Default resources on Insights Panel
I'm a bit stumped. I would like to change the default resources on the Insights Panel to the Faithlife Study Bible and the TCOT/TCNT commentary. Is there a way to make them default? It keeps reverting back to the ESV Study Bible and the Lexham Context Commentary, which I assume is because they are prioritised? At least for my use case of this tool, I would rather a different priority.
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Donovan R. Palmer said:
It keeps reverting back to the ESV Study Bible and the Lexham Context Commentary, which I assume is because they are prioritised?
That is correct
Donovan R. Palmer said:I would like to change the default resources on the Insights Panel to the Faithlife Study Bible and the TCOT/TCNT commentary. Is there a way to make them default?
You would need to ensure they are your highest prioritised Study Bible and Commentary Series - details on doing this are at https://support.logos.com/hc/en-us/articles/360019683652-Prioritize-Books
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Thanks. That’s not going to work. I have set these priorities for other tools. Shame. This is a real limitation. I will just have to select my preferred resources when I use this tool because it would be more trouble to upset my priorities elsewhere.
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Donovan, can you help me understand why you'd want different commentaries for Insights versus elsewhere in the app?
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Mark, I think I use the various tools of this Swiss Army knife differently than others. So I appreciate that Logos shouldn't change its approach based on one user.
So my philosophy is that some of the tools have overlap in their functionality. For the sake of keeping this post short, I'll highlight one example. The passage guide, passage explorer and now insights panel have similar functionality, but distinct differences.
One of the issues of prioritisation at play in this set of tools is which commentaries do I want at the top? For the passage guide, my priority is a workflow of the kinds of commentaries I want to consult first when I am looking at a passage of scripture hermeneutically. This is not my favourite or most consulted, but rather if I went to the bookshelf in my library, which commentary would I start with first to lay the foundation of the background on this passage. Then I move through critical and exegetical commentaries, to more expository.
Obviously this is not a perfect order of commentaries because they are not each written perfectly, but I have a preference of the strengths of each commentary in this process as a general rule. I must hasten to add that when Logos added the ability to sort commentaries according to series, author, denomination, type and era, this was a huge improvement. I 'break' my mental workflow from my priority list with the 'era' sort because at a certain stage I am interested in what has been written about a passage over the years. So the passage guide is my deep dig tool.
On the other hand, my use of the passage explorer is set up in a workspace for when I am reading and studying at a higher level and I am not so focused on the underlying details supporting contours of a passage of scriptures, but I want to keep an eye on it. This is where my prioritisation for passage guide does not serve me as well. In this tool, I would rather see my top five commentaries listed. If I could only own and consult five commentaries that I want to stop and quickly park on, which would they be? Of course, my overall prioritisation is not set up on this criteria. I live with that. I can click 'more' and expand the list to get to them, but that's more clicks and friction in my workflows.
Now to the insights tool. My current use of the insights tool is an even higher level. I am using it more like a study Bible. Its when I want to primarily read chunks of scriptures and plan to not stop very much. The resources that I might want to consult are yet again not the top of my mega dig list from passage guide. In my case, I am currently using Faithlife Study Bible and TCOT/TCNT as my quickly check resources. Obviously if something really interests me I load up passage guide and go down a deep hole, but most of the time I just want to briefly explore a thought before I read on, because my overall objective is to read the scriptures at a top high level flow.
Exegetically, I have the same issues with other tools in regard to my lexicons. The top ones that I want to pop up in the Information Panel are not the ones that I want to dig with when I right click a word to do some further digging. They are similarly not the order of my workflow in the Bible word study guide. One size does not fit all for me.
I would guess that my orientation of using Logos spans from my Libronix days and the foundations that formed when the prioritisation feature addressed a much smaller scope of possibilities in the platform. My main orientation at that stage was, give me my first commentary off of the bookshelf in my workflow, then the next, etc.
Personally, if there was one thing I would love to see in the future is a reworking of the priority feature. I have created blank personal books to create category separators, but it is one mega list which is very unpleasant to manage. But it works... and for this new insights tool, I'll work out a win/win with my other uses of my priority list.
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I'm not Donovan but I also would prefer different priorities. My main priorities are set with writing Bible study lessons in mind. For myself, I see Insights used primarily in a teaching role where I want to match the participants' priorities/libraries.
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 agree here Donovan. I had never used the priority tool before this past few weeks. It was very tricky. My stance is that some of the exegetical tools have functional overlaps. There are clear distinctions between the insights panel, exegetical guide, and passage guide, but overall functionality is identical. The purpose of each one is biblical exegesis. Which commentaries should I start my study with at the beginning of this set of tools? This is one of the prioritizing concerns at play. My top aim for the passage guide is a workflow of the types of commentaries that, when examining a scriptural passage both hermeneutically and in the context of its surrounding context, I want to consult first. This is not my best or most frequently referenced commentary; rather, if I were to go to my library and establish the groundwork for this passage's background, I would start with that one. I then go from exegetical and critical commentaries to more explanatory ones. I use the insights tool more like a study Bible. It gives me quick basics to understand what is going on. With only a single tap, the most significant relevant books and sections are brought directly into your Bible by the Insights Panel. It has never been easier to scroll through linked resources because it is quite challenging to get the reference box to naturally align with the verse. My sweet spot is usually a few lines down from the top of a resource panel, but I do not usually read with my eyes there. However, in my experience, the reference box tends to select the reference from the verse located at the uppermost window boundary. Therefore, the inefficiency of having to continuously adapt to arrive on the precise reference stymies the one-verse-at-a-time insight tool's organic usage. Insights offers clear restrictions for users accustomed to performing extensive searches throughout a vast library, but it does let you choose the resource of your choosing. It is most appropriate for two types of readers: (a) those with minimal resources and limited functionality within Logos; and (b) those who are merely reading for spiritual development and seeking something more advanced than a study Bible without devoting much time to research. The actual risk to the developer in this situation is to include too many features and lose the advantage of being able to glance over them while reading without doing any research. Put differently, the purpose of Insights and Explorer is to maintain the user's attention on the bibletext.
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Can I ask a similar question about default resources? I am not a big "Study Bible" fan. So I would actually enjoy having my top two commentaries listed instead of a study bible and a commentary. I am sure the insight panel will change over time, but the Study Bible for me is not useful.
John 14:15
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Agree with Donovan as well. I am not always using Logos for the same tasks every time. Flexibility and customization are key components and of great value.
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I have to agree with Donovan as well. It would be nice to be able to set them both to either commentaries or study bibles and for them to stay where we set them. Also it would be nice to be able to set the cross-references to our choice.
Tim
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There might be a workaround. Now that you know how Insights works and what it does, why not set up a layout with the preferred resources and linking and ditch the insights tool for this particular task? Don't get me wrong, I like the insights tool, but it is awfully close to other tools and if it doesn't work quite the way I would like, I try to find a work around. Just a thought.
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cshover8669 said:
There might be a workaround. Now that you know how Insights works and what it does, why not set up a layout with the preferred resources and linking and ditch the insights tool for this particular task? Don't get me wrong, I like the insights tool, but it is awfully close to other tools and if it doesn't work quite the way I would like, I try to find a work around. Just a thought.
I saw the Insights feature as a stepping stone to making your own layouts. Once you realise you can create your own setup you have outgrown it. There is nothing Insights can do that you can’t create yourself, but better. You can open the tools you want and sync them and save them into a layout you can access when you need. You can have a seperate one for every need.
When I first saw Insights in beta I thought, “Wish we’d had that when I started with Logos.“ Because it took me a while to start making my own layouts. I see lots of people here having already seen the great value in doing that.
👁️ 👁️
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For me Insights is not very useful as I have Bible Study layouts for New and Old Testaments with my preferred commentaries and lexicons - maybe I'm missing the benefit of Insights?
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Roger Pitot said:
For me Insights is not very useful as I have Bible Study layouts for New and Old Testaments with my preferred commentaries and lexicons - maybe I'm missing the benefit of Insights?
Insights is primarily for those cases when you're not using your own custom layout, and you want quick access to this data. Depending on what else is in your layout, you might still find it valuable to minimize the Related Books section of Insights, but keep the Related Passages section open.
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Mark Barnes (Logos) said:
Insights is primarily for those cases when you're not using your own custom layout, and you want quick access to this data. Depending on what else is in your layout, you might still find it valuable to minimize the Related Books section of Insights, but keep the Related Passages section open.
Mark,
Did you secretly improve the auto-open behavior of Insights? Because Insights is making me happy today, and I'm trying to figure out why.
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I see this as a possible addition to layouts. For instance, not as many tabs needed in a layout. It also travels with you now matter which layout you might want to use. It could also be used for fast in and out information. This tool has some very interesting possibilities in my opinion. The user just needs to be able to set it the way they want and have those settings stick.
Tim
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