Factbook vs Passage Guide
Is the Passage Guide now included in Factbook? Is there a reason why Passage Guide should be used instead of Factbook?
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Passage guide is to study whole passages, for me I use Factbook as a topical tool.
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Mark said:
Is there a reason why Passage Guide should be used instead of Factbook?
I would describe it as being in the process of a migration from Guides to Factbook. Factbook is now able to accept any reference acceptable to the Passage Guide.
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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Factbook is not customizable as the Passage Guide is.
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Thanks all
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John Fidel said:
Factbook is not customizable as the Passage Guide is.
We need to make sure that FB has equivalent functionality before retiring PG.
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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Dave Hooton said:John Fidel said:
Factbook is not customizable as the Passage Guide is.
We need to make sure that FB has equivalent functionality before retiring PG.
The question that would arise with this type of move would be whether they would keep the improved Factbook behind the subscription wall.... If they were to make that move, it would be quite disturbing - I own the PG and have been promised that I get to keep owned Features.... If they merge it into Factbook, then remove PG - they are taking away the Feature and telling me as a customer that I now have to subscribe to have access
Logos 10 - OpenSuse Tumbleweed, Windows 11, Android 16 & Android 14
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Deprecation is a thing. You own it till it doesn't work. Then you buy it some more. Or pay monthly to keep up with the tremendous rate of progress.
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Frank Sauer said:Dave Hooton said:John Fidel said:
Factbook is not customizable as the Passage Guide is.
We need to make sure that FB has equivalent functionality before retiring PG.
The question that would arise with this type of move would be whether they would keep the improved Factbook behind the subscription wall.... If they were to make that move, it would be quite disturbing - I own the PG and have been promised that I get to keep owned Features.... If they merge it into Factbook, then remove PG - they are taking away the Feature and telling me as a customer that I now have to subscribe to have access
Welcome to the Private Equity owner's playbook!
I believe in a Win-Win-Win God.
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We are investing a significant amount in improving Factbook. You'll see some of that in v36 beta shortly. Some of those improvements bring Factbook (mostly) up to the standard of Guides (e.g., the Commentaries section). Some of that is new and surpasses what is possible in Guides.
I don't want to speculate about the future on this thread. Still, I will say that the move to improve Factbook and incorporate some existing Guide functionality into Factbook is due to (a) a desire to ensure that all the best content is available in one place rather than spread out across different but similar tools, and (b) to bring parity to web and mobile. It's not part of a secret plan to move existing content behind a paywall.
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Looks like I need to start using Factbook... [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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Mark Barnes (Logos) said:
We are investing a significant amount in improving Factbook. You'll see some of that in v36 beta shortly. Some of those improvements bring Factbook (mostly) up to the standard of Guides (e.g., the Commentaries section). Some of that is new and surpasses what is possible in Guides.
I don't want to speculate about the future on this thread. Still, I will say that the move to improve Factbook and incorporate some existing Guide functionality into Factbook is due to (a) a desire to ensure that all the best content is available in one place rather than spread out across different but similar tools, and (b) to bring parity to web and mobile. It's not part of a secret plan to move existing content behind a paywall.
Thanks Mark. Thus, you can confirm the following:
Factbook, which L10 Feature Set owners have, won't be moved into subscription.
Passage Guide, which L10 Feature Set owners have, won't be moved into subscription.
I am super critical of private equity owners because of academic research on what private equity owners do after they take over. Employees like you are pawns who have to fall in line; otherwise, you will be replaced. I don't envy your position at all.
I believe in a Win-Win-Win God.
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1Cor10 31 said:
I am super critical of private equity owners because of academic research on what private equity owners do after they take over. Employees like you are pawns who have to fall in line; otherwise, you will be replaced. I don't envy your position at all.
Maybe Mark is a knight. Carefully jumps. Notice nothing was committed to (except 'existing content'). Excellent jumping. I remain impressed with the subscribed B/W background fix.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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Frank Sauer said:
The question that would arise with this type of move would be whether they would keep the improved Factbook behind the subscription wall.... If they were to make that move, it would be quite disturbing - I own the PG and have been promised that I get to keep owned Features.... If they merge it into Factbook, then remove PG - they are taking away the Feature and telling me as a customer that I now have to subscribe to have access
I have no knowledge of what will eventually happen, especially if one looks a decade ahead, a lifetime in IT. However, the idea of Factbook eventually replacing guides was floated before the sale of Logos, before the hiring of Mark Barnes, before the release of the current Factbook structure. Why? Because the guides are very old in terms of the data they access, the manner in which they display it, and the basic design not supporting reusable code. It may well be that the Guides continue but as a resuse of the Factbook code. It would be catastrophic if Logos stayed with a poor design choice that causes excessive maintenance costs.
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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MJ. Smith said:Frank Sauer said:
The question that would arise with this type of move would be whether they would keep the improved Factbook behind the subscription wall.... If they were to make that move, it would be quite disturbing - I own the PG and have been promised that I get to keep owned Features.... If they merge it into Factbook, then remove PG - they are taking away the Feature and telling me as a customer that I now have to subscribe to have access
I have no knowledge of what will eventually happen, especially if one looks a decade ahead, a lifetime in IT. However, the idea of Factbook eventually replacing guides was floated before the sale of Logos, before the hiring of Mark Barnes, before the release of the current Factbook structure. Why? Because the guides are very old in terms of the data they access, the manner in which they display it, and the basic design not supporting reusable code. It may well be that the Guides continuing but as a resuse of the Factbook code. It would be catastrophic if Logos stayed with a poor design choice that causes excessive maintenance costs.
I totally understand the cost argument. But they dare not move the Passage Guide to a new version of Factbook and put that under subscription. That is plain cheating past customers.
I believe in a Win-Win-Win God.
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1Cor10 31 said:MJ. Smith said:Frank Sauer said:
The question that would arise with this type of move would be whether they would keep the improved Factbook behind the subscription wall.... If they were to make that move, it would be quite disturbing - I own the PG and have been promised that I get to keep owned Features.... If they merge it into Factbook, then remove PG - they are taking away the Feature and telling me as a customer that I now have to subscribe to have access
I have no knowledge of what will eventually happen, especially if one looks a decade ahead, a lifetime in IT. However, the idea of Factbook eventually replacing guides was floated before the sale of Logos, before the hiring of Mark Barnes, before the release of the current Factbook structure. Why? Because the guides are very old in terms of the data they access, the manner in which they display it, and the basic design not supporting reusable code. It may well be that the Guides continuing but as a resuse of the Factbook code. It would be catastrophic if Logos stayed with a poor design choice that causes excessive maintenance costs.
I totally understand the cost argument. But they dare not move the Passage Guide to a new version of Factbook and put that under subscription. That is plain cheating past customers.
Exactly this!!! Some of us may be content with the Guides - I use the Passage and Exegetical Guides consistently - making Factbook more like the Guides and using the cost as a basis - well in spite of Mark claiming that the goal is to not lock it behind the subscription paywall - he clearly mentions the "investing a significant amount" - which falls in line with his previous comments that significant improvements would likely only be available to subscribers......
Logos 10 - OpenSuse Tumbleweed, Windows 11, Android 16 & Android 14
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MJ. Smith said:Frank Sauer said:
The question that would arise with this type of move would be whether they would keep the improved Factbook behind the subscription wall.... If they were to make that move, it would be quite disturbing - I own the PG and have been promised that I get to keep owned Features.... If they merge it into Factbook, then remove PG - they are taking away the Feature and telling me as a customer that I now have to subscribe to have access
I have no knowledge of what will eventually happen, especially if one looks a decade ahead, a lifetime in IT. However, the idea of Factbook eventually replacing guides was floated before the sale of Logos, before the hiring of Mark Barnes, before the release of the current Factbook structure. Why? Because the guides are very old in terms of the data they access, the manner in which they display it, and the basic design not supporting reusable code. It may well be that the Guides continue but as a resuse of the Factbook code. It would be catastrophic if Logos stayed with a poor design choice that causes excessive maintenance costs.
If Logos created and sold a poor design - why punish the customer by improving another Feature and removing the working features (if that is done)? Based on Mark's own statements - significant improvements are likely to be for subscribers only - so taking away a working feature because they did a poor job with its design, a feature customers bought and have been told multiple times they won't lose access to - is an example of forcing a customer to subscribe to maintain access to the Feature they already paid for - which has been stated won't happen....
Again, far too much vague response with carefully worded statements that leave the door open for what some of us are concerned about....
Logos 10 - OpenSuse Tumbleweed, Windows 11, Android 16 & Android 14
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Frank Sauer said:
If Logos created and sold a poor design
Logos chose a design that was considered best practices by programming theorists of the time. Old time mainframers tried to tell the new PC/Web/Apple programmers that they were making a mistake in their assumptions about applications. The young'uns are now paying the price. This information is provided by an unbiased old time mainframer and does not include a smirk. PS. When I put up the first web app interfacing with a main frame, we did write reusable code - reusable across multiple applications.
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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Frank Sauer said:
Again, far too much vague response with carefully worded statements that leave the door open for what some of us are concerned about....
I think the principles are clear, and I think you and I would (mostly) agree on them.
I agree, for example, that if we were to take existing paid-for functionality and simply move it to a different place in the app, then it would be wrong to lock it behind a paywall on the basis that it's "new." That is not the plan.
I think you would agree that if we were to take existing paid-for functionality and improve it significantly, then it would be reasonable for the improvements to be available only to subscribers.
For example, adding the Commentaries section to Factbook allows us to do two things:
- Ensure web and mobile have access to the same Commentaries functionality as Desktop (because Passage Guide on web and mobile isn't great).
- Add additional functionality such as "Summarize" (this isn't built yet, it's an example).
It would be reasonable, in my opinion, for those two improvements to be restricted to those with a subscription.
In short, are we planning to remove access to the Commentaries section for existing but non-subscribing users? No. Are we planning to add improvements to that section that only subscribers can access? Yes.
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Mark Barnes (Logos) said:Frank Sauer said:
Again, far too much vague response with carefully worded statements that leave the door open for what some of us are concerned about....
I think the principles are clear, and I think you and I would (mostly) agree on them.
I agree, for example, that if we were to take existing paid-for functionality and simply move it to a different place in the app, then it would be wrong to lock it behind a paywall on the basis that it's "new." That is not the plan.
I think you would agree that if we were to take existing paid-for functionality and improve it significantly, then it would be reasonable for the improvements to be available only to subscribers.
For example, adding the Commentaries section to Factbook allows us to do two things:
- Ensure web and mobile have access to the same Commentaries functionality as Desktop (because Passage Guide on web and mobile isn't great).
- Add additional functionality such as "Summarize" (this isn't built yet, it's an example).
It would be reasonable, in my opinion, for those two improvements to be restricted to those with a subscription.
In short, are we planning to remove access to the Commentaries section for existing but non-subscribing users? No. Are we planning to add improvements to that section that only subscribers can access? Yes.
I think we can agree on this explanation - if it is honored as such.
Logos 10 - OpenSuse Tumbleweed, Windows 11, Android 16 & Android 14
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Mark Barnes (Logos) said:Frank Sauer said:
Again, far too much vague response with carefully worded statements that leave the door open for what some of us are concerned about....
I think the principles are clear, and I think you and I would (mostly) agree on them.
I agree, for example, that if we were to take existing paid-for functionality and simply move it to a different place in the app, then it would be wrong to lock it behind a paywall on the basis that it's "new." That is not the plan.
I think you would agree that if we were to take existing paid-for functionality and improve it significantly, then it would be reasonable for the improvements to be available only to subscribers.
Thanks Mark for replying.
You should charge people for incremental functionality and I am 100% happy to pay for it. I am not looking for free stuff. I am an out and out capitalist. (btw, I never understood your previous policy of improving functionality and not asking customers to pay for it.)
If I don't subscribe, whatever functionality a feature had before you added new functionality would be maintained for me, am I right?
I believe in a Win-Win-Win God.
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1Cor10 31 said:
If I don't subscribe, whatever functionality a feature had before you added new functionality would be maintained for me, am I right?
The way AI has been added to the Search and Sermon tools is such that it does not affect Search and has not affected the few Sermons I have created, nor has it impacted the creation of Sermons.
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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Good grief!
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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1Cor10 31 said:
You should charge people for incremental functionality and I am 100% happy to pay for it. I am not looking for free stuff. I am an out and out capitalist. (btw, I never understood your previous policy of improving functionality and not asking customers to pay for it.)
If I don't subscribe, whatever functionality a feature had before you added new functionality would be maintained for me, am I right?
Generally speaking, that's correct, yes. And, as Dave said, search is a good example of that. We've enhanced Search for subscribers, but we haven't taken anything away from non-subscribers. That will typically be the pattern. I
We do – very occasionally – remove features from the software. Removing old and outdated features can be as valuable as adding new ones. Community Notes, Faithlife Assistant, and Handouts are examples of those we've removed recently. But I think almost all users accepted that these were beneficial changes.
In the past, we've also sometimes redesigned features where the new feature has (let's say) 90% of the functionality of the previous version. Notes might be an example of that, if you can remember version 1 of Notes documents. That might happen occasionally in the future, too.
But, generally, you're right. f you've paid for something, you'll keep it, even if new customers would need a subscription to access it.
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Hi Mark,
I think the unspoken fear / concern in this thread is, during this process of upgrading or consolidating features, will non-subscribers eventually lose some actively used features? E.g.
- You eventually move all the Passage Guide sections / functions to the Factbook, and you decide to remove Passage Guide. Non-subscribers will not have access to the new sections / functions on Factbook. Do they then lose access to what they used to do with Passage Guide?
- Let's say you decide to upgrade Notes again to Notes v3. That will then be a subscribers-only new feature. Will non-subscribers lose access to their notes when the current Notes v2 is removed / deprecated?
These may be extreme, hypothetical examples, but under the planned full rollout of subscription-based Logos, these scenarios are possible if not probable.
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Dave Hooton said:
1Cor10 31">If I don't subscribe, whatever functionality a feature had before you added new functionality would be maintained for me, am I right?
The way AI has been added to the Search and Sermon tools is such that it does not affect Search and has not affected the few Sermons I have created, nor has it impacted the creation of Sermons.
I understand. Thank you. But the question remains. Is it always possible to separate out the functionality of all the features. I guess we wait and see how this plays out.
I believe in a Win-Win-Win God.
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Mark Barnes (Logos) said:
1Cor10 31">
You should charge people for incremental functionality and I am 100% happy to pay for it. I am not looking for free stuff. I am an out and out capitalist. (btw, I never understood your previous policy of improving functionality and not asking customers to pay for it.)
If I don't subscribe, whatever functionality a feature had before you added new functionality would be maintained for me, am I right?
Generally speaking, that's correct, yes. And, as Dave said, search is a good example of that. We've enhanced Search for subscribers, but we haven't taken anything away from non-subscribers. That will typically be the pattern. I
We do – very occasionally – remove features from the software. Removing old and outdated features can be as valuable as adding new ones. Community Notes, Faithlife Assistant, and Handouts are examples of those we've removed recently. But I think almost all users accepted that these were beneficial changes.
In the past, we've also sometimes redesigned features where the new feature has (let's say) 90% of the functionality of the previous version. Notes might be an example of that, if you can remember version 1 of Notes documents. That might happen occasionally in the future, too.
But, generally, you're right. f you've paid for something, you'll keep it, even if new customers would need a subscription to access it.
Thank you, Mark, for taking the time to respond. Appreciate it.
Let's say you add some functionality to Notes. I have L10 Full Features. Is the price for accessing the new Notes functionality going to be different for an owner of L10 Full Feature vs. a complete new customer? That is, some sort of dynamic subscription price has to be there, isn't it? Otherwise, the point of owning L10 Full Features is completely useless, isn't it?
I believe in a Win-Win-Win God.
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PL said:
You eventually move all the Passage Guide sections / functions to the Factbook, and you decide to remove Passage Guide. Non-subscribers will not have access to the new sections / functions on Factbook. Do they then lose access to what they used to do with Passage Guide?
IF we were to move Guide sections to Factbook (which is far from certain), then if people owned those sections in Guides in L10, we would ensure they retained access to those sections in Factbook. The difficulty would come if the sections changed significantly during that process. Perhaps two sections get merged into one, and you only own one of those original sections. Perhaps we add substantial improvements as we move them. Perhaps the new section fulfills a purpose similar to the old one but is substantially different.*
These problems are probably all solvable on a case-by-case basis, and I'm confident we will treat customers fairly. But it's all hypothetical, which makes it very difficult to give the 100% clear answer that you're looking for.
PS – You'll see an example of this in v36 beta, where we're adding a new Factbook section called "People, Places, and Things", which fulfills a purpose similar to the Biblical People, Biblical Places, and Biblical Things sections in Guides, while going far beyond what those sections offer. To be clear, we don't have immediate plans to remove these section from Guides, but it will illustrate the difficulty in answering the question. If you're a member of the beta group, you can see this section in the web app today.
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My question regarding this is what do people that has Logos 10 and the subscription start to use more. Should we start to use factbook instead of passage guide.
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I expect this would be a matter of personal preference. Factbook is undergoing updates and becoming increasingly useful, but Passage Guide still includes sections such as Parallel Passages and Cross References that have not yet been incorporated into Factbook.
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I use the passage guide because I have modified it to include several collections and the commentaries using my definition of type. This is important to me, but it took time to develop. I imagine if I were new I would be working more with the factbook for starters.
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