Topic searches with wild cards?

Todd Phillips

In version 3, I could do a topic search with a wild card, like so:

topic("calvin*")

It was fast, and it would return every entry in my dictionary collection that began with the search string--very useful for looking up names, btw.  I would really hate to lose this capability. (Ignore the 152 hits in Dictionary of Christianity in America...it's overindexed).

 

In Logos 4, adding a wildcard to the end of calvin in the Basic search was a a big mistake. It took 2.5 minutes to search one resource, and produced zero topic hits.  Don't even try it on the whole library--it'll never return.

 

I noticed I can do searches of the form "topic:church".  That search give me a nice lookup:

But searching for "topic:calvin", on the other hand, returns nothing. Neither does "topic:calvin*"

I'd really like to be able to search topics that aren't exact matches.  Can I do it?  It might even be better if that was the default for a topic search.

BTW, it would also be nice if power lookup had an entry box--and accepted wildcards too.

Todd Phillips

Since this was originally posted at midnight, I'm going to bump it too.

I'd really like to be able to find topics that aren't exact matches to my search argument. 

Can I do it?

J.R. Miller

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/17982#Comment_17982

I'd really like to be able to find topics that aren't exact matches to my search argument. 

Can I do it?

So like, type in "church" and get unrelated results like "camels"?  :-)

Seriously though, what would you expect/like?

 

Todd Phillips

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/17986#Comment_17986

Seriously though, what would you expect/like?

I guess I can't express myself.

Examples:

type in "calvin" and get a hit on "Calvin, John" and/or "Calvin, Jean"  (my main example).

or search on "hebrew" and get a topic hit on "hebrews"

or enter "babylon" and get hits for "Babylon", "Babylonia", "Babylonian", and "Babylonian Empire"

 

But my major reason is for looking up last names, especially when the entries in different resources are formatted differently (Last, First or Last, First Middle, etc) and might have differing spellings.

J.R. Miller

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/17992#Comment_17992

ah, I see. That makes sense especially about the name variations. I agree, that would be most helpful.

Dave Hooton

But searching for "topic:calvin", on the other hand, returns nothing. Neither does "topic:calvin*"

I noticed I can do searches of the form "topic:church".  That search give me a nice lookup:

I get nothing for topic:church, but AFAIK topics will not be handled this way, see http://community.logos.com/forums/p/915/8076.aspx#8076

http://community.logos.com/forums/p/1567/12143.aspx#12143

I used to get a Topics section in Basic Search with words like "peter" but not in B5.

An update from Logos would be helpful.

Todd Phillips

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/18098#Comment_18098

But searching for "topic:calvin", on the other hand, returns nothing. Neither does "topic:calvin*"

I noticed I can do searches of the form "topic:church".  That search give me a nice lookup:

I get nothing for topic:church, but AFAIK topics will not be handled this way, see http://community.logos.com/forums/p/915/8076.aspx#8076

http://community.logos.com/forums/p/1567/12143.aspx#12143

I used to get a Topics section in Basic Search with words like "peter" but not in B5.

An update from Logos would be helpful.

Yeah, I've been confused by what I've seen in the topics section of the search.  I agree an update on what to expect would be helpful.

I notice that they are going to suggest alternate topics, and I have seen that for some topics, but not most.

And, seeing how it still seems to be a work in progress, I wanted to express my desire for the ability to find all the topics that begin with the search term, and not just exact matches.  (Along the lines of the v3 topic browser, or the search I described at the top of the thread).