Customization and Logos 4

I bought Libronix 3 two weeks ago and a few days ago I installed Logos
4 along with it; the following is accordingly not written based on lots
of experience.

As a Bibleworks user one of the first things I noticed in Libronix 3
was the low number of preferences compared to Bibleworks. I also
disliked the interface, but loved the ability to do scripting, and one
of the first things I have done with Libronix 3 is to write a script
that to some degree fixes the poor handling of windows. This ability to
write extensions could be taken far!

Now, simplicity for user friendlyness seems to be one of the dogmas of design today, but this is often combined with an "Advanced..."-button for those who like more.
But in Logos 4 the lack of preferences is even worse than version 3, unless I have missed
something. And can you still script the thing? I want Logos to brew my
coffee and iron my shirts (no, not really, but programmers will
understand what I mean)!

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Comments

Damian McGrath

But in Logos 4 the lack of preferences is even worse than version 3, unless I have missed
something.

You have not missed anything. A number of us asked in Beta testing for more control.

We received some....

And it's not just programmers who would like to be able to tinker a bit with a few more settings or avail ourselves of others' scripts

Bob Pritchett

Logos 4 is in many ways more customizable than earlier versions. But instead of big Options dialogs full of controls, we've put the settings right next to the things they control, and made other similar changes.

The ability to edit guide templates, for example, is MUCH more customizable than 3.0.

What things are you not able to customize that you'd like to? Maybe I can show you how to do it....

Russ Quinn

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/29774#Comment_29774

What things are you not able to customize that you'd like to? Maybe I can show you how to do it....

I love the new Home Page and the power of pulling excerpts from individual books. I think this is an ingenious improvement over the previous version and really adds value to the way the software uses my collection.

I would, though, like to tweak its layout to be more useful for my daily readings.

I would like more control in customizing the Home Page in the following ways:

I would like to choose which devotionals are pulled into the Home Page. It seems that right now it is all of them or nothing? Also, I would like to pull the whole text of the devotional so I don't have to click "More" to finish reading it.
I would also like to have the actual text from a daily Bible reading list on the Home Page. I know I can click on a link in the Lists on the ribbon but I would like to choose excerpts from lists so I have all of my daily readings in one place when I open the program in the morning.
I would like to be able to create a reading plan based on a chronological Bible.
I would like to create a recurring reading plan. I read a chapter of proverbs every day according to the day of the month.
This might really be out there but I would like to create a monthly reading plan for Psalms with this pattern: Day 1 - Psalm 1, 31, 61, 91, 121; Day 2 Psalm 2, 32, 62, 92, 122; . . . . .; Day 30 - Psalm 30, 60, 90, 120, 150.
In a related note, I can't figure out how to remove items from the ribbon Features. I don't plan on ever using the Lectionary and would prefer to remove it . I would also like to be able to change the order of content displayed on the Home Page. I guess I am looking for checkboxes on the Features to turn things off and on and the ability to drag and drop order of Content in the Customize menu for the Home Page.

I realize that I can create multiple reading lists in the ribbon and be one click from each reading but I think it would help me stay focused if all my daily readings were in one place in a layout similar to the Home Page.

Thanks,

Russ

TCBlack

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/29832#Comment_29832

I would like more control in customizing the Home Page in the following ways: 1. I would like to choose which devotionals are pulled into the Home Page. It seems that right now it is all of them or nothing? Also, I would like to pull the whole text of the devotional so I don't have to click "More" to finish reading it. 2. I would also like to have the actual text from a daily Bible reading list on the Home Page. I know I can click on a link in the Lists on the ribbon but I would like to choose excerpts from lists so I have all of my daily readings in one place when I open the program in the morning.

To both of those requests I add my +1

Ken McGuire

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/29774#Comment_29774

Logos 4 is in many ways more customizable than earlier versions. But instead of big Options dialogs full of controls, we've put the settings right next to the things they control, and made other similar changes.

To be honest, I think there are areas where we have too much control. Maybe Keylink was too complex, but too many seem to prioritize a commentary above all their bibles and so whenever they get a bible reference, they get the section of that commentary. Yes, in a sense, this is what they asked for. On the other hand, it really isn't what they wanted.

Can we either have a separate list of prioritized bibles, or else have a setting that defaults to restricting bible references to "type:Bible"?

Trey Selman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/29774#Comment_29774

What things are you not able to customize that you'd like to?

I will probably
repeat a few requests that have been made before and try to limit them to
customization. I also understand that you have thought through this with
greater detail and I do appreciate that. I appreciate you listening way back a
year or two ago when you sought out input to see how folks worked and wove
that into your redevelopment. I also appreciate your listening now and
considering areas that we did not clearly indicate at that time, but now see as
more valuable to the way we work.

As always thank you
for what you have done and all your team is doing…

These are in order
of importance and do not include other feature suggestions given in other
locations

Toggle on/off Visual Cue
Sans Serif default font (the
new system fonts you have added are great but I prefer reading resources
with Sans Serif font and I would like to use the sans serif system font if
possible - If I use other sans fonts there are character issues in some
resources - like Calibri in mwdict11)
Keep machine specific display
choices (not synced laptop/desktop different resolutions and sizes) (Sorry, I could not resist repeating this one)
Highlighting

Make own custom markup
styles with graphics
Make markups documents
(similar to visual filter documents) so that there could be multiple sets markups for a given passage (tied to a passage if possible) and each markup set (for that passage) could be toggled on/off (three lenses). (Repeated but really would make markups great)
Use Highlighters with Notes
and/or ability to change note icon

Drag and drop resource links/locations (especially to
Onenote)
Scripting API ability to
interact with other programs MSWord, Powerpoint, Onenote

Copy paste is great but it
was nice to initiate copy bible verses from the application
lookups from other
applications (dictionary)

Organization in Prioritize list (separator lines with
labels) or more control of PRA (mentioned elsewhere)
Floating toolbar for
highlighters or insert notes
Notes (I understand Notes are
still receiving additional work)

How do you control which
notes (Annotations) show in the right click context menu of a resource
and which don't? Must the Note document be the last one opened/edited?
Currently, this seems to be how to make it work. Even if two note files
are open they are not both showing on this context menu. only the last
one accessed, which makes some sense.
Consideration: If multiple
Note files are open for editing then they all show in the right click
context menu

Open to specified custom layout (not huge but does mean
one less thing to do at start up - I do not V4 and have not V3 used the
home page)
Report or place to see a list
of resources are in what various collections (Resources and Collections -
V3)
Floating
toolbar (or shortcut buttons) to set (right-click to set) and activate
bookmarks (I know a bookmark can be dragged to the shortcut area but if
the bookmark changes the shortcut does not change. The book link is set
not the bookmark holder) I realize that it may be just as easy to drag the
link up there and I am trying to change the way I work and decide if it
really is better this way. You know what, it is better the way you have it.

I will continue to work and find ways I may be missing and change my thinking. I have done that a lot and see clearer, but some areas seem to work a better way (at least for me) or I am still blind and ignorant in my sight.

Thanks

Jack Caviness

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/29774#Comment_29774

Logos 4 is in many ways more customizable than earlier versions. But instead of big Options dialogs full of controls, we've put the settings right next to the things they control, and made other similar changes.

The ability to edit guide templates, for example, is MUCH more customizable than 3.0.

What things are you not able to customize that you'd like to? Maybe I can show you how to do it....

Bob

One massive priority list for 3,000+ resources is an exercise in futility. For example, I would like to prioritize my commentaries in multiple categories, as I could with PRAs in L3. I feel that I am being pressed into someone else's mold. There must be a better way than this!

Overall, I really like this version, but I feel that many things have been "dumbed down", and I don't like that!

Jack

Jack Caviness

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/30296#Comment_30296

Open to specified custom layout (not huge but does mean
one less thing to do at start up - I do not V4 and have not V3 used the
home page)

Second the motion!

Jack

Bohuslav Wojnar

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/29774#Comment_29774

What things are you not able to customize that you'd like to? Maybe I can show you how to do it....

It would be wonderful to be able to choose collection of commentaries in the Passage Guide. I have created a collection of my best commentaries and I would like to have a customized PG just with that commentaries. Are there any plans to add this function? Otherwise, the new PG are great. Thank for them.

J.R. Miller

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/30382#Comment_30382

It would be wonderful to be able to choose collection of commentaries in the Passage Guide. I have created a collection of my best commentaries and I would like to have a customized PG just with that commentaries. Are there any plans to add this function? Otherwise, the new PG are great. Thank for them.

And you can do that now. Create a custom PG and you will see the options on the left hand side. You can do as many custom section in a PG for every Collection you have. It is quite easy. There are also videos on the home page to help.

Bohuslav Wojnar

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/30426#Comment_30426

Create a custom PG and you will see the options on the left hand side. You can do as many custom section in a PG for every Collection you have. It is quite easy. There are also videos on the home page to help.

No Joe, collections are not the same as commentary section. It shows different results. What I am speaking about is to be able to customize commentaries section. Sorry I haven't explain it better.

J.R. Miller

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/30438#Comment_30438

You can create a custom PG, REMOVE the current commentaries section. Add your own section that uses the COLLECTION you want. The point is you don't need to edit the existing commentaries section, you can create your own with anything you want.

Damian McGrath

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/30453#Comment_30453

You can create a custom PG, REMOVE the current commentaries section. Add your own section that uses the COLLECTION you want. The point is you don't need to edit the existing commentaries section, you can create your own with anything you want.

Joe,

the searching of collections in a custom passage guide is not the same as the presentation within the commentaries section for the guides. The former is a basic search of the resources "Ranked." Thus, every single volume of these series is searched and the results are presented hits / wordcount in an "article" - commentaries have multiple articles. Thus, a search for Gen 1:1 will bring up results from commentaries on Mk 1:1 as well as who knows how many articles from the same Genesis commentary in a seemingly random order. This is clearly not how the commentary section functions

J.R. Miller

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/30461#Comment_30461

This is clearly not how the commentary section functions

that was not what i was getting from Bohuslav's comment. He, i thought, was saying we could not search custom collection in PG. However, if this is what he meant, i see the point. that would be helpful.

Harry Hahne

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/30296#Comment_30296

Sans Serif default font

I actually think the default font is more readable that the old one, even in fairly small size. It is quite attractive. But I agree that customization is good.

You can select the font you want to use with Tools, Program Settings, Default Font.

Stephen Jones

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/29774#Comment_29774

What things are you not able to customize that you'd like to? Maybe I can show you how to do it....

L4 is beautiful and seems much more intuitive for new users. There are several new features I just love. But I think those of us who learned to customize L3 feel like we're back on training wheels with very little control.

Here are some features I have not found that I would like to see added back in:

define serial and parallel resource associations
customize keyboard shortcuts
customize toolbar (e.g. I had created links to take me to websites, documents on my hard drive, etc.)
topic browser
turn off visual cue
make it easier to define collections - make it stop jumping back to the top of the menu after adding or removing a resource
Close windows tool, where all the open resources were listed and you could choose which windows to close

Thank you. I've been a customer for seven years and am confident L4 will continue to get improve because of your commitment first to the Lord, and secondly to your customers.

Jeff Loven

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/29832#Comment_29832

I second all of this!!

Jack Caviness

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/30438#Comment_30438

Create a custom PG and you will see the options on the left hand side. You can do as many custom section in a PG for every Collection you have. It is quite easy. There are also videos on the home page to help.

No Joe, collections are not the same as commentary section. It shows different results. What I am speaking about is to be able to customize commentaries section. Sorry I haven't explain it better.

I agree completely with Bohuslav. In the old PG we had a choice of commentary selections either all or custom collections. I vote to bring that functionality back.

For Ephesians 1:1-2, PG lists 60 commentaries. I believe in thorough research, but this is a bit of overkill [*-)]

Jack

Trey Selman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/30485#Comment_30485

The suggestion was not about oldV3 and new V4. It was about the two new fonts inside L4.

There are two new default fonts in L4.

The default text font (serif) is Athelas, from Type-Together. (http://www.type-together.com/Athelas).
There is also a new default UI font (sans serif) which is "a custom variant of Alber, from MoreType"

I do not see how to choose #2 (the Alber variant or Default UI font) to be the Default text font which is used for reading resources. And I think it would be great to have this option.

It was explained that these fonts were licensed to be used only inside the application. I am requested the possibility to be able to use the Default UI font as an option as the Deafult text (resource) font. If the license allows this then what could be done would be to add "Default Sans Serif" to the drop down list in the Fonts|Default Font option in the program settings just under the top "Default" option. You will not see the names Athelas nor Alber in the list because of the licensing restrictions, but you might be able to add "Default Sans Serif" giving the option for a great looking new sans font as the resource font.

David R. McAllan

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/30496#Comment_30496

Why not try setting up "collections" of specific commentaries by using "My Tags". I only wanted certain commentaries selected for the PG and I use the tagging option. This allows me to narrow down the search to specific commentaries I wish to use. I have made tags for individual commentaries and tags for commentaries that I have selected from commentary sets. I receive hits from no matter where the Scripture appears throughout the commentary/s.

You set up tags by going to "Library", then select the "Resource Information" icon and click "add tag". The word you use to tag a commentary will be available in any guide or search dialogue box.

David

Tim Engwer

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/30495#Comment_30495

I used the scripting ability extensively and created toolbars to do all kinds of things using the information from the libronix object model reference. I was able to surf the web from within the program and take a web page and automatically tag it so you could click on the bible references and open them all from within the program. Are there plans to have this kind of in depth customization in L4? Will they create an object model reference manual so we can create scripts that automate certain tasks and expand functionality? This is something I miss in L4.

Harry Hahne

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/29774#Comment_29774

What things are you not able to customize that you'd like to? Maybe I can show you how to do it....

1. Option to turn off automatic lookup in Information window. I prefer to choose what words I will look up.

2. The ability to select what goes into the Information window.

3. Turn off visual cue

4. Color scheme or at least the ability to specify how active window is indicatedso it is more obvious (border size or color).

5. Grouping of Prioritized books in Library by type. This could also save lookup time if it did not look at an inappropriate type.

Tim Engwer

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/32524#Comment_32524

It would be nice to have a shortcut to float a window and also be able to set it to always on top. This is just one thing but there are so many other things I 'm sure I will come up with and with Logos 3 I was able to create scripts to automate almost anything I could think of. As I mentioned, although Logos 3 was not made to run the internet from within the program this was made possible by scripting. I was also able to view documents from within the program using scripting language and tag the bible verses to open my bible. The scripting ability in the toolbar function just allowed you to expand the program to do things it was not originally designed to do and it was a great feature. I am hoping they will include it in L4. At the very least if they made the object model method for the program available scripts could be created using a program such as autoit.

Tony (Manuel) Perez

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/33557#Comment_33557

No one has added anything here and there are many unanswered questions. Is someone from LOGOS going to HELP?

Batman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/45869#Comment_45869

I for one would like to see each genre of books categorized; eg, Bibles, Commentaries, Lexicons, etc. From there we can customize which ones get searched first, second, and 100th.
This seems to be an easy thing to do, and seems to be the basics of what everyone is asking for. Can this happen any time soon, Logos?

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/29774#Comment_29774

What things are you not able to customize that you'd like to? Maybe I can show you how to do it....

The ability to turn off certain features such as the Power Lookup. I never use it, but it seems to rear its head periodically.

Joanna Hoffman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/46343#Comment_46343

I think someone mentioned this earlier, but I wish L4 would add the morphological visual filter so that, for instance, the Greek New Testament would automatically open with our customized color scheme. For instance, verbs would be italicized and colored according to tense. That was a GREAT feature of L3 that saved hours of time in parsing.

Any plans for this in the works?

Alan Morris

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/46356#Comment_46356

You can do the Morphological visual filters. You can even do visual filters now in any Bible! They just haven't made it so you can move over your existing ones from Logos 3