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It wasn’t that long ago that I used to scribble notes in my
wide margin bible. I always appreciated having important thoughts, questions,
conclusions and references right there next to the passage in question. Flip
the page… all those relevant notes are still tracking along. It doesn’t take long to realize that the wide
margins in my bible don’t even come close to what is needed. So I began using
word documents. However, while I could now allow my notes to grow large and
complete without worrying about space restrictions, the one severely annoying
thing is that keeping track of those notes now becomes a chore in and of
itself; “Where did I consider and make a note regarding this issue or that?”
Having to spend all that time searching for certain references made in my
notes, or otherwise scrolling back and forth trying to keep my notes tracking
with my bible reading was inconvenient at best, though can be made to work.
So when I heard about Logos and the ability to link notes
with bible verses, hyperlinking, etc. I was super excited about the
possibilities! I had heard that we shouldn’t consider the notes in Logos as
similar to our word processors. But when I heard that, I was thinking that we
were being warned against expecting too much in the way of formatting. “Surely,
I can now write my notes to my heart’s content,” now, I thought. As I started
out, the principle of notes in Logos was like a dream! However, I soon began to
realize disappointment when the notes became slow to respond to scrolling,
typing, and any other form of user input. And I mean REALLY slow. Like, 'I just
finished typing the last word of the sentence, but the first word hasn’t shown
up in my notes yet,' kind of slow.
I grew concerned since my notes are a very important part of
my work (bible translation). I began to wonder if the notes would be
unstable and at risk of being lost if I pushed them too hard. Upon asking logos
support about this, they made it clear to me that yes, indeed my notes would be
at risk of being lost if I continued using them the way I’m trying to. Turns
out that the notes are just stored in a database which really limits note
taking capabilities. It also explains why notes become so slow to respond while
all the resources in Logos (which have much more data) respond quickly.
For now, I will have to switch back to using word docs. But
I dream of the day when I’ll actually be able to have all my notes scroll
simultaneously with my bible. I long for the convenience of returning to my
verse specific note with just a click as I try to remember what I learned
there, or otherwise had questions about. I wait with great anticipation for the
day when my notes will actually respond to my input (scrolling, typing, etc)
without bogging down. All these things aren’t mere conveniences for me, they’re
huge time savers. They keep distractions to a minimum when trying to maintain
and think through something I’m studying. They allow me to return to and defend
(or otherwise realize my wrong) with certain exegetical conclusions I’ve come
to when checking my translation work.
Logos, you have awesome software! I love it. But I really
think the notes need to be made more than just the equivalent of sticky notes
in your bible. I don’t think I’m the only one who would really be impressed by
something more beefy. We need something that we can count on to maintain our
data. We need something we can quickly reference later and even search. I hope
that the Logos software team can someday soon come up with a way to bring those
notes up to par with the rest of the awesome features of Logos4 software!
I’m not a programmer, so I may be barking up the wrong tree
here. But maybe, instead of notes being kept in a database file, they could
somehow be in a similar format as the rest of the logos resources.
Am I the only one, or are there others that want the same
here? Wouldn’t being able to keep ALL your detailed notes in Logos be awesome
and powerful?
Just in case my long rambling makes it hard to discern what
I’m really suggesting, here’s a line by line breakdown of problems I have with
notes.
-
scrolling and other user input very slow
-
clicking on note tag in bible does not take me
to actual note for that verse (even though it is specifically referenced to
that verse)
-
Instability of notes when too much data being
stored – can’t go losing all our data now, can we?
-
Looking at notes as equivalent of sticky notes
really takes that tool down several notches re its usefulness. Ought to be able
to have a note file grow to be huge and not worry about losing info, slowing
down, becoming unresponsive, etc.
-
Though formatting is a lower priority, its
capability in notes could stand to be beefed up a bit and made more consistent.
Very often, my formatting changes get turned into something altogether
different upon exit and restart of the program.
Thanks Logos! You guys do rock! Great software overall! Far
above anything else out there.
