Want to set Logos' priorities? Head to Logos.UserVoice.com

https://logos.uservoice.com/forums/42823-logos-bible-software-7

We just did some cleanup here, and despite the long-standing issues we haven't yet implemented, we do look here for feedback on what's important to a lot of people. And, now that 7 is shipped, it's getting more attention from us than normal.

So now is the time!

We've also declined a number of items, so you may have votes to re-distribute.

Plus, there are exactly 666 votes for "Bring back Topic Search and Fuzzy Search", which I find disconcerting. It needs more or less votes ASAP. :-)

Tips:

- DO NOT create a duplicate suggestion. Start typing keywords in the "I suggest you..." box and look at what's returned. When you add your vote to an existing item you give it a higher score; creating duplicates hurts your cause.

- DO create specific suggestions. We are far more likely to implement a specific request with a lot of votes than a big catch-all item with 20 sub-points. Those catch-alls get lots of votes, but they represent a huge amount of work and we don't know if people are voting for all 20 sub-points or just one of them.

- DO NOT suggest books at UserVoice -- email them to suggest@logos.com.

- DO review your old votes and see if they're still on your top priorities. This database dates back to Logos 4; we're suspicious that many of the suggestions (even popular ones) aren't really current top priorities.

While even a lot of votes is no guarantee we'll do something, we have completed nearly 300 suggestions made at UserVoice!

Thanks!

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Comments

Bob Pritchett

Commentary/Questions on Top Suggestions:

Import/Export notes to/from Evernote. (974 votes)

It would be nice if Logos (both PC and iPad/iPhone/iPod versions) could import/export notes to/from Evernote. If possible the format should be compatible with OliveTree's BibleReader so the notes can be portable between applications.

(This is an example of a two-topic item. Is this about Evernote or OliveTree, or both? I'm assuming Evernote, but how can we be sure all these votes weren't from OliveTree BibleReader fans?... a good example of why focused suggestions are best.)

We know lots of people use Evernote for sermon preparation and to store web research and even to search their email. It's not clear what exactly is motivating this request; the 59 comments give some specific use cases, but they're very different scenarios.

More specific suggestions might help. My guesses:

- A 'clip to Evernote' feature in Logos Bible Software could work the way it does in a web browser, making it easy to highlight something in Logos and send it to Evernote, with a link back to the source location in Logos. This would be (relatively) easy to do, if I understand Evernote's SDK, and would support a scenario where people use Evernote as their primary note tool, not Logos.

- Export to Evernote: This would also be relatively easy, I believe. It would be a one-time, static snapshot of your notes dumped out in a file format you could import into Evernote. This would support a one-time migration from Logos to Evernote notes, but it might be hard to do repeatedly without creating duplicates, or our building a mildly complicated UI to determine that you only want new / modified notes exported. Is this what people want?

- Import from Evernote: Our notes are usually attached to our internal resource positions. If we tried to import from Evernote we wouldn't know what to attach to, so we'd just have a lot of plain, titled notes. Our format is different than Evernote, but largely mappable for basic rich-text, though some formatting (and inline images and attachments) would be lost. I'm not sure why this is desirable, but it's theoretically doable.

- Integrate with Evernote: Two-way integration, where Evernote files are searched by the Logos search engine, and new notes go into an Evernote database. This is unlikely -- it's a lot of work and would tie us very tightly to another company's tech and API.

Bob Pritchett

Commentary/Questions on Top Suggestions:

Copy from anywhere (Guides, Search Results, Resource Info panel) (721 votes)

Add the ability to select and copy text from all the places we used to be able to in L3: Passage/Exegetical Guides, Bible Word Study, Search Results, and Resource info panels.

We added some support for this at the section level, and new HTML-based interactives support it. It's a pain to implement in our WPF 'painted' display engine, which most Guides are implemented in. We'd have to write a complete text-selection framework here, and it's non-trivial. (Yes, I know this seems like User Interface 101, and it is...except on this tech stack. Ancient decision with surprising implications....)

Is this still really important? Or does the section copy and move towards HTML-based UI (as in Text Comparison in Logos 7, and in the interactives) enough for now?

Bob Pritchett

Commentary/Questions on Top Suggestions:

Bring back Topic Search and Fuzzy Search (666 votes (!))

Bring back Logos 3's Topic Browser and Fuzzy Search capabilities

Again, which one? I don't know that Topic Browser is coming back -- our data just isn't organized the way it was when this feature was cool (in Libronix?). But Fuzzy Search is still on the list of possible things, and we've done some research on how to make it awesome with our huge library.

Bob Pritchett

Commentary/Questions on Top Suggestions:

Improve the highlighting function: bolder color, enable in footnotes, enable Ctrl+Z undo (156 votes)

1. Offer a bolder yellow highlighter. The current yellow is like a faded marker.

2. Allow highlighting in footnotes. For some reason they can't be highlighted.

3. Enable all Ctrl-Z functionality. Seriously, this is an irritating problem. It's tricky to select exactly what one wants to highlight. If one makes a mistake, he has to go open up the tool, re-select, and erase. WORSE, I just made a very slight slip that ended up highlighting a whole large section. I had no choice but to erase it all... which meant losing all my previous highlighting. It should be subject to… more

This is an example of an item that should be split up. These seem like good suggestions, though the technical issues involved in highlighting in footnotes might keep that one further off... but it would help to know if the votes were for that, or for the Ctrl+Z, or the bolder yellow.

Damian McGrath

Bob,

if you do not want book suggestions at uservoice, why do you have a page for it: https://suggestbooks.uservoice.com

JT (alabama24)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/849328#Comment_849328

What I don't understand Bob, is why should we even have to request some things like the addition of new colors for highlighters. Further, how many of the uservoice items were implemented in L7?

Bob Pritchett

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/849329#Comment_849329

if you do not want book suggestions at uservoice, why do you have a page for it: https://suggestbooks.uservoice.com

I'm sorry for the confusion. I meant don't post book suggestions in the 'logos.uservoice.com' section. There is a place for books specifically, as you point out.

Bob Pritchett

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/849330#Comment_849330

What I don't understand Bob, is why should we even have to request some things like the addition of new colors for highlighters. Further, how many of the uservoice items were implemented in L7?

If you look at https://logos.uservoice.com/forums/42823-logos-bible-software-7/status/236179 you can see completed items; many were completed between 6 and 7.

New highlight colors should be well supported; I think what was referenced here was customizing the saturation or brightness of the search highlight, which isn't part of the user highlighting system.

Andrew Batishko

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/849334#Comment_849334

There is also a separate place for suggestions for the mobile apps: https://logosmobile.uservoice.com/forums/190765-logos-mobile-apps

JT (alabama24)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/849337#Comment_849337

New highlight colors should be well supported

It should be, but its not. Right? Highlighters are currently limited to eight colors (with 4 tints each for 32 choices total). I really want "teal," but suggested in the early days of L5 that we be granted greater choice over colors. I received a "we'll look into it" answer.

Mark Barnes

Here's my first focused suggestion: Improve "Cited By" to support books cited by page numbers

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/849330#Comment_849330

Further, how many of the uservoice items were implemented in L7?

There are 292 ideas marked as implemented (L4.x to L7): https://logos.uservoice.com/forums/42823-logos-bible-software-7/status/236179

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/849449#Comment_849449

And another one: Support searching within a specific Headword

Cynthia in Florida

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/849449#Comment_849449

Here's my first focused suggestion: Improve "Cited By" to support books cited by page numbers

Oh my gosh! I swear I love you!!!!

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/849479#Comment_849479

I've put some of the uservoice items added this week and pushed on the forums at the bottom of the TIP of the day: Best answers of the week post

Don Awalt

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/849330#Comment_849330

What I don't understand Bob, is why should we even have to request some things like the addition of new colors for highlighters. Further, how many of the uservoice items were implemented in L7?

Agreed!

Why is Fuzzy search not deleted, is there really any serious thought that this will be implemented since it has probably been the most popular if not one of the most popular feature requests since Logos 4? Please just delete it if it's not seriously being considered - people will get over it but this seems to cast a disingenuous color on the process otherwise.

And along with Alabama's question, why can we search notes and get results but results are not highlighted? It's been that way for years...it seems when convenient the reason a feature is not implemented or improved is because users have not asked for it or not enough users use it according to FL. Yet there are tons of features in Logos 6 and 7 no one publicly asked for. The features implemented are not the top ones - don't they seem rather random, implying there is another higher priority vote that decides what is implemented? It's hard not to think this is a user exercise with no real empowerment, and FL will implement what they want. So I guess I don't see the purpose.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/849490#Comment_849490

Why is Fuzzy search not deleted, is there really any serious thought that this will be implemented

Perhaps because we keep being told that it is on the priority list but keeps getting bumped?

why can we search notes and get results but results are not highlighted? It's been that way for years.

For a long time we were told that this was because of the way in which notes were stored. Whether or not that is a factor after the last overhaul of notes, I do not know.

The features implemented are not the top ones - don't they seem rather random,

No, they seem to include the usual considerations of "as we are already into this code we can also do" and "these bundle nicely into a manageable work unit" and "this sounds simple but has hell to pay for the side effects on other functions" and "this would require a massive structural overhaul".

The other company that I deal with that uses this method makes sure that there are no duplicate requests or inappropriate forum requests. Then they label the requests as simple, medium and hard. Use input has obvious effects on the simple and little immediate effect on the hard.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/849451#Comment_849451

There are 292 ideas marked as implemented (L4.x to L7): https://logos.uservoice.com/forums/42823-logos-bible-software-7/status/236179

Interesting how many of the completed requests have very few votes...

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/849513#Comment_849513

Interesting how many of the completed requests have very few votes...

Absolutely amazing they have any votes. Once an item is started or finished, most people move their votes to other items.

Don Awalt

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/849499#Comment_849499

Why is Fuzzy search not deleted, is there really any serious thought that this will be implemented

Perhaps because we keep being told that it is on the priority list but keeps getting bumped?

LOL you keep waiting MJ.

why can we search notes and get results but results are not highlighted? It's been that way for years.

For a long time we were told that this was because of the way in which notes were stored. Whether or not that is a factor after the last overhaul of notes, I do not know.

Right. Somewhere inside of Faithlife: "It's hard so we can't do it even though it seems very odd to have Bible Software that can't effectively search what users might enter into it. Let's add more interactives, my phone is ringing off the hook on why our Bible Software doesn't have a devotional interactive on the empty tomb." (And just to head the replies off, someone DID decide to hire people with different skills to develop interactives, Proclaim, web sites, TV products, etc. in lieu of adding programmers with the skillsets to go deeper into the priority list of the software that generates the lion's share of the profits). Logos generates the profits funding MANY other initiatives. Some might think too many.

The features implemented are not the top ones - don't they seem rather random,

No, they seem to include the usual considerations of "as we are already into this code we can also do"

You clarified better than I did MJ - what I meant by "random" - in other words, my hope in getting this defect addressed is keep hoping programmers are wading into Notes to do other work, they may take it on their own initiative to fix this out of pride for the product. Surely time has shown there is little chance of any top level product decision driving this change.

Maybe there is a solution:

Since so much seems to be based on "How many users use a feature", I wonder if we could get a list of features and their frequency of usage, so we don't invest a lot of time and trouble into product features that won't be touched much in the future? We could concentrate our time using those things that seem popular, knowing Faithlife will probably keep addressing/improving/refining them? Or maybe we could at least see a list of, what in effect has become a list of deprecated features that really won't be enhanced because not enough people use them - at least we would know.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/849589#Comment_849589

Since so much seems to be based on "How many users use a feature", I wonder if we could get a list of features and their frequency of usage, so we don't invest a lot of time and trouble into product features that won't be touched much in the future? We could concentrate our time using those things that seem popular, knowing Faithlife will probably keep addressing/improving/refining them? Or maybe we could at least see a list of, what in effect has become a list of deprecated features that really won't be enhanced because not enough people use them - at least we would know.

Sorry you know me better than to think I'd cooperate with that ... I say "keep hammering at what is needed on a number of fronts until they see why they have to do it"

Don Awalt

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/849690#Comment_849690

[Y]

Ben

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/849773#Comment_849773

"Clip to Evernote" would be fantastic, especially if it had a little customizability, like exporting to the same note. (I tend to highlight in Logos, then manually copy those into Evernote, with page numbers at each quote, and each book in one Note.)