Can you help us improve search?
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I need to change my name to MJ Coldwater -- I have documented for my own purposes the settings, tags, labels, attributes, locations for starting ... of all the searches except syntax down to the level of the various morphology codes. It is not the big help you think it would be as recent threads in the forums illustrate:
- Searching Specific Articles - Faithlife Forums (logos.com) shows that it is the USE of the elements that often throws people e.g. the use of Section, Milestone, and WITHIN
- Help with Understanding Search Clauses - Faithlife Forums (logos.com) shows that ambiguous tags can be misunderstood e.g. object (grammatical) vs. thing (physical)
What I found actually worked to teach me to build searches was something I am loath to do because it is not my normal learning style. I made cards in Anki (because Logos is such a Luddite when it comes to "vocabulary cards") for the various key terms, values, labels, attributes, datatypes ... to learn the vocabulary. Mouse over popups is no substitute to actually knowing what the data in front of you means. When you actually understand what the tags mean, what the difference is between "subject" and "agent", then you can start figuring out in you mind what you need to do; once you know what you need to do most of the time you can do it -- once in a while you get stuck and have to ask. The portion of the search that still gives me trouble is preaching themes and theological topics -- they are based on a vocabulary so different than my own, it often turns humorous when I try to find a basic concept ... Did you know Christmas is about a birth rather than an incarnation? [8-|]
As you can tell, my opinion has not gathered much steam LOGOS vocabulary cards | Faithlife
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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MJ. Smith said:
What I found actually worked to teach me to build searches was something I am loath to do because it is not my normal learning style. I made cards in Anki (because Logos is such a Luddite when it comes to "vocabulary cards") for the various key terms, values, labels, attributes, datatypes ... to learn the vocabulary.
MJ: Do you make your ANKI deck available?
Blessings,
FloydPastor-Patrick.blogspot.com
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Floyd Johnson said:
MJ: Do you make your ANKI deck available?
Hmm ... I don't remember ... I'll check later tonight.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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I don't use the AutoCompleter much if any at all.....Maybe that's my problem with Search. I do notice what seems like a lot of questions in the forums about how to search for what they are looking for.
I have tried to learn about the search and have learned some .... but I find it confusing and trying.
When I do use it.... seems I spend an inordinate amount of time just trying to find what I'm looking for.
Personally.... it's just too complicated.
xn = Christan man=man -- Acts 11:26 "....and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch".
Barney Fife is my hero! He only uses an abacus with 14 rows!
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MJ. Smith said:
I need to change my name to MJ Coldwater -- I have documented for my own purposes the settings, tags, labels, attributes, locations for starting ... of all the searches except syntax down to the level of the various morphology codes. It is not the big help you think it would be as recent threads in the forums illustrate:
- Searching Specific Articles - Faithlife Forums (logos.com) shows that it is the USE of the elements that often throws people e.g. the use of Section, Milestone, and WITHIN
- Help with Understanding Search Clauses - Faithlife Forums (logos.com) shows that ambiguous tags can be misunderstood e.g. object (grammatical) vs. thing (physical)
To my mind, proper documentation involves more than comprehensive lists of items--every item also needs to be clearly and thoroughly explained. Such explanations would disambiguate ambiguous tags (etc.) and indicate potentially helpful usage via representative examples. Anything less would not constitute proper documentation as far as I am concerned.
“The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara
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xnman said:
I don't use the AutoCompleter much if any at all.....Maybe that's my problem with Search.
I concentrated on a search for Dumah, which is used as a place name in my PB. The Inline search (below) only gave datatype suggestions which was unhelpful for a resource with no Faithlife tagging, and revealed that Dumah was also a person i.e. <Person Dumah (descendant of Ishmael)>.
A Basic Search gave further datatype suggestions e.g.<Topic Dumah (Person)>, <Topic Dumah (of Judah)>, <Topic Dumah (of Seir)> (five in all). But it is inconsistent and originally gave a list of names as I typed. This is why I have learned to ignore the AutoCompleter except when I know it is relevant, or begin to type <place dumah.
I have strongly criticised the use of the Topic datatype in the past as it is a legacy term with results in only a few resources. So why does Faithlife continue to use and confuse with its use?
Another nic pick is use of the hidden "Match equivalent references" which suddenly gives life to a dead search for <Topic Dumah (Person)> (in All Resources) by including <Person Dumah (descendant of Ishmael)>.
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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Ok.... I'll ask a question......
Say I want to search for Joshua (son of nun) death... I have books with such information in them...
So I fire up Search... and use "All Morph Text in All Passages in All Resources for"
The underlined have drop down choices.....
The choices under "All Moph" don't seem to apply.
The choices under "All Passages" don't seem to apply but mainly limit All Resources to just Bibles....
And choices for "All Resources" seem to be limited to just Bibles.
Which bring me to the conclusion that SEARCH mainly is just a shade above the inline search of the Bible.
Now my question.... how do I search all the books in my Library to find out about Joshua? SEARCH just don't seem to get me there.
So I turn to "Topic Search" which will point me to "Factbook" and then I wade through information there to try to find it.
Thanks.
What I have been doing.... is when I do find whatever information I am looking for (and eventually I do find it... I'm persistent to a fault, lol).... then I put it in a Word docx file.... and make a Personal Book out of it.... and then I can find it any time I want. It's my work around.... [8-|]
xn = Christan man=man -- Acts 11:26 "....and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch".
Barney Fife is my hero! He only uses an abacus with 14 rows!
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xnman said:
So I fire up Search... and use "All Morph Text in All Passages in All Resources for"
A Morph Search which is what you are describing here is for finding morpholigcally tagged resources - so not the right option for just searching references to Joshua.
If you want to find where Joshua is mentioned in the Bible, then you can use a Bible Search with a search field of <Person Joshua (son of Nun)> (and the autocompleter will give you this as an option when you just type in Joshua
If you want to find where Joshua is mentioned in non-biblical resources, you can use a Basic Search with a search field of Joshua or <Person Joshua (son of Nun)>
This will probably give you a lot of results to work through.
Alternatively - as suggested in your other post on this you could start with the Factbook entry on Joshua (Son of Nun)
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xnman said:
Say I want to search for Joshua (son of nun) death... I have books with such information in them...
So I fire up Search... and use "All Morph Text in All Passages in All Resources for"
It sounds like you have selected a '"Morph" search (only searches morphologically tagged resources), when what you want is a "Basic" search. Try changing that (at the top of the search panel) and see if you get more of what you are expecting.
Andrew Batishko | Logos software developer
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Fabian said:
Is there a shortcut to open a "Search panel"?
Check the very bottom of the help file for a list of keyboard shortcuts.
Alt+S on Windows and Shift+Cmd+S on Mac.
Fabian said:If I open the Calwer Bibellexikon and I choose "Verfasser" means "author" then why the suggestions don't work? And if this work is not prepared for this, then why I can mark to search for "Verfasser". For example "Roos" is one. So I check the box for Verfasser and type "r". Heaven help! There are many words that come up but not "Roos". And then I would like to search in the texts this author wrote. I should then have as second command or search field. Either I or Logos is stupid.
If I'm understanding you correctly, then you are correct that when you select a Search Field, it does not affect the autocomplete suggestions. It only affects the list of search results. The reason why Roos does not come up when you just type "r" is that there are far too many words that start with "r", so the list of options is capped.
Note that search fields are provided to limit your searches to text that has been tagged with that field. The names of the authors in that resource is tagged with the field, not the text of what they have written. I'm not aware of any mechanism for doing such a search.
Andrew Batishko | Logos software developer
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Even if the quality and quantity of existing Search documentation were to remain the same, if all of it actually existed in a Logos resource from Faithlife, that would be a significant improvement. In software designed primarily to handle electronic books, I shouldn't have to worry about things like the Logos Wiki when I'm trying to learn stuff about the software that could be in a book... a book that would be searchable from within the software. Unlike all the search (and other) documentation that is not in a Logos resource.
“The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara
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We need the ability to search for Concordance Tool Categories such as all the places in the Book of John, All the Kings in Daniel. All the Women in the Bible. The Categories of Kind and Subkind are not available to search.
I would like also the ability to narrow the search down by only proper names and create a visual filter.
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Andrew Batishko said:
If I'm understanding you correctly, then you are correct that when you select a Search Field, it does not affect the autocomplete suggestions. It only affects the list of search results. The reason why Roos does not come up when you just type "r" is that there are far too many words that start with "r", so the list of options is capped.
Note that search fields are provided to limit your searches to text that has been tagged with that field. The names of the authors in that resource is tagged with the field, not the text of what they have written. I'm not aware of any mechanism for doing such a search.
Yes you understand me correct.
Keep in mind I talk about the Inline Search. Calwer Bibellexikon. If I have set to author and title, then the suggestions should not bring. "R, Re, rov, rev, Rom" etc. and "<> R Anderson-Forbes Morphologie" etc. This has nothing to do with the Milestone author. Then I writhe the semicolon do search for the title. I type "B" and it comes again suggestions that are not a title in this particular resource.
Logos must recognize the what I have chosen.
Or simpler I choose Fliesstext, the standard. It gives me <AFMorphHeb A> as suggestion after the words. There is no <AFMorphHeb A> in and no other morph. This is completely useless.
Or I choose Bildnachweis (caption). I type "T" it gives me "Titus". But there is not "Titus" caption.
Also if the module has no captions, then it should be greyed out. Except I say search in all texts for the caption "Titus".
Logos should bring as suggestions the word of the resource or more narrow the milestones I have chosen. Nothing more. All others has not be listed or greyed out. And if the text has verse references than this should be a field, which I can choose. If I type there "e" Ex, Ezra, Eph etc. should come up. Verse refs that beginns with "e". nothing more nothing less.
Instead of giving <> Anderson-Forbes...bla bla which is not in the text. You should suggest "Search Fields".
And all Milestones a work has, it should be a Search Field.
Andrew Batishko said:when you select a Search Field, it does not affect the autocomplete suggestions.
But this is what you have to develop for 10. Plus the Search Fields.
You asked to what is to do to improve the search. This is my answer.
Χριστὸς ἐν ὑμῖν, ἡ ἐλπὶς τῆς δόξης·
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A side effect to my request above is: Logos would be faster in the Autocomplete as it only searches what it should and not more.
Χριστὸς ἐν ὑμῖν, ἡ ἐλπὶς τῆς δόξης·
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Andrew....
I have forgotten you had asked about Search in this thread... but...
I find Search very confusing.... and difficult to learn. Is there a way to simplify the process by having something like drop down menus that would help?
for example.... Under the top level... "Bible - Basic - Media - Clause - Morph" have drop down menus for choices that are associated with each one of the top level?
Then under those top level choices.... when I choose say "Basic".... and then have choices under it... then have next level of choices.. etc. and etc. Maybe have a tier of level of choices .... even to the point of involving which brackets to use and how?
To me... that shows how complicated Search is....
As it is now....
1. I have to remember which top level to use "Bible - Basic - Media - Clause - Morph" Then ...
2. which brackets "<>[]{}()" to use and
3. which and what words to include in the brackets
4. and even the order of the words within the brackets....
And now people want to add more options to an already confusing Search ....?
Is there not a way to simplify it somehow?
xn = Christan man=man -- Acts 11:26 "....and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch".
Barney Fife is my hero! He only uses an abacus with 14 rows!
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xnman said:
As it is now....
1. I have to remember which top level to use "Bible - Basic - Media - Clause - Morph" Then ...
2. which brackets "<>[]{}()" to use and
3. which and what words to include in the brackets
4. and even the order of the words within the brackets....
And now people want to add more options to an already confusing Search ....?
Is there not a way to simplify it somehow?
There certainly are ways to simplify it - and we're working on ways to do that. It's hard to do it without reducing the power of search, but we're looking at things like:
- Having clearer defaults, so there's less you have to think about
- Making hidden options more discoverable, so it's easier to make changes you need
- Making choices clearer, so it's more obvious what you should choose
- Removing unnecessary syntax, so you don't need to worry about whether you should use <, [, or {
- Improving autocomplete, so you get better suggestions when you're not sure what comes next
We won't solve all that overnight, and I can't promise we'll solve all of it entirely, but those are some of our goals.
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I like you can search the whole corpus of works in Logos with the search bar. But this should be a second option. The first should be the inline search WITH the autocomplete of the inline words.
Χριστὸς ἐν ὑμῖν, ἡ ἐλπὶς τῆς δόξης·
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Mark Barnes (Faithlife) said:
- Removing unnecessary syntax, so you don't need to worry about whether you should use <, [, or {
Hallelujah! PLEASE do make this a reality. To me, those syntax/brackets represent the biggest hurdle and mystery preventing me from fully understanding and using Logos search.
Please also see the comments in this thread:
https://community.logos.com/forums/p/206971/1205494.aspx#1205494
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Thanks, PL. I checked out the other thread and have made a few notes. We hear you!
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Mark Barnes (Faithlife) said:
There certainly are ways to simplify it - and we're working on ways to do that. It's hard to do it without reducing the power of search, but we're looking at things like:
- Having clearer defaults, so there's less you have to think about
- Making hidden options more discoverable, so it's easier to make changes you need
- Making choices clearer, so it's more obvious what you should choose
- Removing unnecessary syntax, so you don't need to worry about whether you should use <, [, or {
- Improving autocomplete, so you get better suggestions when you're not sure what comes next
We won't solve all that overnight, and I can't promise we'll solve all of it entirely, but those are some of our goals.
I right click and almost all the things that show up on the left side of the menu has a corresponding search. I don't need to know the syntax to run all these searches. This is an underappreciated way of auto filling the search syntax. I can then mix and match these searches based on what I am looking for.
Maybe, there are complicated searches that cannot be done using the above method, but the above is a good start.
I believe in a Win-Win-Win God.
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1Cor10:31 - I agree on the power of the Context Menu which is why I'd like to see more information on it especially grammatical and semantic roles.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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1Cor10:31 said:
I right click and almost all the things that show up on the left side of the menu has a corresponding search. I don't need to know the syntax to run all these searches. This is an underappreciated way of auto filling the search syntax. I can then mix and match these searches based on what I am looking for.
Maybe, there are complicated searches that cannot be done using the above method, but the above is a good start.
That's usually how I recommend people create searches too. Of course, it only works if you already know what you're looking for (or at least one instance of it)...
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Right click where, on what? Is there a visual guide or tutorial or examples? Have I been missing something all these years?
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Mark Barnes (Faithlife) said:
There certainly are ways to simplify it - and we're working on ways to do that. It's hard to do it without reducing the power of search, but we're looking at things like:
- Having clearer defaults, so there's less you have to think about
- Making hidden options more discoverable, so it's easier to make changes you need
- Making choices clearer, so it's more obvious what you should choose
- Removing unnecessary syntax, so you don't need to worry about whether you should use <, [, or {
- Improving autocomplete, so you get better suggestions when you're not sure what comes next
We won't solve all that overnight, and I can't promise we'll solve all of it entirely, but those are some of our goals.
Sounds like gooood things coming! I'm excited all over more than anywhere else! I have not been happy with search!
Thank you! [8-|]
xn = Christan man=man -- Acts 11:26 "....and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch".
Barney Fife is my hero! He only uses an abacus with 14 rows!
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PL said:
Right click where, on what? Is there a visual guide or tutorial or examples? Have I been missing something all these years?
My question also..... where to right click??
xn = Christan man=man -- Acts 11:26 "....and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch".
Barney Fife is my hero! He only uses an abacus with 14 rows!
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Mark Barnes (Faithlife) said:
There certainly are ways to simplify it - and we're working on ways to do that. It's hard to do it without reducing the power of search, but we're looking at things like:
- Having clearer defaults, so there's less you have to think about
- Making hidden options more discoverable, so it's easier to make changes you need
- Making choices clearer, so it's more obvious what you should choose
- Removing unnecessary syntax, so you don't need to worry about whether you should use <, [, or {
- Improving autocomplete, so you get better suggestions when you're not sure what comes next
We won't solve all that overnight, and I can't promise we'll solve all of it entirely, but those are some of our goals.
Thank you + the FL team for your efforts, Mark.
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xnman said:
My question also..... where to right click??
Context Menu – Logos Help Center
Select a word, phrase, sentence, paragraph ... then right click. The menu that comes up it tailored to what you selected so the resulting menu may be very short to very long. Select the type of information you are interested in on the left and actions you can take based on that type of information on the right.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Mark Barnes!
I have to say I'm fully disappointed with Logos 10. NON of the improvements I wrote has found the way to the app.
Fabian
Χριστὸς ἐν ὑμῖν, ἡ ἐλπὶς τῆς δόξης·
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Fabian said:
I have to say I'm fully disappointed with Logos 10. NON of the improvements I wrote has found the way to the app.
We're not finished yet. We've delivered more search improvements since Logos 10 was launched, and there will be more to come. I can't promise your suggestions will be implemented, but some of them - especially in relation to autocomplete - are things we'd like to be able to do.
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