Topic Searches

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/416282#Comment_416282

There is a Topic Guide that allows you to search whatever you wish.

David Bailey

There is a Topic Guide that allows you to search whatever you wish.

The Topic Guide doesn't seem to search all the library resources - i.e. journals. Perhaps it's because Logos is not done tagging everything? Or, maybe I am not using the right entries for Topic Guide ? I do note that you can add a Collection to the Guide, but I can't get it to show any results.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/416289#Comment_416289

I have been beating this horse dead ever since L4 was introduced. So I'll say it again: in Logos 5 will there be a topic study search that searches through all of your books or collections. In L4, there was a topic study option, but it did not search through all of your books. Just a selected few. I don't know why they didn't implement it.

So, is that function in L5?

It is not. The old Topic Browser in L3 which I liked so much is gone and not to be resurrected. Sean Boisen of Logos knows more about this than probably anyone. Maybe he can give us an update. As I recall he said it would require tagging of all resources with topic tags and that previous schemes to do that had produced very un-uniform results. I'd love to be able to search my Library by topics. The best we can do now is search on Large Text or Heading Text, which is better than nothing, but not the same.

David Bailey

Ah, bummer. I was hoping the Topic Guide would search for Heading Text, Large Text for any resource that is tagged with those search parameters.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/416282#Comment_416282

There was one on L4 too. And it mocked me every time I used it. It screamed, "You have thousands of books and a software program designed by the world's leading software engineers, but we have decided not to allow all of your books to be populated into the topic search. Ha ha!" I guess my point was does the new one actually work. Same stupid problem with the iPhone doing exegetical and passage guide searches.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/416288#Comment_416288

Perhaps it's because Logos is not done tagging everything? Or, maybe I am not using the right entries for Topic Guide ?

It is tied to the Logos Controlled Vocabulary and resources being tagged with the LCV.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/416289#Comment_416289

I have been beating this horse dead ever since L4 was introduced. So I'll say it again: in Logos 5 will there be a topic study search that searches through all of your books or collections. In L4, there was a topic study option, but it did not search through all of your books. Just a selected few. I don't know why they didn't implement it.

So, is that function in L5?

It is not. The old Topic Browser in L3 which I liked so much is gone and not to be resurrected. Sean Boisen of Logos knows more about this than probably anyone. Maybe he can give us an update. As I recall he said it would require tagging of all resources with topic tags and that previous schemes to do that had produced very un-uniform results. I'd love to be able to search my Library by topics. The best we can do now is search on Large Text or Heading Text, which is better than nothing, but not the same.

I love Logos and have very few problems with them, but I just find that to be unacceptable. But if they had very un-uniform results with it, you will get very un-uniform results with Large Text or Heading Text. My point is that a lot of my books do come up in the Topic Search in L4. Is it really that much work to get all of my books to come up this way? At least including all of the dictionary type books would be a start. It just stinks to have the power of this software and the books, but not to be able to utilize it in a Topic Search. I really think it is a significant flaw.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/416305#Comment_416305

It is tied to the Logos Controlled Vocabulary and resources being tagged with the LCV.

That we've been told, but have we actually seen that implemented?

David Bailey

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/416305#Comment_416305

Thanks MJ

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/416302#Comment_416302

"You have thousands of books and a software program designed by the world's leading software engineers, but we have decided not to allow all of your books to be populated into the topic search. Ha ha!"

While I like the image, I'd reframe the Topic search question as "how many false positive and false negatives are acceptable?" i.e. what level of error is the user willing to accept. My threshold was clearly lower than yours as I refused to use the L3 topic search because of the error rate - I felt I could write searches that gave me more accurate results without the "help" of L3's topic search. L4 may have given very incomplete results but at least they were reasonably accurate.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/416311#Comment_416311

That we've been told, but have we actually seen that implemented?

Yes, within the topic section with it's greatly improved accuracy - it's problem is incompleteness but it has been slowly growing. And while LCV has not yet been enlarged to include Catholic, Orthodox and Jewish topics, it has been growing - I give it a [:S]

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/416318#Comment_416318

"You have thousands of books and a software program designed by the world's leading software engineers, but we have decided not to allow all of your books to be populated into the topic search. Ha ha!"

While I like the image, I'd reframe the Topic search question as "how many false positive and false negatives are acceptable?" i.e. what level of error is the user willing to accept. My threshold was clearly lower than yours as I refused to use the L3 topic search because of the error rate - I felt I could write searches that gave me more accurate results without the "help" of L3's topic search. L4 may have given very incomplete results but at least they were reasonably accurate.

I think I remember you giving me some suggestions. They got me closer to my goal, but not where I wanted to be. I'm no computer expert, but for a company that tags every single word in every single book it has available (or close to it), I would think that tagging, even selectively, a few more would be a nice idea for a company that specializes in doing Bible searches.

The only thing that gets me more frustrated that the topic search is all the people complaining that going from L4 Gold to L5 Gold is a ripoff because Logos would have the gall to charge you for giving you more books. Imagine that!

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/416328#Comment_416328

it's problem is incompleteness

I guess that's what I meant. It only seems to have been applied to dictionaries and topical guides and the like, not to monographs which is what I'd like to see. Another person mentioned journals. That, too.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/416336#Comment_416336

Some dictionaries and topical guides. That's all I ever wanted.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/416345#Comment_416345

The edit button seems to be busted right now. I meant to say I wanted all my dictionaries topically tagged, but only some are.

Sean Boisen

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/416345#Comment_416345

The Topic Guide has two distinct sections that search topical information across your library:

The Definition section searches those resources that we've manually assigned to different topics (this is what MJ means by the LCV). It currently searches some other resources too, but i expect that will change back to the more specific set of resources
The Collections section (you may have to add it) lets you choose what resources to search, and searches keywords in heading text. So this is a broader search, closer to the LDLS3 approach, and you can change what set of resources you want it to search. It does not involve manual tagging of content, though, so in some cases it may be less precise.

So i think there's something here both for Jeremy and MJ.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/416354#Comment_416354

Thanks for the clarification, Sean

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/416354#Comment_416354

The Topic Guide has two distinct sections that search topical information across your library:

The Definition section searches those resources that we've manually assigned to different topics (this is what MJ means by the LCV). It currently searches some other resources too, but i expect that will change back to the more specific set of resources

The Collections section (you may have to add it) lets you choose what resources to search, and searches keywords in heading text. So this is a broader search, closer to the LDLS3 approach, and you can change what set of resources you want it to search. It does not involve manual tagging of content, though, so in some cases it may be less precise.

So i think there's something here both for Jeremy and MJ.

Great. Sounds like L5 has then improved over L4 in this regard.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/416354#Comment_416354

The Collections section (you may have to add it) lets you choose what resources to search, and searches keywords in heading text. So this is a broader search, closer to the LDLS3 approach, and you can change what set of resources you want it to search. It does not involve manual tagging of content, though, so in some cases it may be less precise.

Sean, maybe I don't have this right. Here's a screenshot of what comes up in Collections where it uses All Resources:

This can't be what you mean comes close to the L3 Topic Browser. What am I missing?

Sean Boisen

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/416374#Comment_416374

This can't be what you mean comes close to the L3 Topic Browser. What am I missing?

I think i'm the one missing something. [:(] It's clear the Collections section isn't doing what i thought it was, and "All Resources" as a collection clearly isn't searching all resources. On top of that, the current implementation is showing the resource titles, rather than the article titles: if you click through, these are actually articles pertaining to marriage, but that's not clear from the way they're being presented.

I'll have to get back to you as to whether it's the implementation or my understanding that's incorrect. Sorry for the misinformation.