Topics not implemented yet

I could be wrong here, but I have reached the conclusion that the reason our topical searches are yielding less than satisfactory results is not that L4 has recanted topic searches or reinvented the concept so much so that it no longer corresponds to what L3 users mean by topic searches. I am starting to think that the primary reason is simply that the functionality has not been implemented in this L4 release yet.

The reason I think that is the following: individual resouces are still searchable by topic in the resource own search field. The information pane shows that there clearly are in L4 resources cataloged "Indexes". However doing a Index: or Indexes: search from outside a resource does not work. Seems to me then that the functionality is there, but not implemented.

Does anyone have KNOWLEDGE about this?

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Comments

Francis

In connection with this, the closest I have found so far to the ability to pull out a topic out of different resources is through the "Add Tab" (the + sign in the tile) parallel resources functionality. I say this because opening a new resource from the ones suggested does not just open it at the title page but at the topic that was up in the first tab. But still, it is quite limited because it seems that either the resource type or subject limits the list of suggested resources. For instance, when looking up compassion from Zondervan Bible Themes, I had some helpful suggestions but I am positive than there would be many other resources of different type and subject that would have compassion as a topic.

Sean Boisen

The reason I think that is the following: individual resouces are still searchable by topic in the resource own search field.

Not quite. The resource's search field searches the article headwords (approximately), and only matches from the beginning. So if you open NBD and type "punishment" in the search box, you won't find the article entitled "Crime and Punishment" (happily, we have captured and included this in the Topic section for "punishment"). You will find it if you type "crime".

In connection with this, the closest I have found
so far to the ability to pull out a topic out of different resources is
through the "Add Tab" (the + sign in the tile) parallel resources
functionality. I say this because opening a new resource from the ones
suggested does not just open it at the title page but at the topic that
was up in the first tab.

Sometimes, yes, but it's more accurate to think of this as opening a parallel resource and then searching for matches in the article headwords. If you open Zondervan's Bible Themes to "barley" and then add a new tab and select NBD, you won't find the article on "Grain" (though in L3 that article had topics like "Barley", "Chaff", etc.). Our new-style topics don't yet include this article either when searching for "barley", unfortunately.

Providing better results for these kinds of problem is one of several reasons we have overhauled what "topic" means in L4. But we're still working on improving the results.