TIP of the day: Getting to know the people part 3b: events of their lives - graphics with location

MJ. Smith

This section of knowing who a character is through the events of his/her life is one of the most frustrating aspects of Logos:

• Progress on the Atlas has been slow although we were recently assured that an update to a new platform should speed the delivery
• Bible People Visual Timelines is limited to 5 characters two years after its introduction; it still has visual spacing problems, lack of zoom capability etc. So although it could be very useful in presentations ...
• Narrative Character Maps has fared a bit better having 13 maps two years after its introduction.
• Despite the legacy timelines showing that the XML standard timelines can still be displayed, there has been no movement towards allowing user-generated timelines to supplement Logos/Verbum shortcomings. The best we can do is use 3rd party software to create timelines, embed them in a Personal Book but leaving them virtually untagged.
• The logical, tongue-in-cheek response is to recognize Logos wants us to live in an age prior to the printing press where one counted on the church walls for the paintings and sculptures to need the visual aid requirements.

Method 1: Atlas

1. The Atlas has maps tied to particular people, places, events and Biblical passages.

• to open the Atlas use Tools ==> Bible Reference ==> Atlas
• in the reference box enter Issac ... and select the appropriate entry from the drop down list
• click on the "go arrow" to open to the list of available maps

2. Note that the Legend has an expand/contract option as does the Map List in the left column (see below).

3. Mouse over a flag for event with location with show a list of events occurring at that location.

4. The left column contains a Map list. At the bottom are links for Factbook and a Media Search.

5. Mouse over an event in the map legend opens an information card.

6. Clicking on an event in the map legend opens the Factbook for that event.

7. Clicking on a town in the map produces a list of events at that location; hovering on an event opens an information card; a click will open Factbook.

8. Hovering on a city opens an information panel; the left map list panel is toggled by the icon on the panel task bar.

9. Click-Cntrl hold while you move the mouse will measure the distance between two points.

10. When an event in the map legend shows a Biblical passage, mouse over will open a preview window while a click will open your highest priority Bible containing the passage to the specified passage.

Method 2: Bible People Visual Timeline

11. A second visual aid to a Biblical person's life is the Bible People Visual Timeline - you may open this through the Go box if you recall the title of the interactive. Otherwise you may use the Library either directly or through Tools ==> Interactives ==>All Interactive Resources. Select Abraham to follow the example.

12. The navigation for the Visual Timeline is:

1. Previous event in timeline
2. Next event in timeline
3. Event selected to be shown in bold
4. Information regarding the selected event (this example is misleading ... see a bit more information below)
5. Slider showing position within the Timeline
6. Back which takes you to the overview page
7. Button that takes you to the overview page
8. forward/back arrows that move to previous position within the interactive
9. history for interactive during this occurrence

13. Here we see an event with a title, Biblical reference and description; hovering on the Biblical reference opens a preview; clicking will open you high priority Bible containing that reference to the specified passage.

Method 3: Narrative Character Maps

14. The third method uses Narrative Character Maps, a tool less familiar than timelines but excellent for seeing at a glance the major individuals involved in a story and geographic movement. Open the interactive via any of the methods described above for visual timelines. From the menu overview, select Abraham.

15. The toolbar for this interactive mirrors the toolbar for visual timelines. Specifics:

1. There is a zoom function on the upper right
2. Prev takes one to the previous event in the map
3. Next takes one to the following event in the map
4. Back takes one to the overview/index page
5. There is a Title and Description of the map
6. as well as a list of the included events together with their respective Biblical references.

16. The basic structure of the map

• a colored line represents a character
• geographic regions run basically north (up) to down (south) with a label for a region
• lines that are close together indicates interaction in this event
• horizontal space tracks time

17. Clicking on the map will open the bottom to a event title, description and Biblical text

18. Mouse over on a character name opens an information card.

19. Right click on a character name opens a rather odd context menu (reported as bug) that links to Factbook.

Method 4: Search Media resources

20. A final method to find graphic representations of a character's life is using Searches - directly via the Search panel or Media Browser or indirectly via Guides.

Opening a Topic Guide to Abraham will find the interactives discussed above

21. A media search on charts, infographics and timelines finds several interesting options.

22. The Media browser finds only the infographic behind the Bible People Visual Timeline.

DMB

 An interesting catalog.  I'm sardonically avoiding the negative, here. Maybe they did a user-usage analysis and only 5 guys were visualized? 

EDIT: It just dawned on me that maybe the 5 never got touched.  That might explain it. Like PBs.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/849284#Comment_849284

Unfortunately one needs a moderately complete catalogue to get users to even think of the tool. But then, I'm willing to go for church walls ... especially in Southern Italy.