it, when we've actually invested a lot in making it easier (we hope!). Just go to Search | Morph and type g: to start a Greek word, and "@" to start entering morph tags...
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Bob, Thanks so much for the thoughts. It's good to hear everything that is being included! I'm really enjoying 4.0, and it sounds like most of what I'm using are just currently unimplemented features. I just posted another thread about my wife's first experience with 4.0 and she loved the intuitiveness of the program. I too am equally pleased with the new look and feel! I do have one question about a feature that is not being kept:
Bob Pritchett said:The only features we're planning to drop with no alternate solution are ... Graphical Query Editor (superceded by better search and syntax searching),
One of the reasons I loved the graphical query editor was it allowed me to perform fairly complicated morphological searches without knowing regular expressions. I was never good with the whole BEFORE or WITHIN, etc. I liked being able to draw arrows to specify the relationships between words. I love the new syntax visuals, and I like the new morphological input. But I can't see a way to replicate the multiple item morphological searches without using the (in my opinion) more difficult typed operators (BEFORE, etc.). But perhaps I'm missing something.
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Bob Pritchett said:
George, I'm a bit out of the loop on morph search. Is it just not working in beta 1? Because you're talking like we've dropped it, when we've actually invested a lot in making it easier (we hope!). Just go to Search | Morph and type g: to start a Greek word, and "@" to start entering morph tags...
For me it might as well be not working since I haven't gotten any results from it. I had used "lemma:πέμπω@VAAM2S" to search for the aorist impv of πέμπω in Revelation (Again, no particular reason -- the example was pulled out of a hat). Since you said to type "g" I did that appending "lemma:πέμπω@VAAM2S" after it. I still get no results. Since I downloaded the program and am on the CD group, I had to uninstall and reinstall from the CD. For some reason on reinstall I don't have the lectionary or the help file -- it opens but never produces anything other than a blank page. Perhaps the help file would indeed help, but I don't have that luxury at the moment so I simply "wing it."
george
gfsomselיְמֵי־שְׁנוֹתֵינוּ בָהֶם שִׁבְעִים שָׁנָה וְאִם בִּגְבוּרֹת שְׁמוֹנִים שָׁנָה וְרָהְבָּם עָמָל וָאָוֶן
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George,
Currently the morph search doesn't work well because of accent issues. I can't get any results when specifying a lemma. It's a known issue though.
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Bob Pritchett said:
You guys are freaking me out. Really. :-)
Sorry to give you Sunday Heartburn. Your wife (assuming your married) must be loving this process. :-)
I should have held my tongue on that comment. I was thinking it but I had not concluded it. I love having the Interlinear in more translations then just ESV, especially the NKJV. I love the new Morph search drop downs and there is no doubt in my mind it will be working properly at release.
The features I see working best in 4.0 Beta 1 are relate more to library management then Bible study. This may be because they are more foundational to the whole program...indexing, syncing, library filtering, collections. Those which still need improvement relate more to Bible Study, custom Passage guides crash the program, interlinears don't save row selections, morph results have some kinks. A lot of the items not completed yet relate to Bible study, verse lists, markups, etc.
This just leaves the impression that your focus thus far has been library management. But like I said this could simply be that you had to get those things right before cleaning up the other things.
I have confidence in your company and in your decision making. I love what you've done so far. I'm gonna try to do a better job keeping my thoughts to myself unless they will help the beta process :-) I like what I see in the bible Study resources being developed in 4.0, I think once the kinks are out of those resources we won't know how we lived without them.
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Bob Pritchett said:Philip Spitzer said:
I must admit that I was think today is seems like Logos is moving more towards library features and less towards
Bible Study.You guys are freaking me out. Really. :-)
Thankyou for continuing to dialogue.. as long as we all do that well get there and we are all probably closer than we think, the problem is where seeing the view from the opposite sides of the doorway
Bob Pritchett said:Internally, we think we're moving completely towards Bible study. We're trying to put more and stronger Bible study support into the product precisely because we're worried that the Kindle, iPhone, Google books, etc. are all making "digital books" common and cheap. We're trying to build ever more powerful tools for Bible study.
The fact that you see us moving in exactly the opposite direction we think we're moving is scary. Either we have a communication problem, or we're way off base.
Bob Pritchett said:I think these are all positive moves in the direction of Bible study, not library features. Where's the disconnect? Are they different features than you want? Are we not making them visible enough? Are they just still too broken/hard to discover in the beta? Did we make a mistake in not being clear up front about which things were missing and exactly when they'll be "put back"?
Clearly someting's wrong -- and I know it's Logos' fault. I just want to find out which thing we're weak on so we can work on improving it.
Thanks!
Prioritization of resources is a massive concern, the pendulum has swung too far the other way. For those who want to be more hands on and in-depth with their bible study software Logos 4 at the moment does not feel like it allows that to occur. Having a softer entry point into these settings is a good move, what we have at the moment feels like we have lost way too much in being able to fine tune this. There are times when you want to tinker with settings but the interface to this prioritze list doesn't seem too allow for that. It is going to grow into a long list that is difficult to fully judge the full impact of changes. Some good suggestions have been made already on how to bring some of that back and probably more will come.
The lack of explanation on how to do searching for morhp and syntax also seems to be a hinderance
This coupled with the concern about what is not there, and the fact that things like library management improvements have been long asked for and being heavily explored, means all these other things you have listed may have either been overshadowed or not yet explored to the same depth.. Some of them I don't even know what you are talking about yet. I will sit down with your list on one screen and Logos 4 on the other and start looking at them today. I have not yet gotten to fully explore notes which I have long asked you to improve and make more flexible. i have noticed some changes but yet to get to putting those changes thorugh their paces but will do so.
its also a concern for some us that account management seems to be completely taken away from us... by all means what you are tring to achieve is a good move...but we've been brought up on saving license files on a floppy disk and later on USB stick as the key to our libraries and the financial investment in them...To all of a sudden have that key taken off us and left in the hands of the 'cloud' is a bit daunting....we want to cover all bases just in case the cloud is not there for some reason and we need to a complete re-install from our backups and dvd's - even wth the cloud we like to have our feet firmly placed on the ground. And if everything is controlled by the cloud whats to stop someone at Logos cutting us from our financial investment in our library wether accidental or on purpose (though I don't belive that would ever happen the possiblity seems to be there without an offline license backup under our control). Its unclear as to what account management in the cloud and working offline means in practice, there seems to be some mixed messages on that. If our license is not store locally how can we work offline without an internet connection ?
You also through us in the deep end at the start and thats a good approach, hopefully know you are starting to see we are stuggling to tread water is some ares. WIndows managemetn for me personally was a real problem. It was not at all intuitive. Others will have struggled with different things.. Maybe soon you might need to put some more directed explanations or examples out there for us on specific new features and approaches so that we can stop trying to tread water and actually start to swim...if you want to get the next beta out there before doing that then that's fine, just hope ti is not too long before something like that occurs.
Bob Pritchett said:First of all, let me say again that we expect to have every key Bible study feature in 3.x in the 4.x platform -- some of them are just a little behind. And this isn't some vague promise -- we've literally got specifications drawn up for these features, with what we think are significant improvements. There is a 20 page spec for sentence diagramming, a dozen pages on the improved Vese List documents, and plans to do visual markup. Sermon file and PBB are both already specified. The only features we're planning to drop with no alternate solution are Remote Library Search (because you can do it on the web now), Graphical Query Editor (superceded by better search and syntax searching), confusing overhead (Library Maintenance, Account Management moving to the web), and, um, I can't remember. But nothing big.
If the stuff is not ready for the first beta drop or even the second then thats find but we got the first beta drop with not enough explanation of what to expect to be not there and without the clarification that it was going to be there at some point. You are starting to make that clearer and we apprecaite that, and respect its a fine line you are trying to balance in managing our expectations on timing. But when you do say it will be in 4.1 or 4.2 that seems a long way down the track, I know you can't give dates, but for us we start thinking is this going to take 18 months, 2 years before its all back in there and I can stop using 3.0 alongside 4.0
Bob Pritchett said:(I really do appreciate the feedback, especially the criticisms, and if I'm coming across too defensive, please forgive me -- it's been over 3,400 messages in a week, and I'm reading every one. Sometimes I get overwhelmed!)
Possibly your intial post in this thread came across the wrong way.. I go the impression of someone folding their arms and saying well that's the way it is and if you dont like it, you don't have to play ball with us... That picture may not have been accurate and may be unfair.... Apolgoies if I misjudged your response. I do appreciate its a difficult task to keep up with all these posts and it is only one aspect of what you need to do each day.
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Bob wrote, "Internally, we think we're moving completely towards Bible study. We're trying to put more and stronger Bible study support into the product precisely because we're worried that the Kindle, iPhone, Google books, etc. are all making "digital books" common and cheap. We're trying to build ever more powerful tools for Bible study.
The fact that you see us moving in exactly the opposite direction we think we're moving is scary. Either we have a communication problem, or we're way off base."
I don't see deep study of the Word being put aside at all Bob. There is more than one way to get deep into the Scripture, and you have opened up some new paths that clearly don't appeal to some, but that does not diminish the ability to go deep. That being said, I agree, some work needs to be done to move from BETA 1 to FINAL product, but I see a lot of responsiveness from your team and I am encouraged (at least for Windows. For my Mac, I am mildly depressed LOL.)0 -
Philip Spitzer said:
This just leaves the impression that your focus thus far has been library management.
There seems to be a difference of opinion as to what constitutes Bible study vs library management. Bible study is more than just looking up Greek lemmas or doing morphological searches. In my own sermon development "workflow" my work in the original languages is important and is my very first step but it does not take up the bulk of my time. I also spend quite a bit of time searching for other Bible passages relevant to the one I am preaching (something original language searches can help with to a limited degree), thus spending a fair amount of time in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge and the Bible search tools. After language and related passages I work out my own "commentary notes" on the passage before hitting commentaries themselves. After commentaries I go to my pre-defined collections to try and find what others have said about this passage. Then I take all this data and move on to work on my sermon outline and manuscript, often jumping back into Logos to look up a reference or clarify a point I'm confused on.
That's the simplified version of my Bible study/sermon prep, but you get the idea. Language study is important but is hardly all I do in my study. Logos tremendously simplifies my original language study and certainly allows me to do things otherwise impossible but it also makes it much easier to do these other readings in a much faster time. I look forward to custom passage guides streamlining the process even more and I love all the inline notes and easy access to various tools, such as the interlinear. Where I love the interlinear is when I am looking up passages related to my text (which I've already translated, performed word studies, etc) and I want to do a quick check on a word in the related passage. This may or may not lead to a more detailed word study but it provides a good, quick launching point that does not require me to open additional resources just to take a closer look at one word.
On the whole I am quite pleased with Logos 4. There are several annoying bugs and I am eagerly waiting for beta 2 in the hopes that many of these will be fixed, but I am pleased with the direction things are taking.
I continue to be somewhat surprised at the negative reactions people have. Many seem to complain about known bugs that will be fixed in upcoming releases. Other complaints seem to involve changes in the way the software works. In my opinion, most of these changes are good but people are coming across as reluctant to adopt new methods. That can be understandable, but it does not reflect a weakness in the software.
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Chris Roberts said:
I continue to be somewhat surprised at the negative reactions people have. Many seem to complain about known bugs that will be fixed in upcoming releases. Other complaints seem to involve changes in the way the software works. In my opinion, most of these changes are good but people are coming across as reluctant to adopt new methods. That can be understandable, but it does not reflect a weakness in the software.
I hope I have not come across as negative. I am very excited about where Logos has gone with 4.0. The reason I'm throwing out so many suggestions is because of that excitement and because of where I see the program able to go based upon the great work that Logos has already done. I know they won't all be implemented, if any of them, because I know they have to have a much wider view then my preferences. In fact I'm betting that many of my preferences I'm going to be glad don't get implemented because Logos staff, who live and breath thinking about this software night and day, have already come up with a better solution.
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Philip,
Not to turn this into a "I hope this didn't come across as..." thread, but...
I don't mean to imply that all negative comments are surprising to me. There are problems with the software and there are things Logos has done that would be better another way. People need to point these out, even on things that just involve preference. Logos needs to know what people want the software to do. I am surprised when comments and suggestions turn into negative criticism that almost imply Logos 4 is fundamentally flawed rather than recognizing that it is a work in progress. I don't recall seeing any of this sort of thing from you.
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Chris Roberts said:
I continue to be somewhat surprised at the negative reactions people have. Many seem to complain about known bugs that will be fixed in upcoming releases. Other complaints seem to involve changes in the way the software works. In my opinion, most of these changes are good but people are coming across as reluctant to adopt new methods. That can be understandable, but it does not reflect a weakness in the software.
Chris I take on board your comments. Can I say though I am not speaking from a point of negativity and I have seen very little of that.
I simply believe in a process like this that speaking from a point of honesty is essentiial, even if it means saying you dont like something - I don't see that as negative - neither is questioning whether or not the softare still meets your needs - this is the time to get things right - I don't expect every whim I raise or say I don't like to be resolved to my liking - the softwares not being developed for me alone - but by saying it I get to guage how the wider community of users feel about it and see if it is really me be resistant to change or others are also struggling with the same thing. And if that's the case Logos gets some excellent feedback before they got to launch.
You also say people complain about know bugs but it is diffcult to actually get a handle on what is a know bug. Its also been difficult to get a handle on what is not there now but will be brought back and a general undersanding if it will be during this 4.0 release or another release. Bob is starting to explain this but we really need it documented somewhere clearly on both fronts.
As we work further into the beta process and get closer to the actual release there will be less opportunity to deal with some of these things, so for better or worse, the first beta, which is our first sighting of the software, our respones are going to be more about asserting what we dont' llike. When we feel comfortable that those things are being looked after in some shape or form, or there is a very good reason they can't then I am sure there will be more flght and fluffy comments coming about.
Please bear with us to we all reach the point you feel you are at right now Chris. I can say that I ceratinly want to reach that point and I am sure other do also.
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Chris, I agree that it is a Beta, however Bob indicated that although they would fix the bubgs in V4 before it shipped, these were the only features that it would ship with... or something very close to that... If this was to be the feature set, we got very concerned.
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David B Phillips said:
One of the reasons I loved the graphical query editor was it allowed me to perform fairly complicated morphological searches without knowing regular expressions. I was never good with the whole BEFORE or WITHIN, etc. I liked being able to draw arrows to specify the relationships between words. I love the new syntax visuals, and I like the new morphological input. But I can't see a way to replicate the multiple item morphological searches without using the (in my opinion) more difficult typed operators (BEFORE, etc.). But perhaps I'm missing something.
Yeah - GQ is a great method for complex searches so it puts more pressure on Logos to make the Syntax Search just as easy to use ASSUMING you have the pre-requisite Libraries (OL and Scholar's). I'm not convinced that v4 Search makes up for its absence, so people that don't have those Libraries may feel aggrieved.
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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Bob,
Thank you for continuing to interact here. It is very helpful. For what it is worth, I think it is a wise decision to get away from the "digital library" focus (a-la Kindle/Google books). I see that quickly becoming a commodity type business, and Logos is not well poised to take down Amazon and Google. [:D]
I think you would get some better results on what 4.0 does if you could give us some guidance. I could have used it while working on sermons this week, but I found it too daunting to really get started. I'd like to get some guidance on what types of tools 4.0 has now (whether new or improved). Maybe it's just me, but I don't have hours upon hours to play "let's see what this button does." If I had a better idea of options/tools, I'd use them, tweak them, and (I think) give you better feedback. Just a thought.
Key to this would be an easy way to find out what resources I have (and what I can hide) and then find a way to use them effectively (I really don't understand the prioritize resource business). So basics like:
- How can I view my commentaries on Philippians 4:5-8 this week? How can I hide the ones that I never use?
- Can I rotate through my commentaries?
- How can I link a Greek NT with a Hebrew OT in case I want to go back and forth from OT to NT?
- What sorts of things can the new Passage Guide, Exegetical Guide, etc. do?
In other words - I'm not looking for step by step instructions on how to make 4.0 work like 3.0. But assuming that 4.0 will be different, what are the best ways you think 4.0 works, and how can I do the basic (and intermediate) tasks? That will help me to help you (!) by "getting me into it" sooner.
Finally, I would also encourage you to find an easy way to allow folks to download the license key for a backup. I would even be satisfied with knowing that a file resided on my system, and I could back it up myself. The cloud is great, but having extra backup is also essential.
Thanks again for ALL you do.
Fred Greco
Senior Pastor, Christ Church PCA, Katy, TX
Windows 10 64-bit; Logos 7.1 SR-2 (Reformed Platinum)0 -
Bob, thank you very much for this reply.
Bob Pritchett said:Either we have a communication problem, or we're way off base.
First of all, let me say again that we expect to have every key Bible study feature in 3.x in the 4.x platform -- some of them are just a little behind.
I think some of us thought that some of the later mentioned items may in fact not make it into Logos 4.0 especially with all the talk of how certain functions are only used by less than 10% or less than 1% of the user base. It was easily inferred from this that some features would not be implemented at all because of the small percentage needing them.
The following list of what will be implemented is very reassuring.
Bob Pritchett said:Guides: You can edit the content of the guides. You can take notes inline, and have them saved right there on the guide for a passage or word, so they're at your fingertips when you look at it again. If you do a study on didasko in this passage, you'll see it when you encounter the word in another passage.
You can build your own custom guide templates to match your own study process.
I like very much the ability to edit custom guides. I would like to reiterate my request that we have access to such guides from the context menu.
Bob Pritchett said:Bible Word Study Guide: Cooler visualizations, and smarter integration of syntax searching directly into the report. Example uses of the word in different grammatical constructs, in Greek/Hebrew and English. A new graphic that helps you see the word in relation to prepositions it is used with. (Some of this may not be visible, if you don't have the syntax resources yet.)
I have not played terribly much with this function because of the fact that textual hits (the most important thing in a Word Study) do not work. IMHO, Bible Word Study is not Beta ready.
Bob Pritchett said:Power lookup: The ability to have Bible references, footnotes, etc. automatically looked up -- and to focus the lookup on a tight range by simply selecting text in the resource -- should make it even easier to dig deeper.
Power Lookup is very strangely named. And the simple fact that it runs differently from the context menu than when hovering over a verse seems odd to me. Why does it show inline references when hovering, parallel translations when opened from a bible reference and appearances of the word in bible dictionaries when triggered by an English word? This is not clear.
Bob Pritchett said:Sympathetic highlighting: To help people get from English to original language, or to better compare translations.
I know that I am not alone in having absolutely no clue what "sympathetic highlighting" is or how it functions. I know that I've read it explained several times on this forum and not once has it stuck....
Bob Pritchett said:I think these are all positive moves in the direction of Bible study, not library features. Where's the disconnect? Are they different features than you want? Are we not making them visible enough? Are they just still too broken/hard to discover in the beta? Did we make a mistake in not being clear up front about which things were missing and exactly when they'll be "put back"?
Part of the disconnect is obviously connected to the removal of control of datatypes/keylinking - an item not even mentioned here.
And, to repeat, in answer to your last question, it is quite clear from all the threads where someone has asked about a feature and eventually someone from Logos has responded to say that it will be in a future release, that you have not been clear enough about the missing features and your plans for them
Thank you.
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Gabriel Powell said:
As a seminary student there is one feature which I am starting to use more and more as I forego paper books for e-books: markup tools. I was shocked that this was not available and to hear that it probably wouldn't be. I do a lot of reading in Libronix and use the highlighter a lot. Even a simple highlighter (like what happens when you attach a note to selected text in v. 4) would be very much appreciated.
My guess it new users will like it as much as new users have liked version 3, but version 3 users (in the same way as many here) will moan over having to completely relearn the interface. Especially those who paid for Morris Proctor's seminars.
Beyond that I completely understand Logos' strategy and I think it will be good for a majority of people. I can tell you the vast majority of seminary guys at my school that have Logos are using outdated versions of v. 3 (or older), and have never thought to update the software or resources. I am glad that this is going to be done automatically.
I would be curious to hear from those who use BibleWorks or other packages whether v. 4 leaves out exegetical features that non-Logos software have that would prevent students and professors from converting.
In the end, once Logos gets training videos up for v. 4 and we get used to the new way of doing things we'll look back at version 3 the same way we currently look back at the original Libronix version.
Well said Gabriel! I am also a seminary studnet. I just graduated with my Master's in Biblical studies. I was really stoked to see another seiminary brother in the Logos 4 Test Group. Where do you attend? What are your goals? How much more to you have to go?
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Damian McGrath said:
I know that I am not alone in having absolutely no clue what "sympathetic highlighting" is or how it functions. I know that I've read it explained several times on this forum and not once has it stuck....
I believe that sympathetic highlighting is that when you highlight an English word, the correlating Greek/Hebrew word in the interlinear is highlighted as well. That's it, as far as I can see - but it is useful.
Fred Greco
Senior Pastor, Christ Church PCA, Katy, TX
Windows 10 64-bit; Logos 7.1 SR-2 (Reformed Platinum)0 -
Bob Pritchett said:
Internally, we think we're moving completely towards Bible study. We're trying to put more and stronger Bible study support into the product precisely because we're worried that the Kindle, iPhone, Google books, etc. are all making "digital books" common and cheap. We're trying to build ever more powerful tools for Bible study.
Yet, this is a time when reading books on electronic devices is beginning to be accepted, and you have something that none of those other platforms offer, and that's why I think you have an advantage in the "digital books" category. None of those other platforms will have the library integration in the ways that you have it. I love my Kindle and will pay more to get the book in Logos. I have no problem reading pdfs and still will pay for a Logos book even if I can just download it free (maybe I'd import it as a PBB, depending on if I wanted markups or not).
With my netbook making my library that much more portable, reading from Logos is that much easier. I see v4 making that experience only better. If you guys can manage to export pieces of the library to a blackberry, iPhone, or Kindle (licensing issues?), it would be all that much better.
So please, don't abandon or move away from the "digital library" concept.
Jacob Hantla
Pastor/Elder, Grace Bible Church
gbcaz.org0 -
Fred Greco said:
or what it is worth, I think it is a wise decision to get away from the "digital library" focus (a-la Kindle/Google books). I see that quickly becoming a commodity type business, and Logos is not well poised to take down Amazon and Google.
Fred,
I just don't see Amazon or Google being any competition at all to Logos in the area of the "digital library." I cannot envisage the sort of access we have between resources ever being available there. I love the fact that I am able to very quickly move between resources when these are hard-coded (this improves all the time).... It is no effort to compare what one commentary says that another author has said with the author's original words when we have both texts in our library. I don't know how many times that I've checked a reference to Josephus or Philo to find the reference wrong. We can discover this or confirm the author's citation with a simple hover.
Fred Greco said:I think you would get some better results on what 4.0 does if you could give us some guidance.
I agree with your sentiments whole-heartedly. It appears that the only resources we've been asked to check out are ones which do not appear in our Beta release. We need some pointers in the same way that eventual new users will need pointers.
Fred Greco said:Finally, I would also encourage you to find an easy way to allow folks to download the license key for a backup. I would even be satisfied with knowing that a file resided on my system, and I could back it up myself. The cloud is great, but having extra backup is also essential.
Once again, I agree with this, as do a number of others seemingly. It feels like I'm losing ownership of my license.
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Thanks... this is all very helpful. And please don't stop posting even negative feedback -- the squeaky wheels do get greased. I'm just trying to sort out "I really want this feature back" from "this whole direction is a mistake." And clearly we need to do a better job communicating our plans, and explaining what things are.
When Logos was tiny, a new release was us making a disk with the latest code. Now it's like launching D-Day. We're coordinating marketing, video tutorial creation, help file writing, coding, testing, sales plans, training events, package design, web site improvements, conference booth banners, etc.
We're aiming at a target date for release, and we're going to hit it. We have just enough time to get every planned component of the launch in place, but very little else. While it would have been nice to get the intro videos done before we gave you the beta, for example, we couldn't -- because even now it's not quite ready to be video recorded with final art, and we're getting important feedback from the beta. Yes, you'd have had a better out of the box experience with the beta if we'd had the intro videos, but you'd also have less chance to influence the final release.
I'm sorry about the things that were broken in Beta 1; there were a number of surprise mistakes/missing things/bugs in the first beta, so many of you aren't playing with all the beta resources, with the guides working perfectly, etc. We're definitely on this, and you should see improvements in each beta. I'm sorry I can't always even tell you why something isn't working -- sometimes it's something I thought worked, but I don't have immediate access to the right programmer to check, etc.
The bad news is, 4.0 has only a few features beyond what you're seeing now. All the features we've delivered now will work correctly in the final release, and a few things you can't see because of a bug or missing data will be in place by then. But sentence diagramming won't magically appear in the final release, no matter how badly you (and I) want it. Because the release date was chosen months ago, and 170+ people are zeroing in on that date from as many different directions.
(Based on the feedback from this forum, I'm going to see if we can literally steal hours from programmers' sleep to get visual markup in for the release, but I can't promise it. If we miss it, though, it'll be right behind. We are also slipping in some of the easier things requested, like settings control, etc.)
The good news is that we put an automatic update feature into the product for a reason. Every 4.1 / 4.2 etc. feature that matches a 3.0 feature will be available as a free "happens automatically in the night" upgrade, and we'll try to roll them out as quickly as possible.
Based on what I've heard in this forum, I anticipate posting on the release date a web page listing everything you might be missing from 3.0 and our plans for priority and delivery times.
What you'll see next:
Monday/Tuesday you'll get Beta 2. It should (hopefully!) arrive through the "BITS" service, downloaded as a low priority background thread with smart stopping/restoring when you are offline/online, etc. I believe you'll need to start the app after this update is available in order to initiate this download, and then start it up one more time to initiate the install after the download. This release will also include the first drop of the resource downloading code, which will update and download resources in the background.
Following Beta 2 new betas should be released at least once a week, if not more often. (We do not have download scheduling, so if you have bandwidth concerns, you'll want to use the Beta 2 feature of turning off Internet Use, and then enabling it when you want to look for an update. We'll explain this in the Beta 2 release notes.)
When the release date is upon you, please know that any still missing features from the list I've promised doesn't mean we've canceled them, and doesn't mean you won't see them for a year. It means we are (for the first time in... forever?) hitting our long-planned date with a product that we believe will satisfy 90%+ of our existing users, and 100% of new customers.
We are not abandoning or ignoring you, the smartest, more demanding, most important and best looking 10%, :-), we're just shipping on time and initiating the hoped-for revenue bump that will ensure we continue to pay our bills and hire more smart people to serve you better.
Again, I'm not trying to be defensive or to stem the honest feedback -- it's incredlibly helpful. The issues you are bringing up are just what the beta is for: to help us identify what the obstacles are in the way of a successful, well-received product launch. And I'm trying to "win you over" to our thinking, and to explain it all in detail, because I want to defuse the sharpest criticisms from our most important users before the launch.
I'd much rather have you shouting, "hey, where's markup?" now than on the day of the release. :-) And since that's something everybody's shouting, we're really going to try to do it. But even for the things we won't have in -- verse lists, sentence diagrams, etc. -- this has been a great chance for me to both hear your concerns, allay your fears (I hope), and learn what kind of complaint-defusing explanations we'll need to have ready at release.
Just for what it's worth...another attempt to defuse an argument before it comes:
I'm sure someone will want to make the "take another year if you must, just don't ship it anything less than perfect" argument. We heard this last year when we released a Mac product missing a lot more of 3.0's features than 4.0 is missing.
And we took some real hits in reviews (and emails, and phone calls!) from Logos Windows users who switched to the Mac and weren't happy about the ommissions. But the feedback from "first time purchase" Mac users was very positive, and most of those reviews were not only good, they didn't mention the ommissions. Because they'd never seen those features to miss them. :-) And the Mac product has been a fantastic success; without the revenue it generated we wouldn't have been able to put the team on 4.0 that we did.
And 4.0, as you see it, is being built in parallel for the Mac -- catching up way beyond what we could have done if we'd held it and tried to "finish" that old framework. We'll try to post some screenshots soon.
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Fred Greco said:
I believe that sympathetic highlighting is that when you highlight an English word, the correlating Greek/Hebrew word in the interlinear is highlighted as well. That's it, as far as I can see - but it is useful.
Thanks Fred. Now I understand.
I never use interlinears so it's something I would not have noticed when toggling it on / off.
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Bob Pritchett said:
ased on the feedback from this forum, I'm going to see if we can literally steal hours from programmers' sleep to get visual markup in for the release, but I can't promise it.
Thanks Bob!
Bob Pritchett said:We are also slipping in some of the easier things requested, like settings control, etc.
Given how many of us have been requesting more control over defaults and settings, it may be helpful to outline what exactly you are planning (or hoping for) in this area. Will we have more control over datalinks?
Bob Pritchett said:the Beta 2 feature of turning off Internet Use,
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Bob Pritchett said:a product that we believe will satisfy 90%+ of our existing users, and 100% of new customers
Please remember that the 10% not be satisfied may be amongst your most faithful users / purchasers. Though, I'm confident from the last few posts that some of our real concerns are being addressed.
Bob Pritchett said:I'd much rather have you shouting, "hey, where's markup?" now than on the day of the release. :-)
I think most of us are aware of that which is why we are expressing our thoughts and feelings.
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