L/V 10 Tip of the Day #21 Dynamic collections

MJ. Smith

Another tip of the day (TOTD) series for Logos/Verbum 10. They will be short and often drawn from forum posts. Feel free to ask questions and/or suggest forum posts you'd like to see included. Adding comments about the behavior on mobile and web apps would be appreciated by your fellow forumites. A search for "L/V 10 Tip of the Day site:community.logos.com" on Google should bring the tips up.

This tip is based on the forum post: suggestion: When you buy collections, include the collection filter. - Logos Forums.

Collections allow one to control the scope of many application functions. They

• define a parallel-resources set
• limit the scope of a search
• limit the scope of some Guide sections e.g. Commentaries, Collections, Grammars, Lemma in passage, etc.
• may be used in the definition of other collections . . .

However, they incur some overhead and require forethought to build. Therefore, FaithLife provides for the user building collections on the fly using the standard library selection syntax.

Using as an example, the resource definition element of the Seach panel:

• Select the "all books" element
• Rather than entering a book title, enter a library selection rule (1). In this case, I am making a temporary collection of all the books in the series:"The Aramaic Bible"
• Select the desired entry from the pick list (2); note that it tells you how many resources you have selected
• You will then see that entry replace "all books" in the search panel (3)
• Run your query and all the book results will be from "The Aramaic Bible" series (4) i.e. they will be from the dynamic collection that I built on the fly.

NOTE: the select argument should be series:"The Aramaic Bible" as stated above; I was sloppy when I took the screen shot.

The fields and operators available for building dynamic collections are:

Library Filter Fields

Use filters to reduce the number of items displayed in the Resource list in Library and Collections. To filter the resource list, type one of the filter fields below, followed by a colon, and then the filter. Make sure there are no spaces between the filter field, the colon, or the filter.

Note: To type a multi-word filter (that is, one containing spaces), enclose the filter in double quotes.

For example, type:dictionary shows all resources that have “Dictionary” as their resource type, but title:dictionary matches resources with the word “dictionary” in the title. title:"english standard version" only matches resources with that phrase in the title.

Supported library filter fields

• abbrev — Abbreviated title. abbrev:nas displays resources with title abbreviations beginning with “nas."
• alttitle — Alternate title. alttitle:Bible displays resources with the word “Bible” in their alternate title.
• author — Author. author:smith displays resources by an author with the name “Smith”.
• collection — Collection. Collection "English Bibles" filters all resources in a user named collection. In this example "English Bibles" is the name collection used to filter the library.
• communitytag — Community tag. communitytag:illustrations displays resources with “illustrations” as a community tag.
• devices — This filter isolates resources that have been downloaded to the Logos mobile app. Users can search for a given device by typing the device’s exact name, or by using devices:* to search for all resources downloaded on an external device.
• edition — Edition—that is, the editorial process used to create the resource. edition:logos displays resources built by Logos for Logos Bible Software and purchased by the user.
• epubdate — Electronic publication date. epubdate:2018 displays resources that were electronically published in 2018.
• language or lang — Primary language of the resource. language:greek displays resources that are primarily in Greek; lang:spanish displays those primarily in Spanish.
• license — license:Permanent indicates licenses for resources owned by the user; license:Temporary indicates licenses the user has access to but does not own.
• myrating — The user’s rating of the resource. myrating:5 displays resources with a 5-star user rating; myrating:>3 displays resources with a rating above three stars.
• mytag — The user tags that have been applied to the resource. mytag:favcom displays resources with the “favcom” tag; mytag:* displays resources with any user tag.
• pubdate — Date of publication. pubdate:1900 displays resources with a print publication date of “1900.”
• publisher — Publisher. publisher:"logos bible software" displays resources published by Logos Bible Software.
• rating — Rating. rating:5 displays resources with a 5-star effective rating, which is the user rating if set, or the community rating if not.
• series — The series this resource belongs to, if any. series:anchor displays resources that are part of the Anchor Yale Bible Commentary series; series:* displays resources in any series.
• subject — The resource’s subject. subject:"bible study" displays resources tagged with the “Bible Study” subject heading.
• tag — Resource tag. This includes both personal and community tags. tag:homiletics displays resources with either a personal or a community tag of “homiletics.”
• title — Resource title. title:"holy spirit" displays resources with “Holy Spirit” in the official or user title.
• type — Resource type. type:bible displays resources tagged with the “Bible” data type.

Library filters can be added together with spaces:

• type:bible lang:spanish displays only Spanish Bibles.
• author:hodge title:"systematic theology" displays books titled Systematic Theology authored by someone named “Hodge.”

Group filters with parentheses and the OR operator to display resources that meet either category. For example:

• type:bible (lang:spanish OR lang:english) displays Bibles in Spanish or English.
• (author:hodge OR author:thiselton) title:"systematic theology" displays resources titled Systematic Theology by authors named “Hodge” or “Thiselton."

The ANDNOT operator, or minus sign - before a filter field removes matching resources from the displayed results. For example:

• type:bible -lang:english or type:bible ANDNOT lang:english displays all Bibles except those in English.

Verbum Help (Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2022).