Topic Guide ... where is the Back button?

Martin Folley

Sorry about the rambling nature of what follows ... it is more the viewpoint of a frustrated user ... L8 has so many flaws like this ... basic ones ... that it is not as useable as I recall L4 being ... or even L3. ... and there is actually a question at the end! :-) 

I typed 'Sermon on the Mount' into the passage 'search bar' thing at the top today. This is the second time I have used it in L8; the first time seemed to ignore my library priorities and the basic alphabet! ('ESV'). Today it ignored everything in the box other than the word 'sermon' ... not exactly what I wanted. If there is an exact match (or closer match than just a single word) ... why is that not the default?

The layout it produced was full of windows linked together under link set 'A'. I am not sure why so many resources are needing to be linked, or why these particular resources were opened first. It included an article of Christian History magazine (not that you can see what it is from the tab). Clicking on the the resource tab (just to see what was there) changed the resource's 'location' to Bernard of Clairvaux. This in turn changed the whole of link-set A to Bernard ... which in turn changed the topic guide away from the topic that I (didn't) want!!!

How do I go back to the topic that I (didn't) search for!

Thanks.

Mark Barnes

Martin Folley said:

Today it ignored everything in the box other than the word 'sermon' ... not exactly what I wanted. If there is an exact match (or closer match than just a single word) ... why is that not the default?

The Go Box/Command Box tries to be all things to all men — to interpret whatever you put into it. That's useful for us, but surprisingly hard for a computer to achieve, especially when you're using a word like 'sermon' that could be used in many different contexts.

The good news is that Logos learns. So it will remember that if you type in 'Sermon on the Mount' in the future, you want the Topic Study Layout, and that will be the default next time.

Martin Folley said:

The layout it produced was full of windows linked together under link set 'A'. I am not sure why so many resources are needing to be linked, or why these particular resources were opened first. It included an article of Christian History magazine (not that you can see what it is from the tab). Clicking on the the resource tab (just to see what was there) changed the resource's 'location' to Bernard of Clairvaux. This in turn changed the whole of link-set A to Bernard ... which in turn changed the topic guide away from the topic that I (didn't) want!!!

How do I go back to the topic that I (didn't) search for!

I presume you chose Open Topic Study Layout to Sermon on the Mount/Plain.

I don't know why you got the Magazine without the right article. That didn't happen for me. It's possible that you've updated the default layout to include the Christian History magazine resource. It's possible, perhaps, that you only have a few resources that have this topic, and that caused the issue.

But to go back to the previous topic, you just need to click 'back' in one of the dictionaries that have the 'Sermon on the Mount' article. (The Topic Guide doesn't have a back button for some reason.)

Martin Folley

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1047862#Comment_1047862

Thank you Mark.

Mark Barnes said:

But to go back to the previous topic, you just need to click 'back' in one of the dictionaries that have the 'Sermon on the Mount' article.

That sorts it in for the moment, so long as I o not want to keep the linked article on the screen ... obviously using the back button will lose that. I suppose it comes back to the whole targeted panel vs linked panel vs multiple resource view debate. What is most useful in each circumstance.

I am still confused by how Logos works ... I understand an encyclopaedia itself having an article like 'Keyword: See some other article' ... I am surprised that the topic guide will link to such articles, articles that are say less that 6 words long. The info panel is still also showing the same issue. It seems that once a title is found in a resource, it is beyond the scope of the coders to count the number of words to the next keyword and eliminate results that have so few words in the entry. There are probably more sophisticated methods than that ... I do not not what meta data adds to the resources. The same is true of reading plans ... surely it is possible to look for the next paragraph mark or even full-stop and adjust the reading plan marker to that, or maybe from there back or forwards to the next title is less than 200 words etc.

Mark Barnes said:

I presume you chose Open Topic Study Layout to Sermon on the Mount/Plain.

Sort of ... I typed in Sermon on the Mount and it matched sermon, even though there was a far closer match. I added the extra words, Logos ignored them by default! I even typed in Sermon on the Mount/Plain, which was an exact match yet Logos choose to prefix 'Open Topic Study Layout' to just my first word rather than seeing if using all of my words would make sense first.

I know there is a menu of options that ... eventually ... allow me to make a choice ... if I wait long enough ... and carefully consider each option ... but If I choose not to do that, I would expect Logos to make a better fist of it than simple taking the first word only.

Dave Hooton

Martin Folley said:

I typed 'Sermon on the Mount' into the passage 'search bar' thing at the top today. This is the second time I have used it in L8; the first time seemed to ignore my library priorities and the basic alphabet! ('ESV'). Today it ignored everything in the box other than the word 'sermon' ... not exactly what I wanted. If there is an exact match (or closer match than just a single word) ... why is that not the default?

The layout it produced was full of windows linked together under link set 'A'. I am not sure why so many resources are needing to be linked,

It could be that the Go/Command box is not the right tool for you, when it opens a layout that doesn't suit you. Why don't you use Topic Guide in your layout and link that to resources you appreciate. Then type the topic you seek into its Topic box. You can save the layout for future use.