Logos 4 Philosophy
Comments
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George,
Currently the morph search doesn't work well because of accent issues. I can't get any results when specifying a lemma. It's a known issue though.
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Bob Pritchett said:
You guys are freaking me out. Really. :-)
Sorry to give you Sunday Heartburn. Your wife (assuming your married) must be loving this process. :-)
I should have held my tongue on that comment. I was thinking it but I had not concluded it. I love having the Interlinear in more translations then just ESV, especially the NKJV. I love the new Morph search drop downs and there is no doubt in my mind it will be working properly at release.
The features I see working best in 4.0 Beta 1 are relate more to library management then Bible study. This may be because they are more foundational to the whole program...indexing, syncing, library filtering, collections. Those which still need improvement relate more to Bible Study, custom Passage guides crash the program, interlinears don't save row selections, morph results have some kinks. A lot of the items not completed yet relate to Bible study, verse lists, markups, etc.
This just leaves the impression that your focus thus far has been library management. But like I said this could simply be that you had to get those things right before cleaning up the other things.
I have confidence in your company and in your decision making. I love what you've done so far. I'm gonna try to do a better job keeping my thoughts to myself unless they will help the beta process :-) I like what I see in the bible Study resources being developed in 4.0, I think once the kinks are out of those resources we won't know how we lived without them.
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Bob Pritchett said:Philip Spitzer said:
I must admit that I was think today is seems like Logos is moving more towards library features and less towards
Bible Study.You guys are freaking me out. Really. :-)
Thankyou for continuing to dialogue.. as long as we all do that well get there and we are all probably closer than we think, the problem is where seeing the view from the opposite sides of the doorway
Bob Pritchett said:Internally, we think we're moving completely towards Bible study. We're trying to put more and stronger Bible study support into the product precisely because we're worried that the Kindle, iPhone, Google books, etc. are all making "digital books" common and cheap. We're trying to build ever more powerful tools for Bible study.
The fact that you see us moving in exactly the opposite direction we think we're moving is scary. Either we have a communication problem, or we're way off base.
Bob Pritchett said:I think these are all positive moves in the direction of Bible study, not library features. Where's the disconnect? Are they different features than you want? Are we not making them visible enough? Are they just still too broken/hard to discover in the beta? Did we make a mistake in not being clear up front about which things were missing and exactly when they'll be "put back"?
Clearly someting's wrong -- and I know it's Logos' fault. I just want to find out which thing we're weak on so we can work on improving it.
Thanks!
Prioritization of resources is a massive concern, the pendulum has swung too far the other way. For those who want to be more hands on and in-depth with their bible study software Logos 4 at the moment does not feel like it allows that to occur. Having a softer entry point into these settings is a good move, what we have at the moment feels like we have lost way too much in being able to fine tune this. There are times when you want to tinker with settings but the interface to this prioritze list doesn't seem too allow for that. It is going to grow into a long list that is difficult to fully judge the full impact of changes. Some good suggestions have been made already on how to bring some of that back and probably more will come.
The lack of explanation on how to do searching for morhp and syntax also seems to be a hinderance
This coupled with the concern about what is not there, and the fact that things like library management improvements have been long asked for and being heavily explored, means all these other things you have listed may have either been overshadowed or not yet explored to the same depth.. Some of them I don't even know what you are talking about yet. I will sit down with your list on one screen and Logos 4 on the other and start looking at them today. I have not yet gotten to fully explore notes which I have long asked you to improve and make more flexible. i have noticed some changes but yet to get to putting those changes thorugh their paces but will do so.
its also a concern for some us that account management seems to be completely taken away from us... by all means what you are tring to achieve is a good move...but we've been brought up on saving license files on a floppy disk and later on USB stick as the key to our libraries and the financial investment in them...To all of a sudden have that key taken off us and left in the hands of the 'cloud' is a bit daunting....we want to cover all bases just in case the cloud is not there for some reason and we need to a complete re-install from our backups and dvd's - even wth the cloud we like to have our feet firmly placed on the ground. And if everything is controlled by the cloud whats to stop someone at Logos cutting us from our financial investment in our library wether accidental or on purpose (though I don't belive that would ever happen the possiblity seems to be there without an offline license backup under our control). Its unclear as to what account management in the cloud and working offline means in practice, there seems to be some mixed messages on that. If our license is not store locally how can we work offline without an internet connection ?
You also through us in the deep end at the start and thats a good approach, hopefully know you are starting to see we are stuggling to tread water is some ares. WIndows managemetn for me personally was a real problem. It was not at all intuitive. Others will have struggled with different things.. Maybe soon you might need to put some more directed explanations or examples out there for us on specific new features and approaches so that we can stop trying to tread water and actually start to swim...if you want to get the next beta out there before doing that then that's fine, just hope ti is not too long before something like that occurs.
Bob Pritchett said:First of all, let me say again that we expect to have every key Bible study feature in 3.x in the 4.x platform -- some of them are just a little behind. And this isn't some vague promise -- we've literally got specifications drawn up for these features, with what we think are significant improvements. There is a 20 page spec for sentence diagramming, a dozen pages on the improved Vese List documents, and plans to do visual markup. Sermon file and PBB are both already specified. The only features we're planning to drop with no alternate solution are Remote Library Search (because you can do it on the web now), Graphical Query Editor (superceded by better search and syntax searching), confusing overhead (Library Maintenance, Account Management moving to the web), and, um, I can't remember. But nothing big.
If the stuff is not ready for the first beta drop or even the second then thats find but we got the first beta drop with not enough explanation of what to expect to be not there and without the clarification that it was going to be there at some point. You are starting to make that clearer and we apprecaite that, and respect its a fine line you are trying to balance in managing our expectations on timing. But when you do say it will be in 4.1 or 4.2 that seems a long way down the track, I know you can't give dates, but for us we start thinking is this going to take 18 months, 2 years before its all back in there and I can stop using 3.0 alongside 4.0
Bob Pritchett said:(I really do appreciate the feedback, especially the criticisms, and if I'm coming across too defensive, please forgive me -- it's been over 3,400 messages in a week, and I'm reading every one. Sometimes I get overwhelmed!)
Possibly your intial post in this thread came across the wrong way.. I go the impression of someone folding their arms and saying well that's the way it is and if you dont like it, you don't have to play ball with us... That picture may not have been accurate and may be unfair.... Apolgoies if I misjudged your response. I do appreciate its a difficult task to keep up with all these posts and it is only one aspect of what you need to do each day.
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Bob wrote, "Internally, we think we're moving completely towards Bible study. We're trying to put more and stronger Bible study support into the product precisely because we're worried that the Kindle, iPhone, Google books, etc. are all making "digital books" common and cheap. We're trying to build ever more powerful tools for Bible study.
The fact that you see us moving in exactly the opposite direction we think we're moving is scary. Either we have a communication problem, or we're way off base."
I don't see deep study of the Word being put aside at all Bob. There is more than one way to get deep into the Scripture, and you have opened up some new paths that clearly don't appeal to some, but that does not diminish the ability to go deep. That being said, I agree, some work needs to be done to move from BETA 1 to FINAL product, but I see a lot of responsiveness from your team and I am encouraged (at least for Windows. For my Mac, I am mildly depressed LOL.)0 -
Philip Spitzer said:
This just leaves the impression that your focus thus far has been library management.
There seems to be a difference of opinion as to what constitutes Bible study vs library management. Bible study is more than just looking up Greek lemmas or doing morphological searches. In my own sermon development "workflow" my work in the original languages is important and is my very first step but it does not take up the bulk of my time. I also spend quite a bit of time searching for other Bible passages relevant to the one I am preaching (something original language searches can help with to a limited degree), thus spending a fair amount of time in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge and the Bible search tools. After language and related passages I work out my own "commentary notes" on the passage before hitting commentaries themselves. After commentaries I go to my pre-defined collections to try and find what others have said about this passage. Then I take all this data and move on to work on my sermon outline and manuscript, often jumping back into Logos to look up a reference or clarify a point I'm confused on.
That's the simplified version of my Bible study/sermon prep, but you get the idea. Language study is important but is hardly all I do in my study. Logos tremendously simplifies my original language study and certainly allows me to do things otherwise impossible but it also makes it much easier to do these other readings in a much faster time. I look forward to custom passage guides streamlining the process even more and I love all the inline notes and easy access to various tools, such as the interlinear. Where I love the interlinear is when I am looking up passages related to my text (which I've already translated, performed word studies, etc) and I want to do a quick check on a word in the related passage. This may or may not lead to a more detailed word study but it provides a good, quick launching point that does not require me to open additional resources just to take a closer look at one word.
On the whole I am quite pleased with Logos 4. There are several annoying bugs and I am eagerly waiting for beta 2 in the hopes that many of these will be fixed, but I am pleased with the direction things are taking.
I continue to be somewhat surprised at the negative reactions people have. Many seem to complain about known bugs that will be fixed in upcoming releases. Other complaints seem to involve changes in the way the software works. In my opinion, most of these changes are good but people are coming across as reluctant to adopt new methods. That can be understandable, but it does not reflect a weakness in the software.
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Chris Roberts said:
I continue to be somewhat surprised at the negative reactions people have. Many seem to complain about known bugs that will be fixed in upcoming releases. Other complaints seem to involve changes in the way the software works. In my opinion, most of these changes are good but people are coming across as reluctant to adopt new methods. That can be understandable, but it does not reflect a weakness in the software.
I hope I have not come across as negative. I am very excited about where Logos has gone with 4.0. The reason I'm throwing out so many suggestions is because of that excitement and because of where I see the program able to go based upon the great work that Logos has already done. I know they won't all be implemented, if any of them, because I know they have to have a much wider view then my preferences. In fact I'm betting that many of my preferences I'm going to be glad don't get implemented because Logos staff, who live and breath thinking about this software night and day, have already come up with a better solution.
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Philip,
Not to turn this into a "I hope this didn't come across as..." thread, but...
I don't mean to imply that all negative comments are surprising to me. There are problems with the software and there are things Logos has done that would be better another way. People need to point these out, even on things that just involve preference. Logos needs to know what people want the software to do. I am surprised when comments and suggestions turn into negative criticism that almost imply Logos 4 is fundamentally flawed rather than recognizing that it is a work in progress. I don't recall seeing any of this sort of thing from you.
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Chris Roberts said:
I continue to be somewhat surprised at the negative reactions people have. Many seem to complain about known bugs that will be fixed in upcoming releases. Other complaints seem to involve changes in the way the software works. In my opinion, most of these changes are good but people are coming across as reluctant to adopt new methods. That can be understandable, but it does not reflect a weakness in the software.
Chris I take on board your comments. Can I say though I am not speaking from a point of negativity and I have seen very little of that.
I simply believe in a process like this that speaking from a point of honesty is essentiial, even if it means saying you dont like something - I don't see that as negative - neither is questioning whether or not the softare still meets your needs - this is the time to get things right - I don't expect every whim I raise or say I don't like to be resolved to my liking - the softwares not being developed for me alone - but by saying it I get to guage how the wider community of users feel about it and see if it is really me be resistant to change or others are also struggling with the same thing. And if that's the case Logos gets some excellent feedback before they got to launch.
You also say people complain about know bugs but it is diffcult to actually get a handle on what is a know bug. Its also been difficult to get a handle on what is not there now but will be brought back and a general undersanding if it will be during this 4.0 release or another release. Bob is starting to explain this but we really need it documented somewhere clearly on both fronts.
As we work further into the beta process and get closer to the actual release there will be less opportunity to deal with some of these things, so for better or worse, the first beta, which is our first sighting of the software, our respones are going to be more about asserting what we dont' llike. When we feel comfortable that those things are being looked after in some shape or form, or there is a very good reason they can't then I am sure there will be more flght and fluffy comments coming about.
Please bear with us to we all reach the point you feel you are at right now Chris. I can say that I ceratinly want to reach that point and I am sure other do also.
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Chris, I agree that it is a Beta, however Bob indicated that although they would fix the bubgs in V4 before it shipped, these were the only features that it would ship with... or something very close to that... If this was to be the feature set, we got very concerned.
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David B Phillips said:
One of the reasons I loved the graphical query editor was it allowed me to perform fairly complicated morphological searches without knowing regular expressions. I was never good with the whole BEFORE or WITHIN, etc. I liked being able to draw arrows to specify the relationships between words. I love the new syntax visuals, and I like the new morphological input. But I can't see a way to replicate the multiple item morphological searches without using the (in my opinion) more difficult typed operators (BEFORE, etc.). But perhaps I'm missing something.
Yeah - GQ is a great method for complex searches so it puts more pressure on Logos to make the Syntax Search just as easy to use ASSUMING you have the pre-requisite Libraries (OL and Scholar's). I'm not convinced that v4 Search makes up for its absence, so people that don't have those Libraries may feel aggrieved.
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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Bob,
Thank you for continuing to interact here. It is very helpful. For what it is worth, I think it is a wise decision to get away from the "digital library" focus (a-la Kindle/Google books). I see that quickly becoming a commodity type business, and Logos is not well poised to take down Amazon and Google. [:D]
I think you would get some better results on what 4.0 does if you could give us some guidance. I could have used it while working on sermons this week, but I found it too daunting to really get started. I'd like to get some guidance on what types of tools 4.0 has now (whether new or improved). Maybe it's just me, but I don't have hours upon hours to play "let's see what this button does." If I had a better idea of options/tools, I'd use them, tweak them, and (I think) give you better feedback. Just a thought.
Key to this would be an easy way to find out what resources I have (and what I can hide) and then find a way to use them effectively (I really don't understand the prioritize resource business). So basics like:
- How can I view my commentaries on Philippians 4:5-8 this week? How can I hide the ones that I never use?
- Can I rotate through my commentaries?
- How can I link a Greek NT with a Hebrew OT in case I want to go back and forth from OT to NT?
- What sorts of things can the new Passage Guide, Exegetical Guide, etc. do?
In other words - I'm not looking for step by step instructions on how to make 4.0 work like 3.0. But assuming that 4.0 will be different, what are the best ways you think 4.0 works, and how can I do the basic (and intermediate) tasks? That will help me to help you (!) by "getting me into it" sooner.
Finally, I would also encourage you to find an easy way to allow folks to download the license key for a backup. I would even be satisfied with knowing that a file resided on my system, and I could back it up myself. The cloud is great, but having extra backup is also essential.
Thanks again for ALL you do.
Fred Greco
Senior Pastor, Christ Church PCA, Katy, TX
Windows 10 64-bit; Logos 7.1 SR-2 (Reformed Platinum)0 -
Bob, thank you very much for this reply.
Bob Pritchett said:Either we have a communication problem, or we're way off base.
First of all, let me say again that we expect to have every key Bible study feature in 3.x in the 4.x platform -- some of them are just a little behind.
I think some of us thought that some of the later mentioned items may in fact not make it into Logos 4.0 especially with all the talk of how certain functions are only used by less than 10% or less than 1% of the user base. It was easily inferred from this that some features would not be implemented at all because of the small percentage needing them.
The following list of what will be implemented is very reassuring.
Bob Pritchett said:Guides: You can edit the content of the guides. You can take notes inline, and have them saved right there on the guide for a passage or word, so they're at your fingertips when you look at it again. If you do a study on didasko in this passage, you'll see it when you encounter the word in another passage.
You can build your own custom guide templates to match your own study process.
I like very much the ability to edit custom guides. I would like to reiterate my request that we have access to such guides from the context menu.
Bob Pritchett said:Bible Word Study Guide: Cooler visualizations, and smarter integration of syntax searching directly into the report. Example uses of the word in different grammatical constructs, in Greek/Hebrew and English. A new graphic that helps you see the word in relation to prepositions it is used with. (Some of this may not be visible, if you don't have the syntax resources yet.)
I have not played terribly much with this function because of the fact that textual hits (the most important thing in a Word Study) do not work. IMHO, Bible Word Study is not Beta ready.
Bob Pritchett said:Power lookup: The ability to have Bible references, footnotes, etc. automatically looked up -- and to focus the lookup on a tight range by simply selecting text in the resource -- should make it even easier to dig deeper.
Power Lookup is very strangely named. And the simple fact that it runs differently from the context menu than when hovering over a verse seems odd to me. Why does it show inline references when hovering, parallel translations when opened from a bible reference and appearances of the word in bible dictionaries when triggered by an English word? This is not clear.
Bob Pritchett said:Sympathetic highlighting: To help people get from English to original language, or to better compare translations.
I know that I am not alone in having absolutely no clue what "sympathetic highlighting" is or how it functions. I know that I've read it explained several times on this forum and not once has it stuck....
Bob Pritchett said:I think these are all positive moves in the direction of Bible study, not library features. Where's the disconnect? Are they different features than you want? Are we not making them visible enough? Are they just still too broken/hard to discover in the beta? Did we make a mistake in not being clear up front about which things were missing and exactly when they'll be "put back"?
Part of the disconnect is obviously connected to the removal of control of datatypes/keylinking - an item not even mentioned here.
And, to repeat, in answer to your last question, it is quite clear from all the threads where someone has asked about a feature and eventually someone from Logos has responded to say that it will be in a future release, that you have not been clear enough about the missing features and your plans for them
Thank you.
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Gabriel Powell said:
As a seminary student there is one feature which I am starting to use more and more as I forego paper books for e-books: markup tools. I was shocked that this was not available and to hear that it probably wouldn't be. I do a lot of reading in Libronix and use the highlighter a lot. Even a simple highlighter (like what happens when you attach a note to selected text in v. 4) would be very much appreciated.
My guess it new users will like it as much as new users have liked version 3, but version 3 users (in the same way as many here) will moan over having to completely relearn the interface. Especially those who paid for Morris Proctor's seminars.
Beyond that I completely understand Logos' strategy and I think it will be good for a majority of people. I can tell you the vast majority of seminary guys at my school that have Logos are using outdated versions of v. 3 (or older), and have never thought to update the software or resources. I am glad that this is going to be done automatically.
I would be curious to hear from those who use BibleWorks or other packages whether v. 4 leaves out exegetical features that non-Logos software have that would prevent students and professors from converting.
In the end, once Logos gets training videos up for v. 4 and we get used to the new way of doing things we'll look back at version 3 the same way we currently look back at the original Libronix version.
Well said Gabriel! I am also a seminary studnet. I just graduated with my Master's in Biblical studies. I was really stoked to see another seiminary brother in the Logos 4 Test Group. Where do you attend? What are your goals? How much more to you have to go?
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Damian McGrath said:
I know that I am not alone in having absolutely no clue what "sympathetic highlighting" is or how it functions. I know that I've read it explained several times on this forum and not once has it stuck....
I believe that sympathetic highlighting is that when you highlight an English word, the correlating Greek/Hebrew word in the interlinear is highlighted as well. That's it, as far as I can see - but it is useful.
Fred Greco
Senior Pastor, Christ Church PCA, Katy, TX
Windows 10 64-bit; Logos 7.1 SR-2 (Reformed Platinum)0 -
Bob Pritchett said:
Internally, we think we're moving completely towards Bible study. We're trying to put more and stronger Bible study support into the product precisely because we're worried that the Kindle, iPhone, Google books, etc. are all making "digital books" common and cheap. We're trying to build ever more powerful tools for Bible study.
Yet, this is a time when reading books on electronic devices is beginning to be accepted, and you have something that none of those other platforms offer, and that's why I think you have an advantage in the "digital books" category. None of those other platforms will have the library integration in the ways that you have it. I love my Kindle and will pay more to get the book in Logos. I have no problem reading pdfs and still will pay for a Logos book even if I can just download it free (maybe I'd import it as a PBB, depending on if I wanted markups or not).
With my netbook making my library that much more portable, reading from Logos is that much easier. I see v4 making that experience only better. If you guys can manage to export pieces of the library to a blackberry, iPhone, or Kindle (licensing issues?), it would be all that much better.
So please, don't abandon or move away from the "digital library" concept.
Jacob Hantla
Pastor/Elder, Grace Bible Church
gbcaz.org0 -
Fred Greco said:
or what it is worth, I think it is a wise decision to get away from the "digital library" focus (a-la Kindle/Google books). I see that quickly becoming a commodity type business, and Logos is not well poised to take down Amazon and Google.
Fred,
I just don't see Amazon or Google being any competition at all to Logos in the area of the "digital library." I cannot envisage the sort of access we have between resources ever being available there. I love the fact that I am able to very quickly move between resources when these are hard-coded (this improves all the time).... It is no effort to compare what one commentary says that another author has said with the author's original words when we have both texts in our library. I don't know how many times that I've checked a reference to Josephus or Philo to find the reference wrong. We can discover this or confirm the author's citation with a simple hover.
Fred Greco said:I think you would get some better results on what 4.0 does if you could give us some guidance.
I agree with your sentiments whole-heartedly. It appears that the only resources we've been asked to check out are ones which do not appear in our Beta release. We need some pointers in the same way that eventual new users will need pointers.
Fred Greco said:Finally, I would also encourage you to find an easy way to allow folks to download the license key for a backup. I would even be satisfied with knowing that a file resided on my system, and I could back it up myself. The cloud is great, but having extra backup is also essential.
Once again, I agree with this, as do a number of others seemingly. It feels like I'm losing ownership of my license.
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Thanks... this is all very helpful. And please don't stop posting even negative feedback -- the squeaky wheels do get greased. I'm just trying to sort out "I really want this feature back" from "this whole direction is a mistake." And clearly we need to do a better job communicating our plans, and explaining what things are.
When Logos was tiny, a new release was us making a disk with the latest code. Now it's like launching D-Day. We're coordinating marketing, video tutorial creation, help file writing, coding, testing, sales plans, training events, package design, web site improvements, conference booth banners, etc.
We're aiming at a target date for release, and we're going to hit it. We have just enough time to get every planned component of the launch in place, but very little else. While it would have been nice to get the intro videos done before we gave you the beta, for example, we couldn't -- because even now it's not quite ready to be video recorded with final art, and we're getting important feedback from the beta. Yes, you'd have had a better out of the box experience with the beta if we'd had the intro videos, but you'd also have less chance to influence the final release.
I'm sorry about the things that were broken in Beta 1; there were a number of surprise mistakes/missing things/bugs in the first beta, so many of you aren't playing with all the beta resources, with the guides working perfectly, etc. We're definitely on this, and you should see improvements in each beta. I'm sorry I can't always even tell you why something isn't working -- sometimes it's something I thought worked, but I don't have immediate access to the right programmer to check, etc.
The bad news is, 4.0 has only a few features beyond what you're seeing now. All the features we've delivered now will work correctly in the final release, and a few things you can't see because of a bug or missing data will be in place by then. But sentence diagramming won't magically appear in the final release, no matter how badly you (and I) want it. Because the release date was chosen months ago, and 170+ people are zeroing in on that date from as many different directions.
(Based on the feedback from this forum, I'm going to see if we can literally steal hours from programmers' sleep to get visual markup in for the release, but I can't promise it. If we miss it, though, it'll be right behind. We are also slipping in some of the easier things requested, like settings control, etc.)
The good news is that we put an automatic update feature into the product for a reason. Every 4.1 / 4.2 etc. feature that matches a 3.0 feature will be available as a free "happens automatically in the night" upgrade, and we'll try to roll them out as quickly as possible.
Based on what I've heard in this forum, I anticipate posting on the release date a web page listing everything you might be missing from 3.0 and our plans for priority and delivery times.
What you'll see next:
Monday/Tuesday you'll get Beta 2. It should (hopefully!) arrive through the "BITS" service, downloaded as a low priority background thread with smart stopping/restoring when you are offline/online, etc. I believe you'll need to start the app after this update is available in order to initiate this download, and then start it up one more time to initiate the install after the download. This release will also include the first drop of the resource downloading code, which will update and download resources in the background.
Following Beta 2 new betas should be released at least once a week, if not more often. (We do not have download scheduling, so if you have bandwidth concerns, you'll want to use the Beta 2 feature of turning off Internet Use, and then enabling it when you want to look for an update. We'll explain this in the Beta 2 release notes.)
When the release date is upon you, please know that any still missing features from the list I've promised doesn't mean we've canceled them, and doesn't mean you won't see them for a year. It means we are (for the first time in... forever?) hitting our long-planned date with a product that we believe will satisfy 90%+ of our existing users, and 100% of new customers.
We are not abandoning or ignoring you, the smartest, more demanding, most important and best looking 10%, :-), we're just shipping on time and initiating the hoped-for revenue bump that will ensure we continue to pay our bills and hire more smart people to serve you better.
Again, I'm not trying to be defensive or to stem the honest feedback -- it's incredlibly helpful. The issues you are bringing up are just what the beta is for: to help us identify what the obstacles are in the way of a successful, well-received product launch. And I'm trying to "win you over" to our thinking, and to explain it all in detail, because I want to defuse the sharpest criticisms from our most important users before the launch.
I'd much rather have you shouting, "hey, where's markup?" now than on the day of the release. :-) And since that's something everybody's shouting, we're really going to try to do it. But even for the things we won't have in -- verse lists, sentence diagrams, etc. -- this has been a great chance for me to both hear your concerns, allay your fears (I hope), and learn what kind of complaint-defusing explanations we'll need to have ready at release.
Just for what it's worth...another attempt to defuse an argument before it comes:
I'm sure someone will want to make the "take another year if you must, just don't ship it anything less than perfect" argument. We heard this last year when we released a Mac product missing a lot more of 3.0's features than 4.0 is missing.
And we took some real hits in reviews (and emails, and phone calls!) from Logos Windows users who switched to the Mac and weren't happy about the ommissions. But the feedback from "first time purchase" Mac users was very positive, and most of those reviews were not only good, they didn't mention the ommissions. Because they'd never seen those features to miss them. :-) And the Mac product has been a fantastic success; without the revenue it generated we wouldn't have been able to put the team on 4.0 that we did.
And 4.0, as you see it, is being built in parallel for the Mac -- catching up way beyond what we could have done if we'd held it and tried to "finish" that old framework. We'll try to post some screenshots soon.
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Fred Greco said:
I believe that sympathetic highlighting is that when you highlight an English word, the correlating Greek/Hebrew word in the interlinear is highlighted as well. That's it, as far as I can see - but it is useful.
Thanks Fred. Now I understand.
I never use interlinears so it's something I would not have noticed when toggling it on / off.
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Bob Pritchett said:
ased on the feedback from this forum, I'm going to see if we can literally steal hours from programmers' sleep to get visual markup in for the release, but I can't promise it.
Thanks Bob!
Bob Pritchett said:We are also slipping in some of the easier things requested, like settings control, etc.
Given how many of us have been requesting more control over defaults and settings, it may be helpful to outline what exactly you are planning (or hoping for) in this area. Will we have more control over datalinks?
Bob Pritchett said:the Beta 2 feature of turning off Internet Use,
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Bob Pritchett said:a product that we believe will satisfy 90%+ of our existing users, and 100% of new customers
Please remember that the 10% not be satisfied may be amongst your most faithful users / purchasers. Though, I'm confident from the last few posts that some of our real concerns are being addressed.
Bob Pritchett said:I'd much rather have you shouting, "hey, where's markup?" now than on the day of the release. :-)
I think most of us are aware of that which is why we are expressing our thoughts and feelings.
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Bob Pritchett said:
The good news is that we put an automatic update feature into the product for a reason. Every 4.1 / 4.2 etc. feature that matches a 3.0 feature will be available as a free "happens automatically in the night" upgrade, and we'll try to roll them out as quickly as possible.
Bob Pritchett said:Monday/Tuesday you'll get Beta 2. It should (hopefully!) arrive through the "BITS" service, downloaded as a low priority background thread with smart stopping/restoring when you are offline/online, etc. I believe you'll need to start the app after this update is available in order to initiate this download, and then start it up one more time to initiate the install after the download. This release will also include the first drop of the resource downloading code, which will update and download resources in the background.
Things that happen quietly in the night are my biggest concern. I need to know their size as they will affect available space in both System and, if implemented as promised, Resource partitions. The smart aspect is great but I need the ability to refuse/delay a download whilst I remain online for other tasks [this may be covered by "turning off Internet Use"].
I'm very much concerned that I will have a huge download and no way to initiate installation if it stalls before that point, or no effective way to clear it out if corrupted.
You really need to allay this concern for me, Bob. Everything else about the product, its suitability for bible study, its current lack of features and the unexpected bugs absolutely pale in the background in comparison --> provided you get the Prioritize feature to work.
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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Bob,
I just want to say "thank you," for explaining all that you did. A good many of the "improvements" are not necessarily things that I have used in the past, but am excited about how they can be implemented. Looking forward to the forthcoming releases and THANK YOU and the Logos staff for all the hard work....now when was that release date that you mentioned?[:D]
Charlene
Charlene
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Bob Pritchett said:Philip Spitzer said:
I must admit that I was think today is seems like Logos is moving more towards library features and less towards
Bible Study.Internally, we think we're moving completely towards Bible study. We're trying to put more and stronger Bible study support into the product precisely because we're worried that the Kindle, iPhone, Google books, etc. are all making "digital books" common and cheap. We're trying to build ever more powerful tools for Bible study.
I have no idea what you mean here, Philip! I'm finding L4 to be a powerful tool for Bible study and am expecting it to become more so.
In response to Bob's post of today at 12:26am, here's my tuppenceworth. I'm not sure, Bob, what you were picking up to lead you to believe that everyone is really unhappy with the new tools - this certainly does not include me.
L4b1 is a great start and I look forward to seeing what else is coming down the pipeline. There is too much missing to migrate over totally yet, but I can wait for the new stuff.
Regarding tweakability, I am a tweaker and like to arrange things according to taste. Thankfully I LOVE the appearance and general interface workflow of L4, but more user options would help e.g. turning off the orange circles, Red words of Christ.
Regarding L3 vs L4, I too hope to make L4 my single Libronix tool - I don't want to have to run L3 and L4 in parallel - with my hard work divided across two platforms. I've been doing this for years with L2\3 and Pradis and it's a pain. I really want everything in one place, linked together.
But to be my "go to" Bible software, some changes are needed, but sounds like many of these are on the way.
1. Prioritize\Keylinking - there needs to be a much clearer and more intuitive way to manage Data Types and the behaviour of resources connected with them.
2. The much missed popups on hovering the mouse over a keylink e.g. in a GNT.
3. Markups (plus import from L3)
4. Better in-resource navigation - spacebar, gestures, Next\Previous buttons
5. But I do want to import all these countless hours of hard work into L4
- namely (1) Notes (2) Markups (3) Sentence Diagrams (4) Verse Lists etc
6. User-customisable serial resource associations e.g. LHI <--> NA27Regarding the new and updated tools, I am very much enjoying these e.g. the new BWS is excellent, and graphically rich and pleasant to use. The graphical preposition use, for example, is great. The Passage analysis is mosty helpful, though I'm not sure what the Cluster Graph is meant to show. The new Bible Explorer is a great addition too - adds a new layer of inisight. It's great how reports are saved for future recall etc etc.
I love the way things are generally noticeably faster - loading workspaces, searching, scrolling through resources, producing reports. This is most welcome.
As long as the key features are rolled out, L4 will become my go to software, and I'll eventually uninstall L3.I'm using L4 75% of the time even already, and would say I'm a happy customer so far, especially given the promises of what's to come.
Thanks
Richard0 -
Thank you for not taking this approach. It will never be "perfect" because "perfect" in this instance is dependent on our opinions and we certainly haven't agreed on what we would like to see and how we want it implemented. I prefer the new Interlinears, especially having the NKJV and other translations.Bob Pritchett said:I'm sure someone will want to make the "take another year if you must, just don't ship it anything less than perfect" argument.
Its good we are having these discussions because not all the 10% is in the beta. we will be able to help belay some of the fears others might have. On that note I seem to remember that we are not supposed to divulge that we were part of the Beta even after release. Is this the case or am I remembering wrong?
Once updates start to magically appear...according to your predestination...after we've chosen to update to 4.0...How will we know these new features are available? Perhaps this weighed into your decision to hit a wider audience with forums over newsgroups. I'm sure it has also played into the reasons you are going with the homepage format you have. I wouldn't mind having a homepage on/on only after update feature as opposed to homepage on/off.
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Bob,
Thank you for your last two EXPLANATION POSTS...they really helped allay my fears and they were just what I was hoping you'd say.I'm willing to wait for the features that I think are crucial; syntax/morph etc...if I know that they are coming.
I do appreciate all of the time and effort you and your team have made on improvements; I think that a lot of the issues are:
1.) Not every feature being ready today.
2.) Lack of understanding on our part about what's coming and what's not
3.) Lack of training on how to best use these new features.
I appreciate this clarification!
it really helped lower the frustration level in my house
Robert Pavich
For help go to the Wiki: http://wiki.logos.com/Table_of_Contents__
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Joe Miller said:
"Bob, you had me at..."
Joe, you crack me up....your wife must have influenced you greatly to be able to get that line (oops, I just exposed myself, too).
Mitch
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.franklinchurchofchrist.com0 -
Bob-
Thank you for involving us in the process. I really appreciate it. For as much requesting/pointing out deficiencies as I have participated in. Iam overall very happy with this and looking forward to its launch and getting my church excited about using it because I can tell that it will have a less steep learning curve than 3 and be more accessible to the average user.
I appreciate you and your whole company.
-Jacob
Jacob Hantla
Pastor/Elder, Grace Bible Church
gbcaz.org0 -
I think what's wrong is we have an expectation that the functionality of v. 4 would be at least what v. 3 is plus. Not having my favorite feature means I am having to settle for less in something that claims to be an upgrade. I love all that you have explained as improvements. But if v. 4 ships without the abilities that v. 3 has on day one then it is a step backwards. I think you should extend the beta and wait to ship v. 4 until at least the things that worked in v. 3 can be done in v. 4.
If 1 percent use feature A and 2 percent use feature B and only 7 percent use features C. If those 3 features are not present, 10 percent will be unhappy. I am quite happy to have v. 4 a beta for much longer if it means the final release is at least as functional as the previous.
An analogy that might help see why I'm not happy about certain functionality not being in the first release of v. 4. To me it would be like buying a make of a car. I have had many Hondas. What if I took my Odyssey to the Honda store to get a new one. And they said here's the latest 2010. It will get better gas mileage and be more comfortable than the older one. it will be easier to maintain. But the radio will only get 2 channels right now. Bring it back in 6 months and we will replace it with a better radio than you have now. And the talegate door won't open yet. But when you bring it for your first oil change we will fix that too.
I'll them them keep your van till you get it all working at least as good as the one I have. Same with 3.x vs. 4.0 of LLS.
Dr. Kevin Purcell, Director of Missions
Brushy Mountain Baptist Association0 -
Damian McGrath said:Fred Greco said:
I believe that sympathetic highlighting is that when you highlight an English word, the correlating Greek/Hebrew word in the interlinear is highlighted as well. That's it, as far as I can see - but it is useful.
Thanks Fred. Now I understand.
I never use interlinears so it's something I would not have noticed when toggling it on / off.
Actually, it should also highlight English to English for translations that have reverse interlinear datasets. This answers the "how does [another translation] handle this (verse|word|phrase)?" question.
On my home system (nay, even now) I have Jeremiah 33.14 open in both ESV and NASB. When I highlight "the good word which I have spoken concerning" in the NASB, the ESV has "the promise I made to" highlighted. The only Hebrew I have open is in the reverse interlinear window, but that's not even required to be open/in view (as I understand it).
(And Rubén, I'd guess this will work for Spanish, too, as long as there is a reverse interlinear dataset)
Rick Brannan
Data Wrangler, Faithlife
My books in print0 -
Bob, I have been a loyal customer of yours since 1997. I only mention this so that others can know that we have had a history here. I can honestly say that I am not aware of any promise that you made in the past, that you did not live up to in time... no, your not like Christ... yoru still human, however you have in my opinion been fair with us. After reading your post here, I feel assured that our concerns will continue to be heard and met. That said, I do not believe that we should or that you would desire us to back off on what we see, think, or believe that we need to have in a product, so I for one will continue to pass my beliefs and thoughts on to you, and pray that our concerns will all be met in a timely fashion as you have stated! Thanks for your clarification and understanding... As I said in a post a couple of days ago, my concern is that Logos stays in business fore if you do not, we loose everything as well as you do, at the same time, if the product does not contain what we need it too, then we loose, and ultimately Logos looses everything as well. We all really need this to be a win-win proposition. thanks for listening.
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Bob Pritchett said:
this is all very helpful. And please don't stop posting even negative feedback -- the squeaky wheels do get greased. I'm just trying to sort out "I really want this feature back" from "this whole direction is a mistake." And clearly we need to do a better job communicating our plans, and explaining what things are.
These types of responses go a long way to accomplishing that goal Bob. I'm sure it can be more than a little frustrating to have people look at your baby and say "ooh that's ugly!" But IMHO that's what a beta is all about. We're here to break it now so it doesn't break later. Thanks for listening.
Bob Pritchett said:Based on what I've heard in this forum, I anticipate posting on the release date a web page listing everything you might be missing from 3.0 and our plans for priority and delivery times.
That kind of transparency is going to go a long way to extinguishing any firestorms before they happen. But If you put that page up, be aware that we're all going to be watching the countdown dates to our favorite features like hawks; and ready to pounce if you're late. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying that's the way it will be.
And thank you abundantly for listening on markup, it is a useful feature many of us had apparently grown used to.
Bob Pritchett said:Monday/Tuesday you'll get Beta 2. It should (hopefully!) arrive through the "BITS" service, downloaded as a low priority background thread with smart stopping/restoring when you are offline/online, etc. I believe you'll need to start the app after this update is available in order to initiate this download, and then start it up one more time to initiate the install after the download. This release will also include the first drop of the resource downloading code, which will update and download resources in the background.
I'm excited to hear about this B.I.T.S (Background Intelligent Transfer Service) delivery, but that's because I have a fat pipe that's always on.
Bob Pritchett said:But even for the things we won't have in -- verse lists, sentence diagrams, etc. -- this has been a great chance for me to both hear your concerns, allay your fears (I hope), and learn what kind of complaint-defusing explanations we'll need to have ready at release.
Glad to help.
Sarcasm is my love language. Obviously I love you. 0 -
Kevin A. Purcell said:
I think what's wrong is we have an expectation that the functionality of v. 4 would be at least what v. 3 is plus.
Actually I don't think that's wrong. I think it is typical of every upgrade of every product I've ever used. The only "exceptions" would be when feature "A" was replaced by feature "Z" and Z while different was supposed to be better at doing what "A" was supposed to do.
This has been true of betas I've worked on for
- Presentation software
- Bible study software
- Antivirus
- Word processors
- Library management
- Operating systems (Win & Linux)
- others.
For me it is safe to say that "upgrade" means "+ more and better" not "just plain different".
Sarcasm is my love language. Obviously I love you. 0 -
Bob Pritchett said:
And 4.0, as you see it, is being built in parallel for the Mac -- catching up way beyond what we could have done if we'd held it and tried to "finish" that old framework. We'll try to post some screenshots soon.
Very excited about this.
Logos is the only reason I use a virtual machine and Logos for Mac is still a little too limited for my regular study. I will be thrilled when the day comes that I can do everything without booting up Windows.And a question about the automatic updates:
Will the user receive some sort of notification as to what has been updated and when? I'd like to know when a new feature has been added or a resource has been updated. I don't have download caps but I do like to know when things get changed, even if it's just a minor update to a book but especially if it's the addition of diagramming or some such.
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Bob Pritchett said:
You guys are freaking me out. Really. :-)
Hi Bob,
I almost wanted to say, that if getting you "freaked out" produced so much clarification and so much great information about the future plans with the V4, it paid to provoke you a little bit... [:)]
But seriously, thank you so much for you very clear explanation on the direction you want to go, on set date of release and the need to get there in time. I totally understand and agree, that if you set up the date for the Big Day-D, you need to do all possible to succeed. Even if some of our really specialized tools are still not in place. I think that was not our concern. Not certainly mine. What some of us might be worried about, was an impression from some of your words, that V4 should be somehow "lighter" version of "heavy-duty" V3, just to get more broad customer range. I am happy to see that that is not the case. L4 is definitely great step forward and if we see that all what was possible to do in V3 is (will be) possible in V4 with, sometimes different tools, sometimes in a surprisingly new way of approach, and sometimes with the improved, more visual tool, having basically the same role as in V3, I am more than happy. To say it by analogy, what we needed to hear (and you communicated that by your 2 last posts very clearly) was, by getting the upgrade to your, let's say, Photoshop CS, you'll get - though very different, but more modern and using some surprisingly new approaches to your work, upgraded Photoshop CS again, not that what you are going actually to get is nice looking, cool and easy to use, Photoshop Elements. That was the concern I heard from some of the posts in this forum. I think that was just clear miscommunication. By your explanations I am totally satisfied and happy about all the new development.
Some things are also result of the first impression, what is misleading some times, and only later realization that what we got is better, even it looks much more simple. The example I would use is searching. First look gave me an impression, that we get more simple, not as powerful, searching possibilities. The truth is, after trying it more and more and finding all what is under the hood, I have to say the new searching is Brilliant! Excellent! I love it. I have to say searching looked very powerful in V3 but I hated to use it actually, and tried to avoid it by using Passage Guide and other tools more in my Sermon preparations. This Sunday I preached a sermon prepared on V4 (YES!) and I did not even use PG. I did all my work with your new tools, searching, Info panel giving me all the background info etc. Just keep up with it. You go the right direction. I trust your sense of direction and good experts you have with you in Logos.
The direction is right, and that is the most important. All the bugs and problems will be out of the way soon, so that is not any real concern. We know we are in Beta.
Let God bless you Bob, and your excellent team for all you do and let your Big day-D date works for you, so that Logos 4 has a big launch and many more users. Thank you again for being patient with us. I appreciate you for that very much.
Bohuslav
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Kevin A. Purcell said:
I think you should extend the beta and wait to ship v. 4 until at least the things that worked in v. 3 can be done in v. 4.
I would agree with you IF Logos was forcing and upgrade from 3.x to 4.0. But they are not. In releasing it on time it satisfies the needs of both world those who want 3.0 functionality and those who want the new, functional values of 4.0 at the temporary sacrifice of some previous tools. In fact it works even more toward your advantage. You can be happy to work with the tools you have become familiar with as us guinea pigs test out features as they come and wine to Logos. That will help to keep them moving forward (though I don't think they need the motivation) and you end up with your fully functioning 4.0 earlier with no lose whatsoever since you would be using 3.x during that time anyway.
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Bohuslav Wojnar said:
The truth is, after trying it more and more and finding all what is under the hood, I have to say the new searching is Brilliant! Excellent! I love it. I have to say searching looked very powerful in V3 but I hated to use it actually, and tried to avoid it by using Passage Guide and other tools more in my Sermon preparations.
While everyone is Ooohing and Ahing about 4.0, I must sound a dissonant note AT THIS TIME. I do not find the searching capabilities that compelling though I always limit the range of resources searched in 3.0. In 4.0 it may be faster to search the entire database rather than a portion thereof, but I think 3.0 is a different animal in that regard. Others apparently think differently about this as is to be expected. It is the morphological search that is of prime importance for me followed by the stability of the fonts (which I haven't yet been able to evaluate). It is frustrating to set a font, close the note file then discover on reopening it that the font has changed. Arial 10 pt is particularly unusable. I will be evaluating the font situation as the beta testing progresses to see whether this has been rectified. That having been said, I HAVE CONFIDENCE THAT THE SITUATION WILL ONLY IMPROVE. Another point that I would like to see is the ability to link one note file to another so that I can easily bring it up by clicking on a link I have placed in the file. This might enable footnoting which would be invaluable. Keep up the good work, and I'm certain that success will follow since I have confidence in the company.
george
gfsomselיְמֵי־שְׁנוֹתֵינוּ בָהֶם שִׁבְעִים שָׁנָה וְאִם בִּגְבוּרֹת שְׁמוֹנִים שָׁנָה וְרָהְבָּם עָמָל וָאָוֶן
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George Somsel said:
While everyone is Ooohing and Ahing about 4.0, I must sound a dissonant note AT THIS TIME.
We expect nothing less from you, George :-)
George Somsel said:Another point that I would like to see is the ability to link one note file to another so that I can easily bring it up by clicking on a link I have placed in the file
This sounds like a great suggestion.
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George & Andrew are you guys not surprise by human nature? I see those who were critical of us raising concerns are now pleased by the clarification & clear assurances from Bob. What a turn in event.
Thanks Bob for the assurances & clarification. I respect the way you have handled this. Thanks for your graciousness & for listening to your loyal customers. I do pray for you & your team when i remember, especially during this period. We mean well and we are passionate about the product V4 & want it to be a success.
Ted
Dell, studio XPS 7100, Ram 8GB, 64 - bit Operating System, AMD Phenom(mt) IIX6 1055T Processor 2.80 GHZ
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I had not tried that. That is VERY nice. It is also VERY useful for sermon prep.
Fred Greco
Senior Pastor, Christ Church PCA, Katy, TX
Windows 10 64-bit; Logos 7.1 SR-2 (Reformed Platinum)0 -
Fred Greco said:
I had not tried that. That is VERY nice. It is also VERY useful for sermon prep.
to what were you refering?
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Philip Spitzer said:
You can be happy to work with the tools you have become familiar with as us guinea pigs test out features as they come and wine to Logos.
To-ga, to-ga, to-ga! Do we get cheese with the wine? Oh, you mean "whine." I can do that too. [:D]
george
gfsomselיְמֵי־שְׁנוֹתֵינוּ בָהֶם שִׁבְעִים שָׁנָה וְאִם בִּגְבוּרֹת שְׁמוֹנִים שָׁנָה וְרָהְבָּם עָמָל וָאָוֶן
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Kevin A. Purcell said:
I think what's wrong is we have an expectation that the functionality of v. 4 would be at least what v. 3 is plus. Not having my favorite feature means I am having to settle for less in something that claims to be an upgrade. I love all that you have explained as improvements. But if v. 4 ships without the abilities that v. 3 has on day one then it is a step backwards. I think you should extend the beta and wait to ship v. 4 until at least the things that worked in v. 3 can be done in v. 4.
If 1 percent use feature A and 2 percent use feature B and only 7 percent use features C. If those 3 features are not present, 10 percent will be unhappy. I am quite happy to have v. 4 a beta for much longer if it means the final release is at least as functional as the previous.
An analogy that might help see why I'm not happy about certain functionality not being in the first release of v. 4. To me it would be like buying a make of a car. I have had many Hondas. What if I took my Odyssey to the Honda store to get a new one. And they said here's the latest 2010. It will get better gas mileage and be more comfortable than the older one. it will be easier to maintain. But the radio will only get 2 channels right now. Bring it back in 6 months and we will replace it with a better radio than you have now. And the talegate door won't open yet. But when you bring it for your first oil change we will fix that too.
I'll them them keep your van till you get it all working at least as good as the one I have. Same with 3.x vs. 4.0 of LLS.
At the risk of being a "yes man" for Bob (not really - [:)] ) I would say that it would be a very bad idea at this time for Logos to hold up the train. This is Bible software, but the main users of Bible software may not be the best advisers here. There is a serious business component. To hold up a revenue stream for a small percentage of users (no matter how loyal) when it is a matter of when not if something shows up would be a bad decision. It stops revenue from coming in, and from getting additional adopters, both of which increase the ability of the company to deliver on what it has promised, and deliver well.
There is also another subset of people that are not being considered here - because by definition they are not in the beta. Every month you delay the release of 4.0, that means someone who has never used Logos will buy 3.0. And then when 4.0 comes out, if there is a migration cost, they are upset. It also means that they need to re-learn what they have just started to learn on whatever changes. Not in a beta, but after plunking down money. And people wonder if they should buy 3.0, since 4.0 may be "out soon." And once you announce 4.0 is coming (or it leaks out) sales of 3.0 will plummet, affecting revenue.
This is also true of features used by a smaller minority of users. Let's say, for example, that morphological searching hopelessly broken now (I have no idea if it is). Let's say that Logos could fix it in 6 months, and delay 4.0 for that fix (instead of coming out with 4.1 or 4.2). So the product is delayed for, say, 5%-10% of users. But of them, maybe half (?) also use another Bible software (whose initials are BW) and could use that in the gap. So you are freezing the product for affecting substantively a very small percentage of users (maybe 2.5%) hurts the product. That does not mean that those users are not important - but it means that you are freezing out revenue from the other 98%, who would pay for the proper implementation of the function.
One example: the iPhone. Does anyone remember how the iPhone was missing very basic functions for years? Like copy/paste? Like MMS? Apple rolled it out anyway, and the most sophisticated users complained (rightly so, I think), but they still used the product. And millions of other adopters built the user base. And so then Apple, being Apple, unveiled 2004 functionality in 2009 and acted like they had landed on Mars.
Fred Greco
Senior Pastor, Christ Church PCA, Katy, TX
Windows 10 64-bit; Logos 7.1 SR-2 (Reformed Platinum)0 -
Philip Spitzer said:Fred Greco said:
I had not tried that. That is VERY nice. It is also VERY useful for sermon prep.
to what were you refering?
Sympathetic highlighting across different English versions. I'm still trying to figure out this forum's quoting functions.
Fred Greco
Senior Pastor, Christ Church PCA, Katy, TX
Windows 10 64-bit; Logos 7.1 SR-2 (Reformed Platinum)0 -
Bob Pritchett said:
We're aiming at a target date for release, and we're going to hit it. We have just enough time to get every planned component of the launch in place, but very little else. While it would have been nice to get the intro videos done before we gave you the beta, for example, we couldn't -- because even now it's not quite ready to be video recorded with final art, and we're getting important feedback from the beta. Yes, you'd have had a better out of the box experience with the beta if we'd had the intro videos, but you'd also have less chance to influence the final release.
Bob,
Is it possible to get some descriptions of functions you'd like us to use, and how they would best work, without the need for videos? I mean, just maybe even bullet points about certain features, and ways to test them?
Fred Greco
Senior Pastor, Christ Church PCA, Katy, TX
Windows 10 64-bit; Logos 7.1 SR-2 (Reformed Platinum)0 -
Fred Greco said:
And then when 4.0 comes out, if there is a migration cost, they are upset.
I have been assuming that anyone buying version 3 at this late stage might be upgraded/crossgraded to version 4 for free when it's released... It leaves all of us who routinely recommend Logos to people in an awkward situation otherwise... "Logos is great but I think you should hold off for a bit before you buy it but I can't tell you why"... [:#]
Any plans in this area from Logos team?
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Jon Rumble said:Fred Greco said:
And then when 4.0 comes out, if there is a migration cost, they are upset.
I have been assuming that anyone buying version 3 at this late stage might be upgraded/crossgraded to version 4 for free when it's released... It leaves all of us who routinely recommend Logos to people in an awkward situation otherwise... "Logos is great but I think you should hold off for a bit before you buy it but I can't tell you why"...
Any plans in this area from Logos team?
John,
You may be correct (I hope it is confirmed), but my point is that the longer the delay, the less likely for free upgrades.
Fred Greco
Senior Pastor, Christ Church PCA, Katy, TX
Windows 10 64-bit; Logos 7.1 SR-2 (Reformed Platinum)0 -
Jon Rumble said:
I have been assuming that anyone buying version 3 at this late stage might be upgraded/crossgraded to version 4 for free when it's released...
Jon, the L4 'engine' will be free, as was the L3 engine. Nothing will be lost by buying L3 now. Those of us in the beta test group will get some resources/functionality that others may have to purchase. But the upgrade to the new L4 system will be free.
Further, it's apparent that some of the functionality of L3 won't make it into the initial release of L4. That means L3 will be more useful for some operations than L4. Hopefully, we'll be able to have both on our system once L4 is released publicly, at least until all the functionality of L3 is built into L4.
For now L3 is still a more powerful Bible study tool than L4 (IMHO), though I suspect that once L4 is released, it will be much easier for a newbie to use than L3.
Help links: WIKI; Logos 6 FAQ. (Phil. 2:14, NIV)
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Jon Rumble said:Fred Greco said:
And then when 4.0 comes out, if there is a migration cost, they are upset.
I have been assuming that anyone buying version 3 at this late stage might be upgraded/crossgraded to version 4 for free when it's released... It leaves all of us who routinely recommend Logos to people in an awkward situation otherwise... "Logos is great but I think you should hold off for a bit before you buy it but I can't tell you why"...
Any plans in this area from Logos team?
One does not BUY v. 3.0. I wrote to Phil regarding his e-mail which seemed to indicate that Logos was abandoning its policy of not charging for the engine. He stated clearly that I had misunderstood. The program is to continue to be free. What he was referencing was a cross-grade to the equivalent package which we already have. It seems that the packages are also being updated so that the new version of our package will contain added resources. We buy the resources, not the program.
george
gfsomselיְמֵי־שְׁנוֹתֵינוּ בָהֶם שִׁבְעִים שָׁנָה וְאִם בִּגְבוּרֹת שְׁמוֹנִים שָׁנָה וְרָהְבָּם עָמָל וָאָוֶן
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George Somsel said:
One does not BUY v. 3.0. I wrote to Phil regarding his e-mail which seemed to indicate that Logos was abandoning its policy of not charging for the engine. He stated clearly that I had misunderstood. The program is to continue to be free. What he was referencing was a cross-grade to the equivalent package which we already have. It seems that the packages are also being updated so that the new version of our package will contain added resources. We buy the resources, not the program.
Yes, that's what I understood from the email we got. There should be expected the updated version of the Packages. I would not be surprised if we would see some new resources and updated series that already are in the Base Packages. For people who would like to get that will be an upgrade price. That is just my speculation on the matter.
Bohuslav
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George,
"We buy the resources, not the program."
Unfortunately not true of Mac users. The Mac engine itself had to be purchased. I will be interested to see if Logos charges Mac users for the engine that PC users get for free. I'm assuming those who already have the Mac engine will get a free upgrade, but will new users be charged for the new engine?
Chris0
