BUG? - Information missing from new Context menu?

SteveF
SteveF Member Posts: 1,866 ✭✭✭

Under the old context menu the Greek and Hebrew words were clearly identified with descriptors - MANUSCRIPT, LEMMA ETC

I can manage the lack of these helpful terms in the Greek but my Hebrew is VERY limited.

Can anyone explain [or point me to a thread] as to why this helpful information is now missing in this "new" version of the Context Menu?

Thanks

Regards, SteveF

Comments

  • JT (alabama24)
    JT (alabama24) MVP Posts: 36,523

    Your question is about an issue with 8.7? Do the descriptors appear when you hover over each line (which is what happens for me in 8.6)? 

    macOS, iOS & iPadOS |Logs| Install
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  • SteveF
    SteveF Member Posts: 1,866 ✭✭✭

    an issue with 8.7?

    Yes, the latest Beta version.

    "When you hover over each line?" - I am unsure what you mean "Alabama"

    [I cannot get a "snip" as it disappears when I click on the screen]

    eg Isaiah 1:1 in NIV 2011 The "vision" .concerning Judah etc.. 

    the new right click menu -- The new left side of it.

    - Selection vision

    - Reference Isaiah 1:1

    [Then there is a faint horizontal grey coloured separator line] beneath it are 3 lines of Hebrew words,

    on the 2nd & 3rd lines there are English glosses after the Hebrew words.

    - 2nd line:  "vision, word of revelation"

    - 3rd line: "to see, behold"

    In the past those lines with Hebrew word(s) and English glosses had further English words to the right of them in CAPITAL letters such as MANUSCRIPT OR LEMMA etc

    That no longer appears.

    Were they removed even before this latest beta? Did I just miss that change?

    [Sorry to be unable to produce a visual representation.]

    Thanks for your questions

     

    Regards, SteveF

  • DMB
    DMB Member Posts: 14,193 ✭✭✭✭

    Steve, just for info, I have L7, which is as Alabama describes ... only the unknowable images are visible (pi, @, <>) ... the uppercase english demand a mouseover ... eg SELECTION, MANUSCRIPT, LEMMA, etc

    "If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.

  • SteveF
    SteveF Member Posts: 1,866 ✭✭✭

    THANK YOU Alabama and Denise

    Sadly, I had my Information "update" set on "click" rather than "hover" so any  "mouseover" was not working for me.

    EDIT: It works the way you describe (with hover revealing those desired terms) on my Stable 8.6 Verbum software

    But NOT on my 8.7 Beta Logos

     

    Regards, SteveF

  • JT (alabama24)
    JT (alabama24) MVP Posts: 36,523

    SteveF said:

    In the past those lines with Hebrew word(s) and English glosses had further English words to the right of them in CAPITAL letters such as MANUSCRIPT OR LEMMA etc

    That no longer appears.

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  • JT (alabama24)
    JT (alabama24) MVP Posts: 36,523

    SteveF said:

    It works the way you describe (with hover revealing those desired terms) on my Stable 8.6 Verbum software

    But NOT on my 8.7 Beta Logos

    OK. In which case I assume this is a bug. 

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  • SteveF
    SteveF Member Posts: 1,866 ✭✭✭

    OK. In which case I assume this is a bug. 

    Thanks Alabama

    Regards, SteveF

  • SteveF
    SteveF Member Posts: 1,866 ✭✭✭

    Thank you for being able to put up this screen sshot.

    YES - That is the "(correct"/expected) behaviour that is present in my 8.6 Verbum

    But the Beta 8.7 Logos is not working that way for me. "Hover" does not reveal those terms etc

    Thanks again

    Regards, SteveF

  • Adam Borries (Logos)
    Adam Borries (Logos) Community Manager, Logos Employee Posts: 928

    Sorry the delay responding here.

    JT (alabama24) said: I assume this is a bug.

    This is not a bug; it was an intentional design choice for the context menu refresh.

    We removed the inline, on-hover context label (Lemma, Root, Person, etc.) when we added it as a header on the command (right) side. 


     

    Yes, we recognize that this leaves only the icons to distinguish them on the left side; but I think it wouldn't take long for a regular user to realize that "√" means root, etc. 

  • SteveF
    SteveF Member Posts: 1,866 ✭✭✭

    "√" means root, etc. 

    Unfortunately I have never been able to figure out the reasoning/meaning behind most of Logos'  icons.

    [old guy - raised on "text-based" notation etc.]

    But Thanks Adam for this reply. It is appreciated.

    Regards, SteveF

  • Simon’s Brother
    Simon’s Brother Member Posts: 6,822 ✭✭✭

    Root, I get the icon bit the rest never had any meaning I could associate with the terms they represented. I think it’s a big and disappointing assumption on FL’s part that we will know what these mean. And what about new users to the software. How are they to learn what the symbols mean. Is this going to be properly documented in the softwares help file? 

    SteveF said:

    "√" means root, etc. 

    Unfortunately I have never been able to figure out the reasoning/meaning behind most of Logos'  icons.

    [old guy - raised on "text-based" notation etc.]

    But Thanks Adam for this reply. It is appreciated.

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 36,088

    And what about new users to the software. How are they to learn what the symbols mean.

    On hover, there is no explanation for the root symbol in Morph Search; whilst there is something for lemmas.

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

  • JT (alabama24)
    JT (alabama24) MVP Posts: 36,523

    Root, I get the icon bit the rest never had any meaning I could associate with the terms they represented.

    [Y]

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  • Andrew Batishko
    Andrew Batishko Member, Community Manager, Logos Employee Posts: 5,466

    the rest never had any meaning I could associate with the terms they represented

    Let me take a stab at helping build some associations for you. Note that this is only my own interpretation, since I had no involvement in creating the icons.

    From the top...

    καρδίαν - surface text - looks like lines of text in a book

    καρδία - lemma - looks like the translation ring in a Bible word study (which operates on lemmas)

    καρδια - root - looks like a mathematical square root symbol

    NASF - morph - uses the symbol used to display the morphology picker in a morph search

    Strong's Greek #2588 / LN 26.3 - data type reference - uses the < > symbols that are used when searching for places where a reference is tagged

    self <=> heart - sense - nope, I got nothing. I know it's a Greek alpha, but I don't associate it with anything

    Heart - Bible knowledgebase reference with a subtype of Thing - it's a box, which is an object... a thing

    Jesus' ministry / etc. - event - like a flag on a map, marking where something occurred

    Jesus - speaker - a megaphone, someone talking

    Disciples - addressee - a person with sound waves coming at their head... they're being talked to

    Adultery - preaching theme - a pulpit

    The remainder are data type references, as above.

    It's not much, but hopefully is of some help.

    Andrew Batishko | Logos software developer

  • Donnie Hale
    Donnie Hale Member Posts: 2,036 ✭✭✭

    The fact that we need a legend to explain the icons (IMO) proves the previous points about them not being discoverable / intuitive (a point with which I agree). I know space is limited, but there's got to be something better than hoping I pick the right one.

    -Donnie

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 54,765

    Allow me to reinterate my request that a key to the icons be included in help ... and that a template of them be available for diagrams.

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."

  • PetahChristian
    PetahChristian Member Posts: 4,636 ✭✭✭

    Out of sight, out of mind. It would be a better experience for the information to be readily visible, instead of requiring us to recall the icon meanings, or remember where to find the legend. Let’s not make things more cryptic or obscure, please.

    Logos Help is not an option I tend to think of or use, unfortunately. If there’s no “tooltip” to explain something, I turn to Google out of habit.

    Thanks to FL for including Carta and a Hebrew audio bible in Logos 9!

  • PetahChristian
    PetahChristian Member Posts: 4,636 ✭✭✭

    NASF - morph - uses the symbol used to display the morphology picker in a morph search

    For people like me who have (used the context menu to run a morph search, but) have never typed in a morph search string, this association would be foreign.

    Logos is quite powerful. One of the things that gets brought up now and then is that people only use about 10% of the program. Removing the icon meanings would make Logos slightly harder to use for us neophytes, and make the learning curve slightly steeper.

    Thanks to FL for including Carta and a Hebrew audio bible in Logos 9!

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 36,088

    For people like me who have (used the context menu to run a morph search, but) have never typed in a morph search string, this association would be foreign.

    That symbol aside, NASF is translated by the text that follows. People familiar with a morphological search would understand what was intended.

    Removing the icon meanings would make Logos slightly harder to use for us neophytes, and make the learning curve slightly steeper.

    With time, their meaning will stick. And one only has to click to see a meaning on the opposite side, but you still have to understand 'Morph', 'Lemma', 'Root', 'Manuscript', 'Thing', 'Sense' etc.! There is always a learning curve.

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 54,765

    If there’s no “tooltip” to explain something

    I am not opposed to tooltips but I consider them dangerous. They let one "play scholar" without really understanding what one is looking at. For example, I consider morphology to be "useless" until one can parse it yourself. When you can tag it yourself, you understand well enough to actually use the tooltip "cheat sheets" - enough to be able to notice ambiguity that has been "cleaned up" and errors in Logos coding. Note that as a formal student one is asked to "play scholar" in order to become one.

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."

  • PetahChristian
    PetahChristian Member Posts: 4,636 ✭✭✭

    There is always a learning curve.

    True, but this places more of a burden on the user to stop and decode the meanings.

    I don’t think the program should become less intuitive, as not all customers are power users, academics, pastors, etc.

    While I’m grateful for expert users and employees who understand search operators and can construct searches by hand, I’m still dependent on the context menu to perform queries.

    Thanks to FL for including Carta and a Hebrew audio bible in Logos 9!

  • SteveF
    SteveF Member Posts: 1,866 ✭✭✭

    There is always a learning curve.

    (I do not want to quarrel publicly with you David. You have helped me many times through the years and I deeply appreciate your efforts and talent.) So, Dave, I [mostly] agree with your "learning curve" comment.[:)]

    But - as the OP of  this thread - the largest part of my confusion with this new "direction" [of leaving out these helpful explanatory terms] is that it seems to be going counter to Logos' more recent attempts to make the software more user-friendly/approachable etc. [especially to new users or those with little to no formal theological training]. ie. One recent example of this helpful trend would be "Workflows." [eg. I assume that even the recent change from moving away from the "right to left" in the context menu was an attempt to be less "unique"/confusing to some new users]

    Therefore taking away these helpful defining/clarifying words seems [to me] to result in again "up-ing" the GEEK factor. [That, "geek-i-ness" quotient, even more so than the higher $$$ cost, has been the biggest hindrance to my attempts to interest others in this wonderful software].

    [And as I mentioned in one of my early posts - personally it is not the Greek that is the issue - it is the Hebrew. Many years ago in my Christian Education/Music major, Hebrew was not required. Since then I have laboured to just be able to recognize/handle the alphabet so that I might benefit from the fine Hebrew Dictionaries/Lexicons that are so helpful in Logos]. 

    I did appreciate the helpful attempt to "de-code" some of the more [esoteric] icons. [:)]

    I do not think that this issue is "a-hill-to-'die'-on" - rather I ask the fine developers at Logos to please try to keep this point in mind as they continue in their attempts to make the software still even more  "user-friendly."

    I also appreciate some of the things added back into Logos 8 that were present in 6 but somehow were left out of 7. Overall I think Logos 8 is "easier" to use etc. As I approach 70 years of age I only wish that this quality software had been available back in the early-to-mid 1970's when I was beginning Pastoral ministry. 

    Thanks so much

    [EDIT] Sorry, "PetahChristian" - I did not see/realize that you had just made the same point.

    Thank you!

    Regards, SteveF

  • SteveF
    SteveF Member Posts: 1,866 ✭✭✭

    We removed the inline, on-hover context label (Lemma, Root, Person, etc.) when we added it as a header on the command (right) side. 

    Thanks Adam, for that reply.

    However, after years of "hovering" - It was not really not too "intuitive" to then need to "click" on the left side term in order for that helpful explanatory term to be revealed on the right side.

    Thanks for all you do for us.

    Regards, SteveF

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 36,088

    There is always a learning curve.

    SteveF said:

    Dave, I [mostly] agree with your "learning curve" comment.Smile

    But - as the OP of  this thread - the largest part of my confusion with this new "direction" [of leaving out these helpful explanatory terms] is that it seems to be going counter to Logos' more recent attempts to make the software more user-friendly/approachable etc. [especially to new users or those with little to no formal theological training].

    True, but this places more of a burden on the user to stop and decode the meanings.

    I don’t think the program should become less intuitive, as not all customers are power users, academics, pastors, etc.

    Steve and Petah

    My earlier post stated there was no explanation of the symbol for Root in Morph Search; whilst the Lemma symbol has an information pop-up. My immediate reaction to the Context menu change  was much the same as yours, until I realised that the explanation was at the top of the opposite side, and that you first had to click the item. That's the learning curve for users familiar with the hover method (which I prefer!).

    My other point is that 'Lemma', 'Root', etc. may decode the symbol, but not every user understands what they are! That took me some time to learn; not being an academic or theology student[8-|].

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

  • SteveF
    SteveF Member Posts: 1,866 ✭✭✭

    My immediate reaction to the Context menu change  was much the same as yours, until I realised that the explanation was at the top of the opposite side, and that you first had to click the item. That's the learning curve for users familiar with the hover method (which I prefer!).

    [Dave, I had made a faulty assumption/jumped to a conclusion etc]

    Thanks so much for that clarification! 

    Regards, SteveF

  • Harry Hahne
    Harry Hahne Member Posts: 962 ✭✭✭

    The fact that we need a legend to explain the icons (IMO) proves the previous points about them not being discoverable / intuitive (a point with which I agree). I know space is limited, but there's got to be something better than hoping I pick the right one.

    [Y] 

  • Larry Craig
    Larry Craig Member Posts: 1,438 ✭✭✭

    The idea of a Bible software is to make things easier and faster for the user.  I'm spending too much time in the forums asking questions that shouldn't even need to be asked.  And you still didn't get all of them.  How are people like me supposed to figure them all out?

  • PetahChristian
    PetahChristian Member Posts: 4,636 ✭✭✭

    How are people like me supposed to figure them all out?

    One helpful change that Morris Proctor pointed out, is that "The item you selected on the left is now clearly labeled at the top of the right-hand side. (F)"

    That should help identify any symbols which might not have been previously explained.

    Thanks to FL for including Carta and a Hebrew audio bible in Logos 9!

  • Larry Craig
    Larry Craig Member Posts: 1,438 ✭✭✭

    I see the information at the top right, but I don't see anything that will help with symbols.

    Thank  you for writing.

  • Jack Caviness
    Jack Caviness MVP Posts: 13,588

    MJ. Smith said:

    I am not opposed to tooltips but I consider them dangerous. They let one "play scholar" without really understanding what one is looking at.

    [Y] Very true, but I still use them, even when I know what they mean [:$]

  • SteveF
    SteveF Member Posts: 1,866 ✭✭✭

    I don't see anything that will help with symbols.

    A Faithlife staffer tried to help with this recently but even he admitted "guessing" at a few icon/symbols OR guessing "why" there was a particular graphic for that particular item.

    Regards, SteveF

  • Larry Craig
    Larry Craig Member Posts: 1,438 ✭✭✭

    thank you.  I like the old right click better.  I suspect that only the real advanced users will see the improvements, assuming, of course, there are any./

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 36,088

    I like the old right click better.  I suspect that only the real advanced users will see the improvements, assuming, of course, there are any./

    A number of non-advanced users really like the changes. Some, like yourself, regret the removal of the hover tooltip. So do I!

    I don't like many of the changes in the Logos 8 interface (coming from Logos 7). We struggle on, though.

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

  • Larry Craig
    Larry Craig Member Posts: 1,438 ✭✭✭

    I remember saying on a number of occasions that I like 7 better.  I liked the fact that I could mark a commentary in a passage guide if I found it particularly helpful.  I'm not in ministry any more, but I had suggested more than once that it would be helpful for people who study a passage over an extended period of time could have some way to mark resources in some way (helpful, read, nothing here, go back).  It's not helpful to click on a resource and realize, I did this one before, and there was nothing here.  Logos, save me time.  Don't waste it.

  • Myke Harbuck
    Myke Harbuck Member Posts: 1,646 ✭✭✭

    A number of non-advanced users really like the changes.

    I, for one, fit this category!

    Myke Harbuck
    Lead Pastor, www.ByronCity.Church
    Adjunct Professor, Georgia Military College

  • MWW
    MWW Member Posts: 428 ✭✭

    I don't like many of the changes in the Logos 8 interface (coming from Logos 7). We struggle on, though.

     And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, ‘The old is better.’ ” (Luke 5:39 ) [;)]

    I'm also one who finds the changes to my liking.