Android: best way to search for Greek word in BDAG
I have BDAG on my Android tablet and phones, but find it near to impossible to search BDAG for a Greek wordform... It's a piece of cake on the 'desktop' platform, but a real challenge (for me) on the mobile platform. How do others do this?
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Hmmm... Maybe there's a reason no one has responded yet--what I'm trying to do is difficult enough that no one uses BDAG on their mobile device. [bump]
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The best options I am aware of are:
- Navigate in BDAG through the table of contents
- Long-press on the word of interest in the text, click Info, run a Bible Word Study and then select BDAG from the list of lexicons.
I would probably prefer the first option
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Graham has given you the only effective ways. Even with a Greek keyboard installed, I am unable to search for words. Typing diacritics is nearly impossible on my chosen keyboard. Navigating the TOC is your best bet.
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Thanks for chiming in, Graham. Your tip about the 'table of contents' was helpful. Still took a bit of digging to figure it out, but I finally found it by:
- pressing once in the BDAG screen area for the 'tools' to appear (Menu, Star, Edit, Clipboard, etc., on the top and 'blue slider' on the bottom)
- press Menu (the first icon; four stacked lines) for the Table of Contents (TOC) to appear
- press the > at the far right of the letter in index (this is very faint in the black screen mode that the TOC appears in... [any reason it has a black background? can this be changed?])
- press the > at the far right of the 'range of words' that the one you're looking for is in
- select the word you're looking for
As for "long press, click Info, and run a Bible Word Study": I wish that was an option, but the only option I get is 'Search' (how do I enable more features in Android? It has always seemed 'neutered' when compared to the desktop version). And Search takes FOREVER; in fact, I've never actually had the patience for a search to complete, and I have waited for many many minutes... So I can see why you prefer the first method! Thanks again.
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Paul Unger said:
As for "long press, click Info, and run a Bible Word Study": I wish that was an option, but the only option I get is 'Search' (how do I enable more features in Android?
It may be dependant on the bible you are using. I believe for Bible Word study to work, you need to be using a reverse interlinear.
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...else you could just initiate a Bible word study and go from there.
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NASB has reverse interlinear on the desktop, but I can't figure out how to make is show in Android. If I tap the screen, there are more options along the top (Exegetical Guide, etc.), but those only open to blank screens.
As for initiating Bible Word Study, do you mean from the Home panel? All I get from that is a blank screen... :-( There is a word in the upper left corner that I can click and pretend to type a new word in, but no matter what I type it always reverts to what had been there: λογος. I'm still not sure if that's someone's idea of a joke / 'Easter egg' or what...
Like I said, the Android version just seems to be neutered. :-(
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Paul Unger said:
As for initiating Bible Word Study, do you mean from the Home panel? All I get from that is a blank screen... :-( There is a word in the upper left corner that I can click and pretend to type a new word in, but no matter what I type it always reverts to what had been there: λογος.
You're very close. The problem is that typing diacritics on Android is difficult. You can bypass that by typing G: followed by the transliteration thus:
g:eirhnh
Logos will asume you meant είρήνη and pull up the word study.
This takes knowledge of standard transliteration schemes, and also works with creating Hebrew BWS as well thus:
h:bara
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Paul Unger said:
the Android version just seems to be neutered
The mobile app is intended to be a supplement, not a replacement to, the desktop app.
Paul Unger said:NASB has reverse interlinear on the desktop, but I can't figure out how to make is show in Android.
It does not work in the same way. You must long press the word you are interested in, then select "look up."
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Paul Unger said:
NASB has reverse interlinear on the desktop, but I can't figure out how to make is show in Android.
You can't show the Reverse Interlinear lines on the mobile platforms - but you should be able to use (some of) their functionality.
So if I long-press a word in NASB I see this
Do you get something different?
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To do this I needed WiFi turned on(!), as I kept getting a quick flash of 'Mobile network not connected'. Then, when it completed the search I got three lines greyed out: Definition, Hebrew words, Greek words, and a final line that says, "This report works best with Logos Bible Software 7. Visit logos.com for more information." I did an update (v. 5.10? to 5.14), but I get the same results...
TCBlack said:Paul Unger said:As for initiating Bible Word Study, do you mean from the Home panel? All I get from that is a blank screen... :-( There is a word in the upper left corner that I can click and pretend to type a new word in, but no matter what I type it always reverts to what had been there: λογος.
You're very close. The problem is that typing diacritics on Android is difficult. You can bypass that by typing G: followed by the transliteration thus:
g:eirhnh
Logos will asume you meant είρήνη and pull up the word study.
This takes knowledge of standard transliteration schemes, and also works with creating Hebrew BWS as well thus:
h:bara
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Thanks Graham. As I just noted above, I did an update and now I get 'Bible Word Study' as an option when I long press. But let me just check something else... Yep, as I suspected: when I turn WiFi off, I only get 'Search'. So it seems that it comes down to needing to be connected to the internet?! Sorry, but that's bogus...
Graham Criddle said:Paul Unger said:NASB has reverse interlinear on the desktop, but I can't figure out how to make is show in Android.
You can't show the Reverse Interlinear lines on the mobile platforms - but you should be able to use (some of) their functionality.
So if I long-press a word in NASB I see this
Do you get something different?
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That is correct. The Android and Apple apps are server side apps. They run on the servers and display on your screen. There are a few reasons all of them related to the relative power of phones and tables to computers.Paul Unger said:Yep, as I suspected: when I turn WiFi off, I only get 'Search'. So it seems that it comes down to needing to be connected to the internet?! Sorry, but that's bogus...
Logos has a massive storage footprint (depending on how many books you own) as well as tremendous requirements for CPU for things like indexing and searching, etc. Your average phone can't handle that. It just isn't possible. In order to get the power of Logos in your pocket a bigger computer has to do the computations and send them back to you.
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That's not quite 'as advertised':TCBlack said:
That is correct. The Android and Apple apps are server side apps. They run on the servers and display on your screen. There are a few reasons all of them related to the relative power of phones and tables to computers.Paul Unger said:Yep, as I suspected: when I turn WiFi off, I only get 'Search'. So it seems that it comes down to needing to be connected to the internet?! Sorry, but that's bogus...
Logos has a massive storage footprint (depending on how many books you own) as well as tremendous requirements for CPU for things like indexing and searching, etc. Your average phone can't handle that. It just isn't possible. In order to get the power of Logos in your pocket a bigger computer has to do the computations and send them back to you.
The Logos Bible app gives you access to incredible tools and Bible study content right from your phone or tablet so that you can learn and grow wherever you are (https://www.logos.com/apps; emphasis added).
If 'wherever I am' doesn't have internet access (like my church), I'm out of luck... I'm thinking that little blurb needs a REALLY BIG asterisk. :-(
As for the storage footprint, if Logos would let us install the app to an SD card, many devices could handle that (my current desktop folder is 12 GB, but I'm sure I could trim that down by selecting even just 100 of the 1300 books that are in my desktop library).
But thanks for your help: at least I know what to expect now...
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Here's one way to search the BDAG for a Greek word (online/offline):
1. Download the BDAG resource.
2. Download a Greek New Testament.
3. Go offline.
4. Open the BDAG to populate the Search panel resource list.
5. Open the Greek New Testament and long-press on a Greek Word, then tap Copy.
6. Open the Search panel and select "Basic Search" then tap on "Entire Library" and choose "BDAG"
7. Long-press on the "Find" field and tap "Paste" followed by Enter.
8. Tap on the desired result.Open search again for accessing other results from the search, or repeat steps 5 through 8 for other Greek words.
Screencast: https://monosnap.com/file/eBg12Ue3ePeHnsWDhbiUeEUkSEPqkU
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Nice screencast there, Kevin. Thanks. But, it's a lot of steps.[:S]
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Bill Anderson said:
Nice screencast there, Kevin. Thanks. But, it's a lot of steps.
Agreed. I had never thought of searching BDAG that way. However, after trying it myself, I quickly realized it is not a viable option in many cases. That search methodology only works if the specific form of the word you are searching happens to occur in BDAG. I randomly opened NA28 to 1 Peter 2:9, copied the verb ἐξαγγείλητε, and ran a search. I got zero results because BDAG is not an analytical lexicon and was not intended to be searched this way. Basic offline ability to quickly/easily look up original language words remains a weak point of the app. Hopefully threads like this will keep the issue on Faithlife's radar and bump it on up the priority list.
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