Any tips for using notes?

Robert Taylor

I'd like to reap the benefit of the communal wisdom here to get a handle on various ways  to organize and use notes.

 I'm coming over from Bibleworks, where notes are quite a bit different than notes in Logos.  For example, in BW you can have a single note for a verse, and a single note for a chapter, but as many general notes (not specifically connected to verse or chapter) as you want.  You can then create links within any of these notes to jump to any of the other notes.

 I'm used to linking from a verse note to a note that had more details about something that is in that verse.  Usually these other notes will have links to and from other verses where the same subject is referenced.  That way I don't have to repeat the same material in every verse note that needs it.

 For example, my verse note for 1 John 2:2 had links to notes on ἱλασμός, Sin, Condition of man regarding sin and obedience, and Obedience and Legalism.

 Since Logos has a different way of dealing with notes, I'd like to know any other methods I can use, so I don't build a system that gets overly complicated and becomes unusable.  What I'd like to avoid is finding myself saying  "I wish I'd thought of doing that earlier," and then spending a lot of time converting to a different system.

 Hope that makes sense.  Thanks in advance for any answers.

-- Robert Taylor

CRBoone

I'm not sure if this is what you want to achieve, but see if this is similar to what you are looking for:

1) Create a note that isn't attached to a verse (where there are no verse anchors).

2) Beside the "New Note" button, click on the 3 vertical dots:

3. Select "Copy location as: URL":

4. Create a new (second) note that would be anchored to a verse (I didn't anchor mine here since it's just a test note).

5. Highlight the text in this note that you want to link back to the first note.

6. Click the link button shown in the screen shot below and insert the URL copied from the first note:

This doesn't link to a specific location in the original note, just to the note itself. 

You can also use tags, labels and a selection of various note/notation icons and icon colors to categorize your notes, or place them in Notebooks. Hopefully others will chime in with a better explanation/recommendation.

Robert Taylor

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1253468#Comment_1253468

Thanks.  That certainly looks like it will work, and I'll try it out.

I guess one of the questions I have is: Is this the most efficient way of linking notes and information together, or is there a better way I should consider?  Or even just a different way?  Sometimes we get stuck in habitual patterns, and don't try to find different ways of doing things that may actually work better.  

CRBoone

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1253530#Comment_1253530

Robert Taylor said:

Thanks.  That certainly looks like it will work, and I'll try it out.

I guess one of the questions I have is: Is this the most efficient way of linking notes and information together, or is there a better way I should consider?  Or even just a different way?  Sometimes we get stuck in habitual patterns, and don't try to find different ways of doing things that may actually work better.  

I wouldn't be able to give you the best methodology since it's a personal preference. Maybe some others can give you better guidance.

I've had to do exactly what you're trying to avoid -- go back and make revisions to my organization. I think it's just the nature of the thing -- the larger and more complex your note collection gets, at some point you revisit how you have them organized. I also haven't used the label functionality with notes yet and am probably missing out on the benefit for those. I have made extensive use of tags and anchors and have started to use a system of different icons and colors to delineate between them as they appear in the text. For example, my personal note icons are green, notes that I took from specific studies are orange, Psalter text that I've added to notes are red, etc. Part of the color selections had to do with how visible they are on iPad and on the phone. And now I use a different icon for notes that span multiple verses so I know what they are at a glance. I also have cross-reference specific notes, and I use the "link" icon for those in yellow, with each note anchored to all of the pertinent cross-references.

I've also placed some notes in notebooks. If you want to share notes with others in a Faithlife group, I believe they have to be in notebooks. But I've also created a few notebooks for some notes I just want to find quickly without having to filter on tags, or just as another grouping that I didn't want to tag.

But I'm still new to Logos myself, so I would consider my organization to be immature. Hopefully this gives you a few ideas to get started, at least. If you search through the forums, there are some good ideas for how to create subcategories and attributes for tags and labels that could aid in your searches. I would recommend those before you get too invested in your organizational system.

CRBoone

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1253537#Comment_1253537

One other thing I haven't mentioned is that you can embed searches (ie. Strongs, Lemma, etc.) within your notes using that same link button. I didn't mention that since that's probably a common feature within most Bible programs. I'm sure there's a way to embed links to other resources as well in similar fashion. So you're not limited to just linking to other notes that way. 

NB.Mick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1253530#Comment_1253530

Robert Taylor said:

I guess one of the questions I have is: Is this the most efficient way of linking notes and information together, or is there a better way I should consider?  Or even just a different way?

You may want to play around with it a bit. One aspect is that you can have several anchors (e.g. bible verses or text blocks) for one note, so if you want links from several places in the bible to a single note, multiple anchors may be more convenient than just links between the notes. You can also use Greek lemmas like κόσμος as anchor, which will make the note appear in all your lexicons where that lemma appears as a headword.   

Robert Taylor

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1253546#Comment_1253546

I wanted to thank you both for taking the time for these replies.  Sorry I haven't gotten back more quickly, but I've been working on rendering to Caesar.

All of this has given me food for thought, and I will have to try out various ways of working with this new paradigm.  I'm only used to having a single verse note or chapter note attached to the text.  The ability to have multiple notes attached to a verse, or even attached to a single word within a verse, opens up a lot of new possibilities, and I'm still trying to get my head around the different ways I can use this.

Thanks again.