Notes - A Good Start, but Needs Some Improvement

Gregory Wolff
Gregory Wolff Member Posts: 51 ✭✭
edited November 20 in English Forum

First, I think the new Notes feature has taken great strides to "be a better tool" for students of the Bible. The greatest advantage of the new Notes is that all my notes are in one place. This is an incredible improvement over the previous version.

Second, concerning these comments below, please keep a couple things in mind:

  1. These comments are very long, but please bear with me.
  2. These comments are based on my initial exposure to Notes, and I haven't had a lot of time to play around with this feature, so there may be some shortcuts and functions that I don't know about, so please let me know of any solutions to these issues you have found.
  3. Some (many, most) of these comments have been covered in other posts. However, rather than continuing to scatter my comments all around, I wanted to give a complete summary of my initial findings in one place. So, some things may be redundant.
  4. Like many other posters here, I use notes as one of my primary tools in Logos, primarily for Sunday Morning Sermon notes and for any other Bible studies I may attend.
  5. I am an IT guy. I design office automation databases for my work center, and one of my main goals is functionality and intuitiveness (please read that as: "I am not a dummy," particularly when it comes to computers).

So, let's start:

This is what my opening screen looks like (I bypass my Home screen). As you can see, I like to have two English Bible Translations open (for comparison) on the left, an original language Bible in the top right and my notes in the bottom right. I've been doing it this way for about two years, and I have liked how it works. Because we are talking about Notes, from now on, I will only address that window and crop the rest away.

As you can see, my notes are sorted by most recently modified, but as others have commented, there is no way to sort my Bible Reference.

Request #1 - Add Sorting by Bible Reference

Now, you may notice that there are two Notes shown, one from Luke 7:24-35, from this past Sunday, and one from Luke 7:18-23, from last week. You may also notice that last weeks Note has a Title: The Messengers from John the Baptist. Most of my notes have a title, but sometimes I don't have one. As far as I can tell, my "Title" has been removed and simply formatted to a bold font and placed into the content of the Note. There may be times that all I want to see in my notes is the Bible reference and the Title, as sometimes sermons on identical or similar texts can have a different emphasis or perspective. If I remember correctly, with the old Notes, The left-hand pane displayed just that: the Bible Reference and the Title applied to that note. As far as I can tell, neither Note Titles (other than the manner described above) or a Reference/Title view are available in the New Notes. Again, the Bible Reference seems to be a common "thread" on this thread.

Request 2a - Add the capability for a Note Title

Request 2b - Add a "View" that allows Bible Reference and Title

Now, let's add a new note:

To add a new Note in Logos 7, I clicked Add New Note, I clicked Edit Attachment Points, typed in the Bible Reference, clicked "Done", added a Title and then began typing. This took me about 10 seconds. This was not difficult, either--even using a laptop without a mouse. I think 10 seconds is even exaggerating. The new Note was automatically added to my Sermon Notes document because that was the last one I had open. The default indicator was a yellow star, which I have chosen as my preferred indicator for a Sermon note.

Logos 8:

Click New Note, Click on the Note Icon dropdown and select the yellow star (it did not remember my last preference). But take notice, because once I choose the yellow star, the dropdown doesn't automatically disappear. I must then click elsewhere. Then I click the dropdown for Notebook, and, since I have a bunch of Notebooks that were created for me, I have to scroll all the way down to "Sermon Notes"--these are sorted alphabetically. This can take a while without a mouse and my fumbly fingers. Now, intuitively, I ask myself, "What do I do next?" I need an attachment point. No sign of attachment points anywhere in sight. click the three dots and I see Add Anchor, so that makes sense. I click on Add Anchor. Now I have to click in the text field and add my reference. I hit enter and nothing happens.

This is because the Anchor details are hidden and I need to scroll down. So, I scroll down and click Add. This leaves me with this:

Notice that tiny little area left for taking a note! But, after I collapse the Anchors and expand the window to take up the full space, it seems a bit better. This does not take a whole lot of time (and not terribly more time than before), but it does seem a bit clumsy and there are a few extra clicks and scrolls. I must admit that working this for the first time was a bit confusing, but after going back to it, it seems relatively straightforward. I just need to remember all the steps. Plus, there is still no option for adding a Note "Title".

One immediate disadvantage that I see with the new Anchor points has to do with their implementation. Previously, the Attachment Points were displayed up top, and a single click on the reference jumped to that location. In order to jump to the reference in the new Notes, I must click on the Anchor points to open them, then click again on the reference to jump to it. Then I click the anchors again in order to close the anchors. This is three clicks where only one is needed.

Request #3 - Make the Anchors Hyperlinks

Request #4 - Notes should save either your most recent Note/Notebook settings or allow us to set defaults

I have noticed numerous comments concerning the default font and default font color for the new Notes. My first experience was the following:

  • The default font was "ugly" in my opinion.
  • The default font color was gray--not black--which was difficult to read.
  • There was no place that I could find to change my default font/colors.
  • Once I changed the font color to black, the font would occasionally revert back to gray for new text.
  • Typing in a Bible reference created a hyperlink (this is good) in a different font (this is not good) and a different color (this is good). However, the constant changing back to a gray font caused me to select all text and change back to black caused the hyperlinks to lose their distinctive color.
  • The constant messing with the fonts was a distraction (especially during a sermon).

Tonight when I went to the notes, the font color is now black. I don't know if this has already been changed, or if I am one of the lucky ones.

However, one challenge still remains: There is a lot of wasted space in the new Notes layout:

I am using Microsoft Surface Book, with 3000x2000 resolution. That's a lot of real estate. But, as you can see, more than half of the Notes pane (which covers one fourth of my screen) is completely unused when actually taking notes. Here is what I see:

  1. The entire search bar is persistent. I don't mind having a search capability, but a persistent search bar across the top is unnecessary. This could be replaced by a simple magnifying glass icon.
  2. The New New button is persistent. This could be a plus button "+".
  3. The "All" hyperlink is tiny, persistent and takes up the entire width of the pane.
  4. The Icon, Highlight Style and Notebook are persistent. These could be helpful, but to be honest, once one has made these settings for the Note, they are unnecessary.
  5. Whereas the Logos 7 formatting buttons seemed a bit on the small side for me (I was using the same laptop), the Logos 8 Notes formatting buttons seem to be a bit on the large side, with a lot of white space surrounding them. Plus, I can't see myself ever using the Strikeout Text feature.
  6. The Anchors section (which is mostly unused once set), seems a bit wide (a lot of white space above and below).
  7. The "Add tags..." section is persistent, wide and covers the entire width of the pane. This could be a toggle.

From my perspective, most of these features could be non-persistent, smaller and/or consolidated to save space. If I used the Notes in full-screen or even full-height, most of these issues would be moot. However, a pane that is 1500x1000 pixels should be plenty of space for what we have here.

Request #5 - Improve the Layout and Usage of Space in the Notes Pane

I want to emphasize that the new Notes feature is not a disappointment for me. In fact, I think it is actually a considerable improvement. I admit that my first experience with the Notes was a bit frustrating and distracting in the middle of a sermon, but after re-looking at it again and reviewing how things work, I feel a bit more satisfied that this is a very good initial roll-out.

However, after reviewing what I have above, it is clear that there are a few minor changes that would greatly enhance the Notes feature to make it a bit more intuitive, useful and efficient. My apologies for duplicating any other threads on this forum, but seeing the process from start to finish may be helpful to others.

Grace and Peace,
Greg
ὁ δε δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται
διὰ πίστεως γὰρ περιπατοῦμεν, οὐ διὰ εἴδους

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