New Feature Suggestion: Build Your Own Master Commentary

I love Logos, and it has helped my learning and study of the Bible, and shaped my studies so much! However, one of my main difficulties with it is the sheer number of resources that I have...

I have so many resources that I love, that to peruse even a portion of them when studying takes a considerable amount of searching, browsing, passage guiding, and opening, and this all takes an even more considerable amount of time.

Something the Logos platform has always prided itself on is saving on research time; and it does save massive amounts of time if we compare it to reading the physical equivalents of these resources. I think a feature to build your own compilation from a network of commentaries would be a hugely popular and useful feature that would save users on time and also simplicity.

I would absolutely love a way to combine all my favorite commentaries into one single master resource. A single 'go to' place where I could view all of my 'go to' commentaries and study Bible notes.

What I envision with this, is a single panel open, with all of the resources I choose enfolded (or dovetailed in) by scripture reference. Each set of text would have a scripture reference and label for the title of the resource (perhaps a customizable one).

Essentially this would function much like the Ancient Christian Commentary, or Reformation Commentary Series. However it would use the commentaries already owned by the user. This would allow Logos users to have all of their best commentaries in one panel in one place for simplicity and ease of study.

Would anyone else be interested in something like this? Or am I alone on this geeky pipe dream?

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Comments

Justin Gatlin

Functionally, how is this different than a passage guide? Create a collection of your favorite resources and create a custom passage guide that just searches that collection. Open your passage guide to a single verse and link it to your Bible panel, so as you scroll it takes all of your commentaries with you.

DMB

I think your pipe dream is a fairly common one. There's bits and pieces of it, sprinkled around already. And so the forum is the 'workaround' capital of Logosia.

I would absolutely love a way to combine all my favorite commentaries into one single master resource.

That one, of course, is 'solved' (again workaround), by the Series field. But only one per resource. Decisions, decisions.

A single 'go to' place where I could view all of my 'go to' commentaries and study Bible notes.

This one is barely 'solved' in the Passage Guide, but just barely ... the snippets barely help, and no notes, etc ... separate panel for that. And barely.

a single panel open, with all of the resources I choose enfolded (or dovetailed in) by scripture reference

This one echos the Multiple Book Display. That's basically how I handle your pipe dream. I keep 3 of them in a window, that solve separate issues. Choosable commentaries, comparable OLs, etc. I had to re-title the resources, to see the headings usefully.

Would anyone else be interested in something like this?

I'd bet yes. Really it's combining several separate Logos functions; seems. Or doing a better job on Passage Guide.

Christian Alexander

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1269705#Comment_1269705

Good idea. Passage Guide on steroids.

MJ. Smith

Would anyone else be interested in something like this?

I suspect many would be interested. But its usefulness is dependent on the size of one's library and the style of one's favorite commentaries. Translation: I see the value but I'd be unlikely to use it.

Liam

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1269704#Comment_1269704

Justin, it would be quite a bit different than the passage guide; most evidently in the area of simplicity. If I had say, 10 commentaries or study Bibles that I want to read all the way through, I don’t have to deal with all the various panels and passage guide sorting and finding. I can simply open this master resource and have them all before me in canonical order and read. This would especially be useful on the mobile apps where it is more messy to have multiple panels to swap and sort through as you read a given passage.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1269903#Comment_1269903

As you describe it here it sounds much like parallel resources.

xnman

....

Would anyone else be interested in something like this? Or am I alone on this geeky pipe dream?

I would love Passage Guide to be worked on / reworked. It's like several of Logos "functions" .... it's almost there, but not.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1270096#Comment_1270096

I would love Passage Guide to be worked on / reworked.

I agree - but what specifically would you like to see?

1Cor10 31

I would absolutely love a way to combine all my favorite commentaries into one single master resource. A single 'go to' place where I could view all of my 'go to' commentaries and study Bible notes.

Won't Parallel Book sets (//) (alternatively called Parallel Resources) help?

First, since I am a lay person, I went through several commentaries surveys (Evans, Yost etc.) to identify 10-20 commentaries for each book of the Bible.

Second, made a collection of commentaries for each book of the Bible. For example, for Ephesians: type:"Bible Commentary" AND Subject:"Bible N.T., Ephesians". This will keep all commentaries

Third, prioritized the 10-20 commentaries using Prioritized Resources.

Fourth, renamed the 10-20 commentaries identified in step 1 to give shorter titles; otherwise you can't tell which one is what in "Parallel Resources"

Fifth, once you are in a passage, scroll thro' one commentary after another using Parallel Resources