Notes Architecture Flaw

Dale Garman

I am posting this not to be critical, but to offer a perspective for consideration.  I have so much invested in these resources that I really want Logos to be successful.  It seems the basic architecture of Notes is quite limiting.  Each note is associated with one and only one subject (not sure that is the right term).    As a result there are at least two significant limitations to this approach:

• can't change your mind and change the subject or category since that seems to be the hierarchy of how the note is stored.  I don't know about anyone else, but I find that happens from time to time especially if you start with more general categories and then suddenly find that there are a group that would be better categorized together.  I really notice it on mobile apps, especially on my iphone where it took me a while to realize that category was in fact on another screen so if you don't page down, it is mis categorized.
• the bigger issue however is the one and only one limitation.  I rarely write a note that only applies to one subject.  This would be a much stronger feature if it were instead keyword type architecture so that there could be multiple subjects to help with search etc.  You can see an example of that in the Adobe world with lightroom and it is very powerful.  Now I realize this is probably a major architectural change, so just making the suggestion for consideration if that set of modules get a redesign at some point.

MJ. Smith

[Y]

William

I just read Dale's post now and feel this is exactly my problem.  I really want to use notes but notice that I want a note that I put elsewhere in another note file I just don't know how to link stuff yet and would not want to retype things.  I get so frustrated that nothing happens. 

 

MJ. Smith

Dale Garman said:

Each note is associated with one and only one subject (not sure that is the right term). 

I probably shouldn't 'fess up, but I have spent a great deal of energy into convincing Logos that they need to rethink notes. I genuinely believe that I will ultimately win the argument because I can argue the point not only from the user perspective but also from the view of cutting age technologies - natural language processing, multiple machine logics, knowledge engineering and probabilistic graphical models.

Don't take the following diagram too seriously - it is humorous in its understanding of wisdom.

At the moment, Logos gives us access to a great deal of information - textual, linguistic, interpretative, historical ...  Logos has worked hard to present the data in useful groupings with well-considered indexing. They are moving successfully into a broader user base which brings some of the data into question. Examples:

• Genesis 1:1-3 may be one, two or three sentences which has theological ramifications re: ex nihilo
• The first pericope may be Gen 1 or Gen 1:1-2:3 or Gen 1:1-2:4a which has theological ramifications such as the pinnacle of creation - man or Sabbath?; role of repetition in the creation of the text (many 7's)

What that means is that Logos needs to support interpretative models beyond its historical base of Evangelical with its particular understanding of how language works, inspiration and sola scripture. HERE COMES THE DIAGRAM PART. The way to do that falls directly into taking data and converting it to information. That conversion is securely based on understanding relationships. Where do we capture relationships? In short notes attached to the relationships or multiple references.

That is exactly what you are asking for. Not because of the model and often not because that is how you would describe how you study. But stop and think about it. What are you doing with cross-references? parallels? harmonies? selecting the specific sense of a word? choosing between alternative grammatical structures?

That is why I am confident that Logos will eventually offer note capability on relationships and multiple bases. How soon? I expect within the lifetime of my cat, (Okay, I can stay serious only so long).