Just Brief Suggestion for Logos

I just got through reading a thread on the speed of Logos (or lack thereof) that contained 145 posts. As a Pastor of 18 years and using Logos for 14 of those years, I have seen the progression of Logos Bible Software. I would say that conservatively I had happy with most of the changes that I have seen. Logos, as I have said may times, is the best Bible Software available as far as feature richness and ability. As far as speed, It is one of the worst. I realize that performing the complex searches that Logos can do, will never be done in micro-seconds, but I realize that Logos requires a lot of video ram that the other versions did not. I wish Logos would change this.

One way that I "think" they can is to take out of the interface a "mini view" of the book cover in the layout. I realize that this looks "neat" but is using unnecessary video ram. I do not care what the hard back book looks like so I do not need to see it on my desk top. I know there are those that would say that those pictures are so small as far as actual ram usage is concerned that it would not make a difference. Maybe not, but that is just one idea for decreasing the amount of video ram that is needed. Make if feature rich, not graphic rich. Now, none of us want the old DOS days graphics, obviously, but even back in Logos 2.1 days, the text was very rich but required low video ram. I wish that Logos would just look at the possibility of doing this.

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TCBlack

Michael,

Unfortunately the graphical RAM issues include not just book covers but text. The .NET/WPF engine that L4 is built on is the culprit. Though my understanding of the issue is sparse at best; it is my comprehension that even a pure text screen driven by WPF would be video intensive.

Pastor Michael Huffman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/211295#Comment_211295

Michael,

Unfortunately the graphical RAM issues include not just book covers but text. The .NET/WPF engine that L4 is built on is the culprit. Though my understanding of the issue is sparse at best; it is my comprehension that even a pure text screen driven by WPF would be video intensive.

Thanks, Thomas. Understood. Perhaps that WPF format is used because of the "extra" looks like the book covers and if they were removed they could go back to a reasonable less intesive format. But that would probably now require a complete rebuild and that would bring a new new set of problems I am sure.

Todd Phillips

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/211295#Comment_211295

Michael,

Unfortunately the graphical RAM issues include not just book covers but text. The .NET/WPF engine that L4 is built on is the culprit. Though my understanding of the issue is sparse at best; it is my comprehension that even a pure text screen driven by WPF would be video intensive.

Yes:

"It (WPF) interfaces directly with DirectX
and provides basic support for 2D and 3D surfaces, timer-controlled
manipulation of contents of a surface with a view to exposing animation
constructs at a higher level, and compositing
the individual elements of a WPF application into a final 3D "scene"
that represents the UI of the application and renders it to the screen." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Presentation_Foundation#Architecture)

What that means is that all visual elements, including text display, are dependent on the speed of your computer's 3D graphics rendering. 3D video cards aren't just for games anymore.

See this post by Bob on why they use WPF:

http://community.logos.com/forums/p/8620/74226.aspx#74226

(You can read it all, or go down about halfway to the part that begins "WPF offers massive gains...")

NetworkGeek

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/211298#Comment_211298

Perhaps that WPF format is used because of the "extra" looks like the book covers and if they were removed they could go back to a reasonable less intensive format.

Logos made the decision to base their version 4 product on Windows Presentation Foundation because of the power and functionality that will come for "free" in future years. Bible study, theological research, original language study, etc. will really need this capability. To think of our resources as nothing more than text is way more simplistic than what we will need. We will want and need to do sophisticated operations on text, graphics, and multimedia files, and we will need a software package that can do this graphically. We will also need very powerful sort, search, and display capabilities. All of this is way beyond the capabilities of the text-based platforms that Windows or Mac applications used in the past.

Years ago the most ambitious Logos user may have had 500 resources, 3 Bibles, 10 commentaries. Now it is possible in the future those numbers will easily be multiplied by 10, 20, or 50! The way we search, study, and use Logos now won't work with that many resources. We will stop buying, we will be disappointed that we are not getting value for the resources we have purchased. It will be a great disappointment not to be able to do sophisticated things with large electronic libraries! How many Logos users have more than 2000 resources today? I bet a lot! Can you possibly read all those resources cover to cover in your lifetime? It's highly doubtful. So to use what you have, and to want to buy anything else, you need sophisticated tools. That's what WPF will offer as a step up from Logos 3.

By developing version 4 on WPF, we as users will have much more flexible control over layouts, the information we see, and how we arrive at the information we want. One simple example, fonts and their text display are much easier to support than trying to cram specialized fonts with the complexity of original languages into a text-based display/search/reporting product (this has been done in the past, but the approach is running out of steam). Logos will be able to build software that we as users can much more easily control and configure.

To top it all off, the programming tools/model that Logos programmers use in Logos 4 is much simpler in the way this is done with technology like Logos 3, thanks to WPF. Some of these forward looking capabilities would requires tons of complex code in Logos 3; the "declarative" (meaning tell WPF what you want it to do instead of how to do what you want to do) model of programming reduces complexity, reduces bugs, and gets product to us more quickly.

Logos 4 is capable of much more than what we have seen. Step 1 was duplicating version 3 and adding incremental improvements. Bob has said as much. But this is now a platform where Logos has designs for much more sophisticated search, research, and discovery of our resources, and this would simply be impossible without using something like WPF. Grant you, these future capabilities will require more powerful computers. But if Logos stayed with incremental improvements on the Logos 3 product permanently, they would be out of business in a matter of years either because competitors do what I am speaking about here, or Logos' customer base just loses interest to buy anything else.

Dan Pogue

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/211303#Comment_211303

Hey Dominick...very well said...thanks for your input.

blessings,

danp