Creating Collections is Cumbersome/Clunky

Creating Collections needs some work.

As metioned in a few other posts, there is no good way to select a large range of books and add them.

Also, once I add a book (or exclude a book), why does it still show up in the window below. When we start to organize thousands of resources, it will be quite impossible if there is no way of knowing which books are already in or excluded from a collection.

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spitzerpl

Actually you have your understanding of 4.0 collections wrong as I did
at first. Below is all that needs to happen to set up a journals
collection. The items listed under "Resulting collection" are the items
in your collection. The plus and minus sections are for items that are
exceptions to your "start with string" so if you want to add an item
that isn't returned by "type:Journal" you would drag it to "plus these
resources".

Bob Pritchett

The resources show up below because the lower section is the "Resulting Collection" -- that list is everything that's in the collection, which be definition includes everything you've "plus" added to your query.

In 3.0 every collection had to be hand built, and I understand that the fact that searching a lot of books took a while meant it was important to have lots of specific, focused collections. Our hope is that query-based collections will be easier to create and maintain, and that you'll actually use collections less, since we now do a better job of searching the whole library.

I'm very curious, too, about what collections you make. Are most manual, or most something that (with the right metadata) could be caught by a filter?

(BTW, you can use type:bible to get all Bibles.)

spitzerpl

I'm very curious, too, about what collections you make. Are most manual, or most something that (with the right metadata) could be caught by a filter?

the new format is great for me. I was having difficulty coming up with a single string that included all items except bibles. I was trying to use something like rating:>=0 AND NOT type:Bible. Does something like this work?

J.R. Miller

I see.

Now that I understand it, it makes a bit more sense.

Knowing the nomenclature you are using "type"Journal" would be very fast in making a collection.

What happens if I use the above command and it adds all my journals, but then I want to remove a dozen Journals that I don't want in that collection. Do I still need to select them one by one and remove them, or can I select a range of them and remove them.

My use in 3.0 & Mac was mostly two things.

All my journals in one collection.

Favorite commentaries in another.

I let Logos search do the rest of the work for me.

Todd White

...ike rating:>=0 AND NOT type:Bible.

Philip I think you want "rating:>=0 ANDNOT type:Bible"

spitzerpl

I see.

Now that I understand it, it makes a bit more sense.

Knowing the nomenclature you are using "type"Journal" would be very fast in making a collection.

What happens if I use the above command and it adds all my journals, but then I want to remove a dozen Journals that I don't want in that collection. Do I still need to select them one by one and remove them, or can I select a range of them and remove them.

My use in 3.0 & Mac was mostly two things.

All my journals in one collection.

Favorite commentaries in another.

I let Logos search do the rest of the work for me.

As of right now you have two options for removing those other journals. You can create a collection with the journals you want to remove with a query that is tallored to those items, then create the journals listing above, and then add the "Journals to remove" collection to the minus list. I'm guessing you could also use OR for the journals you want e.g. "Bibliotheca Sacra" OR "Westminster..." etc. I'm only guessing that one would work.

spitzerpl

...ike rating:>=0 AND NOT type:Bible.

Philip I think you want "rating:>=0 ANDNOT type:Bible"

Great! That did it. Now I don't have to create a collection I don't want to create a collection I do want. I'm really liking this type of collection. If I were to add a resource under this system to my library it would be automatically added to the collection.

Bob Pritchett

It supports a full query syntax, so you should be able to do something like:

type:journal ANDNOT title:Westminster

type:journal ANDNOT ( title:Westminster, title:Whatever )

Wes Saad

Bob,

For me at least there will still be several manual collections. One collection I have is resources, primarily commentaries, related to my preaching through Ephesians. I don't want everything in the library that relates to Ephesians, just my select top resources. (With the ratings feature I know I can, and probably will, rate the ones I want and build a query accordingly.) I have a few collections of this sort (theology books, general commentaries, etc)

Another kind of collection is various books on one topic that may not be tagged as such. I make collections of books written by or with primary source material from reformation-era writers. Another similar collection with works from the Puritans. These will always be collections I have to manually create, a query will not really be of help.

I like the new collections. For most situations the queries and ratings will make collections more sophisticated and even more useful as they can automatically pull in new resources. But there will still exist situations that call for manually created collections and I'd like to see greater flexibility for these.

spitzerpl

For me at least there will still be several manual collections. One collection I have is resources, primarily commentaries, related to my preaching through Ephesians. I don't want everything in the library that relates to Ephesians, just my select top resources. (With the ratings feature I know I can, and probably will, rate the ones I want and build a query accordingly.) I have a few collections of this sort (theology books, general commentaries, etc)

You could tag the Ephesian resources with "Ephesians Series" and filter your collection by tag. Same for the rest of your collections.

Bob Pritchett

Here's something else that might help:

In Library you can add tags to each book. Every tag becomes an implicit collection (named "mytag:tagname"). You can also use "mytag:tagname" as part of a collection's query filter.

There are lots of strategies this supports. You could add "favorite" as a tag to your favorite books, then create a collection like:

type:commentary AND mytag:favorite

Then you can add commentaries to this collection without even opening the collection editor. Moreover, you get an implicit "mytag:favorite" collection that spans all types of resources.

In Library you can also use Ctrl+Click or Shift+Click to select multiple resources simultaneously. Then use the "Info" panel to give them all the same tag or rating at once.

spitzerpl

In Library you can also use Ctrl+Click or Shift+Click to select multiple resources simultaneously. Then use the "Info" panel to give them all the same tag or rating at once.

I hadn't been able to check if this was possible but I was hoping it was. I'm glad to see you allow for mass editing of tags.

Wes Saad

Bob,

ctrl-click doesn't work if you click right on the title, it will open the resource regardless of what key you hold. Took me a minute to figure this out to follow your example.

Also, is there a query that will display books without a tag? I would like it to list all untagged commentaries if I type "type:commentary mytag:" and leave no value for mytag, a quick way to look at books of a certain type that have not been tagged.

Dave Hooton

I'm very curious, too, about what collections you make. Are most manual, or most something that (with the right metadata) could be caught by a filter

I'll have to get into tags some more because the few collections I've made have required both Plus and Minus resources even with a filter like:

(type:dictionary, title:topical) ANDNOT (title:lexicon, title:Greek, title:Hebrew)

for Bible/Topical Dictionaries

The frustration is not being able to select multiple resources and the slow responses (v3 is very responsive running side-by-side with v4).

Darryl Burling

Woah. This is cool - I figured out how collections worked, but tagging books and the type: and title: and other query options make this very powerful. Very cool!

Eli Evans (Logos)

To make a "manual" collection, 3.0 style:

1) Drag the My Library button from the main toolbar down into the layout space (!).

2) Open the Collections panel (Tools | Collections). Hit the "New" button.

3) Now you should have My Library and a new Collection side-by-side.

4) Drag individual resources over from My Library onto the "+ Plus these resources" landing pad on the Collection document.

Not obvious, but will do in a pinch.

Simon’s Brother

1) Drag the My Library button from the main toolbar down into the layout space (!).

Thank you Eli for this pearl of wisdom.. I didn't realise this could be done... makes working with my library so much easier ..

Richard Lyall

I'll have to get into tags some more because the few collections I've made have required both Plus and Minus resources even with a filter like:

(type:dictionary, title:topical) ANDNOT (title:lexicon, title:Greek, title:Hebrew)

for Bible/Topical Dictionaries

The frustration is not being able to select multiple resources and the slow responses (v3 is very responsive running side-by-side with v4).

... ANDNOT (subject: Greek language) seems to be a more reliable way to pick up Greek resources e.g. EDNT, TDNT(A) do not have "Greek" in the title.

davidphillips

Is there a difference between using ANDNOT and - ? For example, does title:greek ANDNOT subject:bible return something different than: title:greek -subject:bible ?

Dave

Bohuslav Wojnar

To make a "manual" collection, 3.0 style:

1) Drag the My Library button from the main toolbar down into the layout space (!).

2) Open the Collections panel (Tools | Collections). Hit the "New" button.

3) Now you should have My Library and a new Collection side-by-side.

4) Drag individual resources over from My Library onto the "+ Plus these resources" landing pad on the Collection document.

Not obvious, but will do in a pinch.

Now that's really cool. How many things like that we still need to discover? Thank you.

Tim Bahula

1) Drag the My Library button from the main toolbar down into the layout space (!).

It would seem to me that having the Library open in the layout space should be the default behaviour, like it is with the Search button.