Data issue: Logos (esp. Mark Branes) we have a problem re: Bible outline browser
See the first post (2020) and post today ( 24.17.106.110) in Separate Outlines for POSB - Logos Forums - all of which is a discussion of an inadequacy in Logos that is provided by other Bible software. However, there is a major problem with the discussion. Logos does have the feature and has had since Logos 6. So Logos has two major issues:
- The fact that the data is easily available in Logos is not known to the users
- The fact that the data is woefully incomplete limits its usefulness
I have gone so far as to have employee A give me the format for updating with additional data only to have employee B refuse to use it. Feedback certainly has shown an interest in getting the appropriate data into the tool and a modification to the tool:
- Selection on Bible Outline Browser | Logos
- Allow custom arrangement of Bible Outline Browser | Logos
- Add Factbook outline to Outline Browser | Logos
- Add Life Application Bible Commentary to the Bible Outline Browser | Logos
- Add The NIV Application Commentary to the Bible Outline Browser | Logos
- Add the Africa Bible Commentary to the Bible Outline Browser | Logos
- Add Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible to the Bible Outline Browser. | Logos
- Add A Bible Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition to the Bible Outline Browser | Logos
- Upgrade the Evangelical Exegetical Commentary Bible Outline Browser data to to use the greatest available detail | Logos
- Add Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary to the Bible Outline Browser | Logos
- Add Teach the Text Commentary on the Bible to the Bible Outline Browser. | Logos
- Add Osborne New Testament Commentaries to the New Testament to the Bible Outline Browser. | Logos
- Add The New Testament Library (Westminster John Knox Press) to the Bible Outline Browser. | Logos
- Add T&T Clark Study Guides to the New Testament to the Bible Outline Browser. | Logos
This seems like Logos built a decent tool, seeded it with the easiest outlines (least useful) and lost interest in using the most detailed outlines in the resource, outlines that are broken into pieces and spread throughout a resource, and outlines in new resources. As for myself, I am getting very tired of incomplete tools.
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."
Comments
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Thanks for bringing this up, MJ.
Coincidentally, in a recent internal document, I used the Bible Outline Browser as an example of a potentially useful tool that isn't delivering on its promise. So I mostly agree with your analysis.
Do you think we should "fix" the Bible Outline Browser or start again? Logos 6 was a very long time ago.
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Do you think we should "fix" the Bible Outline Browser or start again?
I like both views provided by the Bible Outline Browser and would hate to lose either. But I suspect it was written with an architecture that didn't emphasize reusable code ...so I'd assume a rewrite would be cost effective if viewed in the long run. A rewrite should allow for text wrap to make it more useful beside a Bible; make it available as a linked set; make the items in the compare view selectable. One idea I would toss around would be the possibility of, in a rewrite, making the tool more generic so that other structures e.g. inclusio, sortie, and chiasm could also be viewed in it.
Picking up on DMB below: having pericopes and outlines available in the left side panel of Bibles would be a useful additional feature.
For those unfamiliar with the tool:
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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Well, that one went right over my head.
I have a fairly small Logos/Verbum ... maybe $50K or so. I couldn't find anything like that in the Tools, Documents, etc. Did find it in the library. It had something from NJB and John 3:16. Not sure what either one of those 2 pieces of info are supposed to do.
That was about as far as I could figure, after maybe 30 minutes.
I would have expected it as an alternative in the Bible left-panel (TOC, etc). Along with pericopes. Bible Browser. And so on. Bibles.
Without speaking to fancying it up. UI.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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As per DMB's reasonable expectations please vote for Navigational panel on left - outline and pericopes | Logos I need to learn from Rosie how to market good ideas.
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 use the Bible Browser and like it. I do think it could be improved particularly with the ability to Link to my bible.
I do find the Bible Browser to be a bit shallow sometimes. By that I mean ... BB has topics that appear to be subjective and not objective. Some of the topics might apply to someone like Catholics (for example only) but not to me which is not Catholic.
To get around that... maybe something along these lines.... if possible... maybe have a dataset (i.e. Topic Chapter Verses )created by me (the user) so that I can enter topics and chapter-verse and that be incorporated (read) into Bible Browser. I realize it would have to be re-indexed ever so often, but I think it would be of help. To me, this is more of an objective approach for everyone.
Just my opinion.... not meant for argument. [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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I use the Bible Browser and like it. I do think it could be improved particularly with the ability to Link to my bible.
MJ’s thread is about the Bible Outline Browser - a different tool.
I recommend starting a new thread to suggest ways in which the Bible Browser Tool could be enhanced / strengthened.
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As per DMB's reasonable expectations please vote for Navigational panel on left - outline and pericopes | Logos I need to learn from Rosie how to market good ideas.
I appreciate your feedbear entry ... although in the tradition of Logos books, feedbear reminds me of Mot's tremendous hunger (I always thought early accounts of death were so descriptive).
As much as I enjoyed Libby, and I got her near her Mot-ly end, I could see that the UI was a stack of new features in menus, willy-nilly and not integrated.
Logos is now in the Libby-tradition, stuff all over the place. I still don't understand why they don't organize the right-click, so never-use need not delay the slow load time.
But I'm guessing Bellingham is just trying to avoid Mot; its hey-day is in the past (but not Mot; hungry as ever).
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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I use the Bible Browser and like it. I do think it could be improved particularly with the ability to Link to my bible.
MJ’s thread is about the Bible Outline Browser - a different tool.
I recommend starting a new thread to suggest ways in which the Bible Browser Tool could be enhanced / strengthened.
My bad. I was talking about the Bible Outline Browser but referenced the Bible Browser. First mistake I've made in the last 5 minutes. Sorry.
Edit: I don't use the Bible Browser.
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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My bad. I was talking about the Bible Outline Browser but referenced the Bible Browser.
In which case I'm afraid I don't understand the issue you are having with it. Your comments seemed to "fit" the Bible Browser more closely than the Bible Outline Browser.
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I was talking about the Bible Outline Browser but referenced the Bible Browser.
Okay, you have me 99.99% confused. The Bible Outline Browser simply presents outlines found in our libraries in a manner that we can easily compare them to other outlines or see an outline that is pieced together from multiple sections of a book as a single outline.
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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Coincidentally, in a recent internal document, I used the Bible Outline Browser as an example of a potentially useful tool that isn't delivering on its promise
It is woeful:
- I started with Matt 24 on the Read section, and the "outline" was for Luke in NTS
- it presented the whole book despite the drop-down that implied passages would be selected
- most of the other books did present Matthew (I didn't fully check this).
- There are no links to the actual book
- most of the outlines are so condensed as to be useless,
- Not sure what the Compare is supposed to illustrate (still on Mt 24)
- if I click/select one of the "outline" sections on NTS, Read takes me to the first book (BBC), and
- I have to hit the useful direction arrows on the LHS to see the other outlines
- NTS is still on Luke
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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it presented the whole book despite the drop-down that implied passages would be selected
I think it restricts which outlines are shown i.e. the left side not the right side. It assumes you need the complete outline for context.
most of the outlines are so condensed as to be useless,
I agree - they originally did the easy ones and never got around to the useful ones.
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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