Desktop Touch & Pen Improvements

Using the full desktop app on Windows with touch screen or pen (I use a Microsoft Surface Pro 8) is pretty awesome. But, not all the features work very well.

Touch scrolling and tapping in these areas are quite buggy or not working at all...
* Notes
* Library
* Home screen
* Docs, Guides, and Tools Panel
* Factbook
* Most all of the Tools
* (Probably more)

When opening an on-screen keyboard, some input fields close it right when it opens, doesn't open it (when no attached keyboard), or flickers it.

The pen actually surprising works pretty well with highlighting Bible passages and such. Optimizing this would be rad!

The pen working in Notes, Canvas, and Sentence Diagrams just makes sense!

Thanks!

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Logos

Desktop App

Status: Need Your Opinion

Comments

Zack

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1344977#Comment_1344977

Support multiple touch points on touch screens,
Many modern apps support zooming in(adjusting font size), scrolling by using pinching(together/apart) or dragging 2+ fingers across the screen.
Please support these features as more and more laptops come with touch screens

bradley.grainger

Related: https://feedback.faithlife.com/boards/logos-desktop-app/posts/improve-touch-scrolling-in-resources-on-windows

Toni Niemann

Would really appreciate consistent, full touchscreen scrolling abilities throughout the Logos software, including drop downs, open tabs and home page. Also larger/consistent sized scroll bars vs. slim scroll bars that are difficult to find.

Toni Niemann

Right now the touchscreen scrolling is very inconsistent within the software. For example, on L9, it works on the Passage Guide tab but not the Factbook or Search tab. It doesn't work on the Home Screen or drop down menus but works on Bibles, Commentaries and Info Panel. If you can find the scroll bars, you can scroll by touching those exactly but some are very slim and hard to grab even with a mouse. I would be wonderful to be able to consistently touch anywhere on an open tab, drop down or open window and touch scroll. In addition, it would be nice to have all the scroll bars consistently the same size. Sometimes it's hard to tell there's more information below because you can't really see the scroll bars.

bradley.grainger

See also https://feedback.faithlife.com/boards/logos-desktop-app/posts/improve-touch-scrolling-in-resources-on-windows.

Toni Niemann

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1329085#Comment_1329085

@bradley-grainger Thank you! I voted on yours.

David L. Scammell

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1344977#Comment_1344977

Logos on Windows 10 should be more touch-friendly. For instance, to scroll down a page I have to touch with the scroll bar and not anywhere on the page. I currently use Logos 9 on a Surface Book. This would enable Logos to be so much more powerful!

Kent Allard

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1344977#Comment_1344977

As laptops get more powerful, and more seem to come out with touchscreens and tablet functionality, being able to use Logos with touch screens and stylus would be useful.

Dr. Frank O. Rice

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1344977#Comment_1344977

I am in the process of ending my over 20 year support of Logos. There are no plans for touch support and i cannot preach with a keyboard attached to my Surface Pro running windows 11 and I will be looking around for another bible program. Meanwhile i am not going to purchase any more books. Currently I have over 7,000 and will be looking to sell them.

Andrew Biddinger

Looks like the "Scrolling" issues are already being planned to be fixed: https://feedback.faithlife.com/boards/logos-desktop-app/posts/improve-touch-scrolling-in-resources-on-windows

John Newsom

Would like desktop version to support touch screen operating systems

Palenshus

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1329087#Comment_1329087

@Mark Barnes (Faithlife) Have the scrolling issues been fixed in version 10? The main thing I was hoping to be improved in the next version was touch and pen features as I use a Surface Pro 8. The scrolling problem in the factbook is a show-stopper and other improvements mainly with soft keyboard interaction and pen would be very nice improvements - but the scrolling NEEDS to fixed.

Pastor Loren

@Palenshus - unfortunately, we haven't yet got to improving scrolling Factbook on Windows-based touch devices. Personally, my workaround is to drag the scrollbar with my finger, which works reasonably well, but I know that's not ideal.

Palenshus

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1329089#Comment_1329089

@Mark Barnes (Faithlife) No, it is definitely not ideal since it is nearly impossible to grab the narrow scrollbar with a finger and totally unnatural. For that matter, how many people still use a scrollbar to scroll the app even with a mouse? Most desktop app users probably use the scroll wheel or laptop touchpad or try to use a finger with a touch screen device before using the scrollbar.

A slightly better workaround is to pull up the virtual touchpad. I've started doing that a lot when I get frustrated that I can't scroll or that the keyboard or menu keeps opening and closing or I want to grab a resource and drag it out from my library only to have it disappear on me.

No other modern Windows app that I use today is even close to as frustrating as Logos is with touch. It is very disappointing that version 10 was just released and it still doesn't work correctly. :(

unknown

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1329089#Comment_1329089

@Palenshus I've been using the virtual keyboard, but BIGGEST annoyance is that the Swype keys don't work in notes! They work in the search and other dialogue fields, but not in notes.

unknown

Absolutely vote for this. Pen functions on Microsoft Surface are part of my workflow, and for Logos they are hardly functional.

unknown

Yes , please improve all areas of touch / pen interaction in Logos on Windows. Highlighting with a pen is not bad , but as noted by others , many areas of interaction with Logos UI are buggy , awkward , or non-functional with touch / pen. With all the 2-in-1 and convertible devices being sold this is important. Trying to read a book in Logos 10 and take notes , with pen or touch keyboard , is not a pleasant experience. But it should be :-)

Ali Pope

We have made some touch improvements in the beta application on Desktop , especially to scrolling. There is still room for improvement , but w e’d appreciate your testing in what we have so far. Thank you for your commitment to Logos!

unknown

I tried the Beta on my Windows 10 Surface Surface Studio 1 and Windows 11 Surface Book 2. With the little that I tinkered around, I found that things worked pretty much like they should (once I understood that touch does scrolling and pen does selecting, only) in the panels. I do have some problems with the interface such as selecting a layout. Sometimes if I touch with a finger or with the pen, nothing happens, and in fact seems to lock things up a bit. Touching in the taskbar "unlocks" things and I can try again. The secret seems to be to hold the touch just a little bit, then often I get the response that I wanted (but not always-I even had a couple of crashes occur). The library interface icon works a bit better but still not as responsive as it seems like it should be. But at least scrolling in the panels and selecting text for highlighting seems to work very well, contrary to what I remember experiencing earlier (but I may not have realized that Logos seems to be touch for scrolling and pen for selecting). Thank you for trying to make this better for users.

unknown

I should add that after installing the beta, I had to do a system reboot before the pen worked well. But that is not anything too far out of normal for some software.

unknown

There are certainly improvements in v 23 Beta 1. For reference I'm using Windows 11 22H2. So far as I have discovered that the resource pages, guide pages, home page, and notes pages themselves work noticeably better. Several areas, though, that I have noticed are still buggy:
1. Most of the "pop-out" or "fly-out" windows from the side-bar menu do not work well with touch. So the library, docs, guides fly outs are all buggy or crash, but once you get past the fly-outs into the actual windows, then things work better.
2. That side-bar menu itself is still buggy or non-functional with touch and pen as well. It works well with the mouse, of course. But as soon as I tap on the menu, either with finger or pen, it does not work well, if at all.
3. In Windows my touch keyboard is set "Show the touch keyboard when there's no keyboard attached" (which means, when it's flipped into table mode). This means that when I've flipped my laptop into tablet mode and a double tap any input box with my pen, it will automatically show the touch / handwriting keyboard. But Logos does not seem to respect this setting, so this doesn't work.
4. For some reason when I use my touch keyboard in Logos, the swipe-for-text feature does not work. It works in all other applications.
Thanks for working on this important aspect of using Logos with modern 2-in-1 devices.

Wilson Lim

Totally agree it needs improvement for ease and accuracy of use. Many of us are using touchscreen nowadays, whether in PC or tablets. Thanks for working on it.

unknown

Now running Logos Bible Software 24.0.14. The touch menus seem to be working much better now. I'll continue to test. However , one touch area that is still not working properly is the note taking area. If I tap it with my pen or with my finger , it does not activate the touch keyboard , like other apps do and other areas of Logos does as well. I'll see if there are other areas of Logos that do not activate the touch keyboard properly , but notes is the main one I've found so far. Please fix this since note taking while reading is a common function that I'm sure many users employ when using their laptop in tablet mode. Thanks!

Mary-Ellen

I found the touchscreen function on my Surface Pro to be so unsatisfactory that I ended up buying an iPad just to use the mobile app, mostly as an e-reader for highlighting and notes. I'll give the beta a try on my Surface.

Thomas Seaford

Related: https://feedback.faithlife.com/boards/logos-desktop-app/posts/interface-improvements-for-pc-tablet-hybrids-like-the-surface-pro

Palenshus

The touch interface has been improved a lot over the last few months, thank you! The one thing that still doesn't work very well though is the touch keyboard - especially in notes. It pops up and then disappears and is tricky to get back again. Plus the swipe keyboard is disabled. Not sure why that is.

unknown

Puede seren español? Quisiera saber cómo puedo marcar o subrayar palabras o párrafos. Gracias - pablojuanpachalian@icloud.com

unknown

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1329103#Comment_1329103

@Pablo Juan Pachalian nueva Mac Book Pro : No se cómo encontrar Herramientas(marcar y/o subrayar palabras-parrafos

unknown

I'm surprised that more people are not asking for this feature. Or that its not a higher priority. Also, Windows just announced that in 2024 they are going to stop supporting the Android subsystem so having that as an option to have better touch screen experience will go away very soon.

John Michael Holmes

Take a look at how an app like GoodNote works with the Apple Pen for electronic resources. All highlights and markings are layers and exportable, and it is all implemented so that a person can effectively use the Apple Pen with documents like they would a regular pen and paper. Margin notes and everything handwritten are searchable due to OCR.

unknown

As more of us move to a single device - I'm retiring my iPad and just have a surface now - this is becoming more desirable. For example, opening a document and resizing the window in touch mode so far has been impossible for me. Being able to simply open a book and 'read' it in logos on my tablet would be great, without having to pop the keyboard on just to resize windows. The new snapdragon devices are perfect for logos - and for the preacher or teacher. It we need our tools to keep up :).

the9thlion

Surface support should be the next thing, I don't know if I can support a Logos subscription model if they cannot optimize for a very popular and very useful form factor

Steven MacDonald

Yes, better touch screen features needed :-)