Logos 9 Wishlist

Thanks for starting this thread, Phil! I'll probably add more details later, but in general I'd like to see most of the focus put into those areas that were considered/rumored/planned for L8, but didn't make the cut.

Workflows still need a lot of work before they're truly useful.

Notes need quite a bit of improvement/additions:

• additional facets, note types, and content types,
• info management or nested tags, etc.
• Add the ability to save "filter sets" for use in the resource VF menu.
• Add panel linking.
• Add chapter/pericope level filtering to Bible notes

Search builder...

Context menu: 

• Move a labels into the info panel (and improve that).
• Add the ability to toggle sections on/off in settings.
• Add the ability to copy pointed and transliterated text directly.

Bug fixes:

• Fix morph charts!
• Fix scaling issues on macOS (there's LOTS of them!)

Thanks for asking!

Here would be my top 10 desired new features/improvements:

1. Images in notes / canvas / workflows (Desktop/Mobile)
2. User tables in notes/ canvas / workflows (Desktop/Mobile)
3. Visual annotation of text (like Accordance 13) (Desktop/Mobile)
4. Full touch screen support (Desktop)
5. PBBs in mobile (Mobile)
6. Increase In speed (Desktop)
7. Extra levels of indent in workflow hierarchy (Desktop/Mobile)
8. Negotiations done with Zondervan et al to avoid the frustrating 'Not available in your country' (Web)
9. Psalters resources (Resources)
10. Ability to sync via webDAV or similar self-hosted servers rather than Logos Servers (Desktop/Mobile)

Thanks for listening.

Every blessing,

James

what should we do to win the next generation of new users?

The younger purchasers have never been restricted to paper resources. They expect things to be available to them online in a complete, speedy, and intuitive manner. They have little patience for bugs and incomplete features. Make sure every feature is a complete, tidy, polished product.

What are the most important things we should solve for Logos 9?

Links are a random sample going back at least 5 years of nagging and not all topics have had a search on the forums for a link ... maybe tomorrow.

1. Make it easier to add data types/milestones so that Creeds, church documents, standard references always get data types so that Logos supports the referencing used in our resources. https://community.logos.com/forums/t/186910.aspx
2. Resolve the issues in commentaries caused by using the same milestones for the bible translation and the commentary https://community.logos.com/forums/t/186271.aspx
3. Make it very easy to change translations in a popup so that when a resource references a specific translation we can see that translation. https://community.logos.com/forums/t/120765.aspx
4. Make it possible to view commentaries such as the AYB or Hermenia with translations, notes, commentary portions side by side SUGGESTION: The view of Bible Commentaries that would really enhance my experience
5. Make more library traits visible and available for collections [request] Bradley: Please expose the 'traits' column in collections
6. Add pseudepigrapha support to Factbook
7. Complete a number of features that feel unfinished

• Additional entries in Bible People Visual Timeline - add Elijah, Ruth, Joseph and commit to adding two or three a year
• Continue to add to the Narrative Character Maps
• Add interactives for parables, promises, questions ... so we can see the full picture not just individual instances i.e. understand what we are looking at Interactive Tool for the Parables of the Bible
• Finish the documentation especially for Biblical Person, Place, Thing, Event ... Biblical Event Navigator DOCUMENTATION MISSING BUG: Biblical Event Navigator BUG: Missing documentation: Bible Outline Browser dataset BUG? Missing documentation: Parallel Gospel Reader . . .
• Fix the morphology charts so they actually work Bug:אֱלוֹהַּ and Morphology chart
• Add the n-tuple function to the concordance so that it actually provides new data SUGGESTION: Finish the Concordance tool
• Make clippings carry a complete citation Clippings and Footnotes
• Finish backlog of sermon tagging KYLE: New (to me) resource not tagged for sermons?
• Finish backlog of pericope tagging RESOLVED BUG: Deferred data updates ; consider adding pericopes as defined in commentaries; consider a new feature of pericopes in lectionaries
• Add more resources to outline feature - concentrating on commentaries with detailed outlines; make it possible for the individual to add items as they can with sermon labels Add Evangelical Commentary on the Bible to the Bible Outline Browser
• Improve performance of drop down pick lists A plea for speeding up the "select resource" drop down in search FRUSTRATED with Logos wasting my computer cycles
• Add the features that limit the usefulness of the Workflows - especially make them handle more than a single passage Sermon Workflow with multiple scriptural references Workflow Editor Improvements
• Add Saints support for Anglicans and Lutherans
• Add Protestant lectionary-based sermon support by a guide section linked to The Text This Week SUGGESTION: Logos 7 The Text This Week 
• Add the Narrative Lectionary and the Season of Creation (Mainstream Protestant) Narrative Lectionary Season of Creation lectionary
• Build a sermon starter guide and modify the sermon editor to support the 80% of Christians who use a lectionary Suggestion: Homily Helpers Guide
• Make a noticeable dent in the Factbook duplicates
• Make noticeable progress on Timeline links
• Resolve issues arising from different levels of granularity on older and newer Church Father's works
• Add table capability to Notes - even if only copy & paste as in the old Notes Clippings and Footnotes
• Update the Canon comparison to include all the canons in recent publications
• Build additional resources of the Guide to his Life and Writings type and commit to a couple a year
• Allow prioritization by collection e.g. prioritize a particular translation for all resources tagged with a particular value
• Provide Canvas source documents for items FL generated on Canvas - serve as examples to those trying to become familiar with Canvas
• Continue work on Faithlife Assistant - which at the moment is a good idea stalled in the unfinished dump
• A simple way to report errors from anywhere rather than multiple places to look (help, documentation, wiki, forum) with no assurance FL is still looking there.
• Convert highly used shared resources into official resources - the online DSS file Dead Sea Scrolls Internet Links Index, the Bible studies files Index of Bible Studies, the commentary classifications Collection rules for sorting commentaries (updated for Logos 8 Base Packages). . .
• Make case frames available by verb
• Continue on search templates until there is at least as much capability as in the old catalogue style templates
• Add Talmudic rabbis to Factbook and tag the Talmuds by rabbi Logos reliance on a deprecated product - Freebase
• Add alternative Biblical names for Bible People giving the Greek (Vulgate) names and the Messianic Jewish names
• Clearly identify in the library resources that are single in print but split by language or resource type in Logos. Allow an option to collapse to a single resource instance in library & collection views.
• Allow the user to define a collection to be used as the default "All resources" (For years mine was titled "Basic Logos/Verbum Library") to keep a manageable working library without having to hide the more exotic resources.
• Expand the flash card function to allow creating decks for the definitions necessary to understand each of the FL datasets - sets must be sharable (or provided by FL) Flash cards for books
• Fix Prayer List - most notably so that entering an answer does not mark the prayer done ... my theology allows partial and step-wise answers.How do you use prayer lists?
• Add additional volumes to the Sacred Art series - especially icons and non-European art
• Be able to use a Passage List as the condition for a highlight SUGGESTIONS for Passage List/Visual Filters ... requested before, still waiting
• Be able to auto-build a milestone search from the context menu as well as the current datatype search BUG we've been trying to get acknowledged since Sept 1
• Add prebuilt catechism reading plans and confession of faith with commentaries reading plans
• Finish the maps and add the resource Zev Vilany: The Sacred Land (3 volumes) i.e. 1. Legends of Jerusalem 2. Legends of Judea and Samaria 3. Legends of Galilee, Jordon and Sinai Note this is the geographic equivalent to Legends of the Jews and is an essential background reference.
• Add Help cards to Verbum
• Identify the LST as Protestant or update it significantly
• Make morphological search documents shareable
• Split the Passage Analysis tool into multiple parts to make it easier to find the tools included in it
• Add the generation of a syntax tree diagram from the standard brackets notation to the Sentence diagrammer
• Add highlight/filter functions to footnotes

In short, I want a package that feels finished for nearly all its functions - I don't like being reminded that I'm limited by decisions made in the DOS days, or that a cool idea was tried without serious thought as to how it is to be used, or that turned out to be a bigger project than expected so it sort of got dropped. With the exception of the LST, the most valuable recent additions to Logos have been in indexing and selection for guide sections. Make sure those always work at an optimum level.

For new features to highlight as "Logos 9's crown jewel":

• add a section to the Passage Guide that gathers the questions from the Bible Study (Sunday School style) resources available in Logos AND add a Bible Lesson option into an enhanced Sermon tool.Logos Lesson Builder under Windows 8 64-bit https://community.logos.com/forums/t/95316.aspx 
• add support to the Liturgy of the Hours - Lutheran, Anglican, Orthodox, Catholic, Mennonite are the ones that come to my mind immediately

One way to make sure Logos feels complete:

1. Go through Tate, W. Randolph. Handbook for Biblical Interpretation: An Essential Guide to Methods, Terms, and Concepts. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2012. to identify the major types of Bible Criticism
2. For each of them, walk through the step required to apply that interpretative lens in Logos noting setup required by user (tagging, collections, labels ...)
3. Note steps that put you at a procedural dead end when you ought to be able to click to see additional information or navigate to a reasonable next step.
4. Put together a proposal of the modifications necessary to make applying the lens possible - and those necessary to make it work well.
5. Group similar lens (types of Bible criticism) together and work to make Logos helpful for all approaches. My personal urgent need is reception history.

P.S. Uservoice has not reflected my priorities since the ability to redistribute votes was loss and I was told to take it up with UserVoice.

See this thread: https://community.logos.com/forums/t/186839.aspx

If you can’t pull this off, then any other request is pointless! It only means you’ll end up doing whatever you want anyway and you’re just asking this to “make believe” users they’re being taken into consideration when they’re really not.

Also add ability to put pictures in users notes.

Improve graphics.  It’s been years EVERYBODY has been asking for this.

Improve drawing functionality. 

And that’s it!

Thanks for the thread! At least one thing is within the realm of possibilities — L9 coming soon in the future.

DAL

My #1 (and only) priority is: Make it faster for users with enormous libraries (20,000+ resources; I have 25,474 unhidden ones) and lots of collections (I have 221). Everywhere that being such a power library owner slows down the product needs to be sped up or I cannot use the product. It is such a painful experience for me these days that I'm simply not using it much anymore, even though I continue to buy books in the hope that maybe someday it will become usable again. I even tried buying a new ultra fast computer, and it was still unusable. (See here.) I deleted most of my Visual Filters, since someone told me that might be what's slowing things down. No appreciable improvement.

Some of those areas that are painfully slow are:

• populating dropdowns that have lists of collections, such as the Search In dropdown in a Search tab
• switching focus back to Logos after being in another Windows app for a while
• opening Logos when a Search tab or Guide was open in the last workspace you shut down with (which makes that Search or Guide start to run again, which is uninterruptible; it should not run again unless the user specifically requests it to run again)
• updating Library Catalog whenever you edit tags

[:(]

What does your ideal Logos 9 upgrade look like? What would make Logos 9 an irresistible upgrade for you?

I appreciate that to sell upgrades to Logos 9 you need something new, but I don't think that's what Logos needs right now.

My focus would be on consolidating datasets and tools and improving existing features. Currently, there are so many diverse datasets it's hard to keep on top of them all, and most users don't benefit from them. There are also too many different ways to access the data: factbook, guides and workflows.

I'd favour an approach for beginning users where that would guide them through the process of choosing the right tool, something like this:

• What do you want to study today? (you'd enter the topic, lemma, person, thing, event, etc.)
• Do you want all the information at once or a step-by-step study? (guide/factbook or workflow)
• Is this for a devotional study / essay / sermon?
• How much time do you have?

Logos would then switch to the right workflow/guide and tailor the output accordingly (removing or minimising certain sections depending on the depth of study and time available).

I'd also like to see significant upgrades to the Workflow tool, which is brilliant already but could be so much better. Reuben is the cheerleader for Workflows, and I'm with him 100%. Being able to specify collections for the Commentary section is one very easy win that would make a big difference.

How about a Format Painter for Notes?

What bugs should we fix?

All of them. 

I can not understand why Faithlife doesn't put a higher priority on fixing bugs. If an "update" breaks something, it should be fixed ASAP. For an example of a feature that was broken sometime during an update, see:  https://community.logos.com/forums/t/177426.aspx Here we are almost a year later and it is still broken. Why? 

I truly can't understand why it is ok to ignore functions that don't work correctly and then wonder if they should be fixed. 

One thing that I think would be good is the ability to make a visual filter off a syntatical search. For example: I'm learning Hebrew and a common construction is the Cognate Infinitive Absolute. I can easily make a syntax search to find those results, but it would be nice to be able to make that a Visual filter so I can see those results when reading an English translation. Also, it would be beneficial to be able to see visual filters on the mobile app.

1. Android Text to Speech (Mobile). Discussion | Voice

        I find it very helpful to be able to listen to a book while visually reading it. It is crucial for accessibility. And from what I know of my generation, they love to listen to books.

2. Improve Notes Panel Search (Desktop)
       a. Search actual book highlight quotes

       b. Search query can filter/suggestion/select Notebooks (that way you don't need the notebooks search)

3. Headings in Notes (Like in Sermon Docs)

4. More Notes Improvements

       a. Easy Notebook Creation (Example)

       b. Filter Notes By Labels

       c. Right Click (Open New Tab, Open Expanded, Copy, Paste, Duplicate, Delete)

       d. Check boxes in Notes (https://community.logos.com/forums/t/178862.aspx)

5. Reference Scanner Export (Discussion)

What are the most important things we should solve for Logos 9?

1. Make it easier to do complex searching
2. Make it faster
3. Make it simpler

What new books should we include?

Carta! Carta! Carta! Please make an effort to come to an agreement with Carta so that we can benefit from their amazing maps!

Make it faster for users with enormous libraries (20,000+ resources; I have 25,474 unhidden ones) and lots of collections (I have 221). Everywhere that being such a power library owner slows down the product needs to be sped up or I cannot use the product.

I second everything Rosie said.

Yes! Yes! Yes!

I could say so much more but I'm trying to keep it simple just as I think Logos 9 should do.

My Suggestions - thanks for asking! (8 was a great improvement over 7 and I look forward to even greater improvements in 9).

Notes Tool UI improvement

• Better formatting options.
• Simplify UI 
• See MS OneNote below as an example.
• Unite Sermon Tool, Canvas, Clipping Tool, Notes & Highlights into 1 interface.
• Make Canvas easier to use and perhaps give it a live interface in Proclaim for teaching.
• Clipping Tool should copy bibliographic information to Word and other text tools.

Speed - faster is always better

• Populating dropdown lists.
• Faster startup times.

More robust keyboard shortcuts

• Everything that can be done with a mouse should have a shortcut key.
• Library is a good example the cmd L (mac) or ctrl L opens window or another instance of library.
• I would suggest the same for Default Bible, Notes tool and new note, Layouts, Factbook, Bible Word study, Copy current verse and/or current selection, etc.

Visual Filter

• For Bibles make the Visual Filter button have an on/off function like Multiple Resources and Interlinear buttons.

A couple of related things that immediately come to mind are:

1. Overhaul sentence diagramming
2. BibleArc-like features for phrasing - it should be as easy and responsive as BibleArc is

Thanks,

Donnie

Release an external software which will tag and add all of the necessary embedding into PBB. Even if it's imperfect, it's still reduces the huge amount of work necessary. Let us use PBB in mobile. What might make it irresistible is for smaller price for feature sets, or itemization of feature sets allowing us to buy something we need specifically. Emphasis on the latter, because I imagine feature development is not cheap. 

Top priority: Fix missing caret when editing Notes on secondary monitor.

Finish adding the keyboard shortcuts for editing that were lost in L7 ==> L8:

• Ctrl+L     Align Left
• Ctrl+E    Center
• Ctrl+R    Align Right
• Ctrl+J     Justified

What are the most important things we should solve for Logos 9?

1. Touch/Pen interface - https://logos.uservoice.com/forums/42823-logos-bible-software-8/suggestions/619605-focus-on-tablet-and-touchscreen-features

2. Disappearing cursor on 2nd monitor - since this bug only appeared in the last update, I assume this will be fixed LONG BEFORE L9 comes out. - https://community.logos.com/forums/t/186319.aspx  

What general themes or areas should we focus on?

Polishing the features and functions available in Logos/Verbum 8.

What bugs should we fix?

To ballpark it, half of the milestone references/parallel resource stuff in the Early Church Fathers references don't work properly. The leading offer is the Schaff collection.

What new data sets should we build?

Not quite data sets per se, but please build proper milestones/data types for the following:

1. Acta Apostolicae Sedis. See https://community.logos.com/forums/t/185328.aspx
2. All of the official documents of the Catholic Church that you sell that currently lack them. Cf. https://community.logos.com/forums/t/186910.aspx
3. Migne (PL & PG)

An in-house tool that allows for the easier creation and maintenance of data types would probably be a very good idea.

I'm also certain that some members of the Verbum-focused forum community (including me) would be happy to help with milestone tagging for documents of the Catholic Magisterium if that were to be helpful from FL's perspective in terms of getting that tagging done.

__

In general, I hope that Logos/Verbum 9 will be more polished in all respects than 8. I think that the best thing FL can do is to improve existing functionality, which means building out existing features, fixing bugs in existing features, fixing milestone issues in existing resources, and making the software faster in any and all possible aspects. I don't need my future Verbum 9 installation to be bigger... just better.

Desktop-

1. Speed - I bought a new machine ( fast processor, SSD Drive, loads of RAM) specifically to run Logos faster. It made little discernible difference. Even if I have no resources opening, it still takes 25 seconds or more to even get a screen. I have other behemoths - like the Adobe products to open very fast. I have never understood how the videos on the Logos website are lickety-split fast... Anyway, it is always my number one...

2. indexing - so SLOW... and it eats up the system forever....

3. Notes - well, I was one that beat the drum to get it. But, it is so complicated now, I am lost in its enormity and complexity.

4. Sermon Editor - not very Mobile friendly... really not friendly at all... I seldom use it without giving up.

5. I like Canvas. I think it could be better.

What are the most important things we should solve for Logos 9?

• What general themes or areas should we focus on?
• What bugs should we fix?
• What improvements should we make to existing features?
• What new features should we add?
• What new data sets should we build?
• What new books should we include?

Please specify desktop, mobile, and/or web, where appropriate.

What does your ideal Logos 9 upgrade look like? What would make Logos 9 an irresistible upgrade for you?

If different, what should we do to win the next generation of new users?

Please include links to forum threads, User Voice requests, etc. where applicable.

We've reviewed the User Voice feedback for desktop, mobile, and books, but I want to make sure that the priorities there are reflective of the current priorities of our forum community.

Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback!

First I use the desktop almost all the time. I have checked out the web app and pleased with it, but don't use it because I use the desktop. The only thing I use the Mobile app for is simply to read a book when I am out. No in-depth study happens on Mobile, only the desktop. 

For Logos 8 you came up with the Theology guide and have been working to make it better since. For Logos 9 you should try to figure out church history and there's 2000 years to tap into. Every time you ask my number one complaint is speed. I have learned to expect Logos Bible software to be slow. There was a great improvement with Logos 8, but it's still a very slow program compared to other programs on my system.  There were a lot of resources added to Faithlife since Logos 8 launched. Some of those resources would entice people to upgrade to Logos 9. I have been pleased with Logos 8 Ultimate and most likely will acquire the Logos 9 Ultimate, but my library is getting bigger and soon I will stop building it and only need the new features. Logos 9 already is irresistible to me, but Logos 10 probably not. 

Thanks for asking!

The following is for desktop:

1. Better reading experience. This program is all about reading, so I think there should be more to customize the reading experience. For example, I want to be able to set a font for a specific resource, having different resources use different fonts. I also want to be able to set a custom background for resources - more than just the standard colors. I want to be able to set an image for the background. I'd use images of different kinds of paper. Think about it: Hebrew and Greek resources displayed on old parchment. Bibles and such displayed on photographs of old textured papers. That's one of the things I miss about print books - how each is visually unique. Give us a way to customize that and I think that would really be cool.

2. Better F8 drawing mode. Basically, I want something that is easy to use, and can function like Piper's Look at the Book. I use a Surface pro with a Pen, and I want to be able to just draw. I don't want to drag and drop things like in canvas.

3. Better Sermon Editor. Make it more robust, with features similar to Word.

4. Ways organize our documents (I'm thinking of sermons here) into file folders, grouping things together.

That's all on the top of my head for now. I'll post again if I come up with more.

I'm not sure why people are still complaining about speed. I invested in an i9, 32GB RAM, fast video card and a PCI-e drive with lots of room and it rocks Logos. 

I was wondering about the possibility of making the interface variable in size. I love making the print size very readable, but the interface cannot be made larger that I know of and it's sometimes a challenge to read things that are bit smallish. This might be a bear to do, but some of us older folks would appreciate it.

A search bar within the Personal Book tab would be greatly appreciated. I hate scrolling down to find the book I'm looking for. 

Thank you

In regards to books: please offer Baker Academic titles in the base packages. 

• Search Builder - I haven't been able to invest nearly as much time as I want in learning search and so often struggle with it. It would be great if a search builder not only helped me build complex searches, but also taught me advanced searching as I use it so eventually I need to use it less and less.Its goal should be to eventually put itself out of a job in my workflow.
  
  
• Fit and Finish - An emphasis on fit and finish often makes the difference between a tool being a struggle or efficient and pleasant to use. I don't have a massive library, but the reports of slow performance with one make me a little fearful of building one too large. The new context menu is a great example of good and efficient design. It now has so many more of the things I want easily accessible and yet isn't as cluttered feeling to me. Rethink all the interface in this way such as...
  
  
• Search jumping. When studying a passage I often follow some successive links and inline searches leading to this bizarre jumping back and forth from left pane to right pane to left pane while trying to remember which pane had my original text again so I can hit the back arrows the correct half dozen times to get back to it. Please rethink this process as you did the context menu to make it less convoluted. I would like to have an option for inline search results to open in a new pane so I don't lose my original place. Let me chase all the rabbit trails I want in new tabs on one side then just single click to close that pane of tabs and I'm instantly back to my original text. Now I suspect not everyone may want this, so make it a setting choice.
  
  
• Easy bookmarks. Logos is all about reading, so make it easier to quickly get back to the book and place within it I was reading on all platforms with a simple bookmark setting in the upper right corner of a resource like most other reading programs have. Also add a 'currently reading' and 'to read' bookshelf feature so I can easily find the couple of books I am actively reading and the next ones on my to read list.
  
  
• Implement collapsible panes. Navigation tasks can be handled with side panes that collapse out of the way when not needed and then a single mouse click brings them back. The sidebar is a good example of this. Bookmarks, highlights, and more could really benefit from this. How about a custom navigation pane that can be configured to be collapsed on the left side that works with everything and I can add and remove tools, bookmarks, search tools, or whatever that I like to have always on hand. It would also have my library, current and to read bookshelves built in making it always easy to find my current or next read. Clicking on the Logos icon in the upper left corner would be a great way to get this collapsible pane as it is always there and currently does nothing if you click on it - it's just full of potential waiting to be utilized!
  
  
• Bringing information together. As I continue to add resources to my library, I'm always looking for tools that pulls information from them and presents it to me in an easy way to read. The ancient literature section in the passage guide is one of my favorites and I am much more apt to impulse buy a resource that is utilized by such a tool. The topic guide is another example. Think through other possibilities that bring out my existing data in useful ways.
  
  
• Fill the screen! When I open a book or Bible it just opens in the right pane. It should open full screen and then if I open another panel or do a search, automatically switch to a side pane.

What new books should we include? <~~~ This question can be interpreted as misleading.  To me it doesn’t need clarification, but to others hoping for CARTA resources to be included in Logos 9 it’s definitely a misleading question perhaps promising something that will not happen.

I’m 100% sure you mean new books from the existing catalog that have never been included in a base package before — not new books that aren’t part of the existing catalog and that all of a sudden will magically appear in the new Logos 9 base packages.  If memory serves me correctly, I don’t think that’s ever been done before.  The only thing close to that have been prepub titles that were snuck in a base package and downloaded later when they were completed.  Carta, as of now, hasn’t even been negotiated.

I’m just saying. 👍😁👌

DAL

What does your ideal Logos 9 upgrade look like? What would make Logos 9 an irresistible upgrade for you?

1. Speed.

2. Speed.

3. Speed.

4. Performance.

5. Speed.

No getting around it, Logos FEELS heavy in operation. I just deleted and reinstalled (about 9,000 resources) and it helped significantly. But it still takes a momentary pause to bring up the right-click panel; scrolling is a tad jumpy even with only a Bible panel open, not linked to anything. I have a 2017 MacBook Pro running a 2.9 Ghz processor (with graphics switching turned off), and no other program feels as weighty as Logos, including Photoshop. I'm concerned that adding new features will slow Logos down even more, and that would make me sad. 

Checkboxes in the Library panel for selecting large numbers of items for downloading, deletion, tagging, etc.

Making custom sermon templates in Logos available to Proclaim and vice versa.

What are the most important things we should solve for Logos 9?

Thank you for asking and for considering my thoughts

• What general themes or areas should we focus on?

Ease of use, Speed and completing current tools and features and tagging

• What bugs should we fix?

Continue fixing all known bugs in desktop and mobile quickly, I think a good job of this is being done now for the most part, I'm thankful for the forums pointing these out and your teams responses and follow up. it just seems I see that Logos' new roll outs seem plagued with incomplete features and bugs more than other software programs I use. I realize that is a complicated issue, but it is frustrating to the end user. Having the most features in an application is only as good as the quality and ease of use of those features

One perceived bug in the mobile app is the persistent lag or hang when loading and swiping between multiple tabs containing resources with notes, highlights or visual filters turned on. This happens on line, but is worse offline on iPad 2 Logos version 8 stable and 8.10Beta

• What improvements should we make to existing features?

Logos 8 is already loaded with features and tools, The forums are full of suggestions, if only one could easily search the forums. MJ, Rosie, Dave Hooton, Graham Criddle, Keep Smiling, Mark Barnes and many others are the voices to seek

Before adding more features and tools, Please make current features complete and user friendly. That includes complete tagging, data types and sets. Examples tools- Notes, Canvas, Workflows, Search, Guides, Visual Filters, Bible Browser, etc.

• What new features should we add?

Implement theological and denominational tagging previously requested in previously requested in these forums. I understand that some form of this is being worked on. would like to see it in 9 (desktop)

Ability to select multiple resources in the collection tool and drag and drop them into the "add these resources " or "minus these resources" pane (desktop)

More formatting options in Notes (desktop and mobile) and better continuity in applying them between desktop and mobile

Search builder or more user friendly search capability (desktop)

Ability to scroll within a popup in order to read the text before and after the reference for context purposes(see  the Olive Tree bible app for examples) Currently the popup is suppose to include the entire reference range but even this is not consistent (desktop & mobile)

Ability to see a popup of a reference linked in a note (mobile)

Currently there doesn't seem to be a way to choose or prioritise a lexicon or dictionary for "Lookup" when a word is selected in the mobile app for definitions, occasionally the app chooses a concordance instead of a lexicon or dictionary, not helpful at all

• What new data sets should we build?

Complete what we have, including documentation first please

• What new books should we include?

Not much faith in"wiki" or "suggest a book" for this or suggesting new features the voting process doesn't get much response by users or Faithlife. and they languish there for eternity it seems like community bids

I may be wrong, but It seems to me that more users use the forums than any other tool you have for answering our concerns, questions and suggestions regarding new books, features, typos, bugs, etc. It would seem good and more efficient if separate topic headings were set up and constantly monitored by the various departments at Faithlife in these forums for these and other suggestions and topics, just as there are for Logos 8, Logos Mobile and the like.

What does your ideal Logos 9 upgrade look like? What would make Logos 9 an irresistible upgrade for you?

Possibly the ability to mix and match or remove categories of resources from different traditions or from within a base package

If different, what should we do to win the next generation of new users?

It seems a much more powerful mobile app and touch and pen support are the way to go

I like Logos 8 as it is. But it you could add Dark Mode that would be awesome. Accordance has added that to their latest release. 

what should we do to win the next generation of new users?

Can you imagine integration of worship songs with Bible Study ? (that quickly works well)

Lyrics in a Hillsong Worship song include: "One Name holds weight above them all" that could be integrated with Names of God (listen to Hillsong Worship while learning about Names of God). Album "No Other Name" includes a few Names of God so a Song Guide (or Workflow) includes scripture basis for lyrics.

Wonder about worship music expression of Bible passages ? (possibly with video like "Watch the Word" Bible) Still remember John 14:1-7 words from an Easter cantata a number of decades ago.

What would make Logos 9 an irresistible upgrade for you?

Hebrew/Aramaic read aloud with cantillation chanting (desire to learn/memorize/meditate on many passages). Thread => Hebrew Audio Bible - Another Appeal began on 13 Nov 2015. UserVoice => Audio Hebrew

Keep Smiling [:)]

What are the most important things we should solve for Logos 9?

• What general themes or areas should we focus on?
• What bugs should we fix?
• What improvements should we make to existing features?
• What new features should we add?
• What new data sets should we build?
• What new books should we include?

Please specify desktop, mobile, and/or web, where appropriate.

What does your ideal Logos 9 upgrade look like? What would make Logos 9 an irresistible upgrade for you?

If different, what should we do to win the next generation of new users?

Please include links to forum threads, User Voice requests, etc. where applicable.

We've reviewed the User Voice feedback for desktop, mobile, and books, but I want to make sure that the priorities there are reflective of the current priorities of our forum community.

Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback!

Honestly, i think that a robust focus on mobile, markup, and notes would be key. This would involve integration with Apple Pencil (iPad OS and Sidecar) and styylus on other devices. Notes that would allow freehand notetaking, image importing, etc would be wonderful and should be integrated across all platforms. It would be optimal to have markup respond more seamlessly with pencil in a reading mode. 

Also, try to get better feature parity and polish in the mobile/web platform. 

If you really want to “win then next generation of users”....you’re going to have to make a full featured mobile app.  Until that happens the customer base will continue to age. I see millennials and younger using Logos on computers only because the features they need for seminary aren’t available in the mobile app, and the second they graduate they ditch it.  The younger generation is increasingly doing sermon prep and research on phones and tablets, and are not buying as many computers.  In fact phones and mobile devices have outsold computers every year since 2010....it’s been an entire decade now.  At a bare minimum, all of the tools in the guides menu should be available in the app, workflows, etc.  Tablets and phones so powerful nowadays they are easily able to handle that.

• Fix the GUI for tabs that L8 introduced:

• Control the tab width for long names e.g. from merged Passage Lists
• remove space reserved for the X
• Show all link set and target icons by dropping resource images if necessary
• remove the name from Collections, Library, etc. tabs (with distinctive icons) to facilitate link set/target icons for other tabs
• remove the artifact vertical/horizontal lines from tab menus when Program Scaling < 100
• remove tabbing arrows that overlap the first tab when it is not fully revealed

• Remove the large decorative Logos icon from the main toolbar
• Allow users to vote for bugs to be fixed

Occasionally, Apple has released a macOS that was slim in new features and focused on bug fixes: Snow Leopard (which followed Leopard) and High Sierra (following Sierra). These are often remembered by users as some of the best macOS’s. For me, bug fixes and stability and speed are features! Please don't add big new features that consume a lot of coding and debugging and improving time. Fix and improve what is already there.

As far as the bugs go, I am sure you have a list somewhere that is a mile long. It would be nice to see the list posted on the forums. Perhaps there’s a way that people could even vote on what bugs are most critical to them.

Dave listed a few that are big for me also:

• Fix the GUI for tabs that L8 introduced:
• Control the tab width for long names e.g. from merged Passage Lists
• remove space reserved for the X
• Show all link set and target icons by dropping resource images if necessary
• remove the name from Collections, Library, etc. tabs (with distinctive icons) to facilitate link set/target icons for other tabs
• remove the artifact vertical/horizontal lines from tab menus when Program Scaling < 100 [especially this one for me]
• remove tabbing arrows that overlap the first tab when it is not fully revealed
• Remove the large decorative Logos icon from the main toolbar
• Allow users to vote for bugs to be fixed

New features? A few…mainly just improvements on what is already there. 

1) one that’s getting a lot of attention over at Uservoice is the Dark Mode (https://logos.uservoice.com/forums/42823-logos-bible-software-8/suggestions/3357966-night-mode-for-pc-mac). 

2) Improve highlighting to include linking highlights with lines—as suggested here by J. Remington Bowling: https://community.logos.com/forums/p/186541/1076793.aspx#1076793 

A competitor has just released a new version with this very feature:

3) Continue to work on improving the new Notes Tool. I would love to see the ability to search and highlight those searches within our notes. Also, I would love to have the ability to import images into Notes. Others have made many good suggestions for improving the Notes Tool. I like the direction it's going. 

4) Add built-in PDF import for Personal Books. Some of us don't use Word at all. A lot of articles are PDF to begin with and need to be converted to DocX by the user. I hate to mention the competitor again, but their new version has the ability to import from PDF.

The ability to search for all kings in the book of Daniel. The ability to search for all places in the book of Acts.  The concordance tool already has these results but the ability to search by subkind or Biblical Entity is still not available.  The ability to search for all Women in the Bible, ect. 

Just to address an annoyance:

For desktop versions, refine the "Service Release" concept.

9.0.0.xxxx = Logos 9
9.1.0.xxxx = Logos 9 SR-1   and so on.

In between truely major service releases, introduce atomistic, delta patches. Case in point, very minor fixes or even cosmetic fixes to update version number.

#1. Dark mode. Beyond essential for 2020.

#2. A beautiful dark mode.

#3. Beautiful touch / tablet friendliness for full app:

I was so excited many years back for the new Windows touch app, I can understand why that never panned out, but THE MAIN POINT is the same: the desktop app needs to become less bulky, more touch and tablet / 2in1 friendly, and far less slow. The mobile apps can’t begin to offer what the full desktop app can for serious study, but that doesn’t mean the bigger app shouldn’t become touch and snappy / happy friendly as well. Forget all new features, bring Logos into the current and future (mobile apps are already good here ). Anything else makes me worry about my tens of thousands investment in Logos 😿 Please say tears are not needed, I’m worried Logos is getting too dinosaurish, I have faith that this worry was premature though 😺 Yes?

As a .NET programmer, if it is not, by all means update this WPF app to net core 3.1! 

Thanks guys for what you do, it’s for the Kingdom.

I

I would like to see all of the features available on the iPad.

• Sermon Editor
• Numbered bullets need to work properly.
• All bullets need to indent properly and be more robust
• Ability to markup an inserted verse
• iPad editing (even if it is just simple text editing)
• Fix export to Word. It leaves you with a document with complex formatting
• Phrasing Tool

1) Faster searching

2) Carta resources in Logos 9

3) Hebrew OT audio

It was suggested that I repost my "wish" here.

For 2020, could Logos get their Logos Bible Atlas working again? I cannot get it to work in Windows 10 no matter what I do with compatibility settings. I just want it to work again.  

For those who do not remember this great program:

https://www.amazon.com/Logos-Bible-Atlas-Research-Systems/dp/1577991737

Desktop Version

1. UI Improvements

• Touch/ Pen Support https://logos.uservoice.com/forums/42823-logos-bible-software-8/suggestions/619605-focus-on-tablet-and-touchscreen-features
• Dark Mode https://logos.uservoice.com/forums/42823-logos-bible-software-8/suggestions/3357966-night-mode-for-pc-mac
• Tab improvements
• Constant width tabs rather than variable width
• Better solution to the tiny arrows for scrolling through tabs. (I think a good idea would be a drop-down showing all of the tabs in the pane. This could even be a drop-down library window filtered by the resources in the active pane, with the ability to further filter and change the view).
• Allow multiple instances https://community.logos.com/forums/p/187160/1081591.aspx#1081591
• Multiple table of contents options https://community.logos.com/forums/p/187181/1081658.aspx#1081658
• I like the column view with the ability to sort by columns or drag a column to group by (currently in the search and word lists, for example). I think this could be added to other places as well, such as the Library window. It would be nice to have columns for author, series, etc. and be able to sort and group by these columns.
• Canvas pen support - "zero" latency, palm rejection, erasing by stroke, recognizing the Surface pen eraser, etc. OneNote is an excellent example of how pens should work. Unfortunately, until it reaches a high level I probably won't use it.

• I'm interested in connected highlights. However, I hope you would do a better job than the competitor which offended my OCD tendencies! I would want them to be similar to the highlights now where they are drawn by the computer.
• I'm also interested in resource availability such as Carta and EGGNT

Android

1. Additional Features

• Prayer list support (Who prays primarily in front of their computer?)
• Personal Book support (I often prefer to read/highlight on my phone)
• A better way to select a verse than a drop-down with Verse numbers.
• A way to choose the base text in the text comparison tool (or, as a next-best option, go in order of priority)

1. Fix an inconsistency with linked tabs. The active verse for the active tab seems to be based on the very top of the pane (whether or not is is hidden by the navigation bar). The active verse for the linked tab seems to be right below where the navigation bar would be (whether it is visible or not). This results in strange behavior if you scroll alternately in both tabs. When the linked tab is scrolled, it becomes the active tab, and the active verse goes from the center to the top of the tab and causes the other tab to scroll backwards. The location should be the same, based on the top-most visible verse (the top of the tab if the navigation bar is hidden, or right below the navigation bar if the navigation bar is visible. This would be a much appreciated improvement! 
2. Clicking a link should sync linked tabs (currently I have to scroll slightly in order to trigger them to sync).

off-topic, yet relevant:

Is High Quality Software Worth the Cost?

What are the most important things we should solve for Logos 9?

• What general themes or areas should we focus on?
• What bugs should we fix?
• What improvements should we make to existing features?
• What new features should we add?
• What new data sets should we build?
• What new books should we include?

I thought a bit over this. Probably I'm not your typical customer - I'm not a pastor or formally trained theologian. But I spend lots of money on Logos, and maybe there are other customers like me. I find that I read less and less in paper books, it's Logos app and the Kindle app on my mobile, and - much more frequently - Logos desktop and mainly Kindle cloud reader (Amazon's web app) on desktop. I'm happy with my two-monitor setup and the speed of Logos on my Acer Aspire F15 (not a high-end machine, but running on a SSD makes all the difference). No speed increases necessary for me, and no dark mode either. 

What would I want to see in Logos 9?

- Make the homepage worth wile for me again. It's usable, yes, but not likeable. Just that the tiles look like youtube when opening up before content is shown doesn't make it cool. Seeing screenshots from the L7 homepage ribbon, with all that functionality for lectionaries, daily devotionals (nothing really that big, but seeing the readings displayed or at least coming up on mouse over really made a difference. I bought an app for my phone to get the daily Moravian texts which I used to look at daily through Logos in L7 days. Or bring back the L7 ribbon as a Tool ("lectionary ribbon" or "daily devotional tool") for the standard view. If you were to do so, you could easily save on developer time and ditch the homepage altogether. I know you won't, because it's a shop-window into things we own, things we should explore and things we should buy from you - but then, this only works if people look into the window. I started Logos to the homepage and looked at it nearly daily in L7 times because of the ribbon. The tiles without functionality don't make me want to go there ever.   

- Find a way for community-sourced typo- and link corrections. This could work via shared notebooks or like the community tag - but it would make all the difference. Somehow Community Notes didn't take off, but "sharing" features are here - and users want to use them, want to see the resources in their libraries get better and better and want to feel acknowledged for spending many hours working at what in an ideal world you should be working on, but what realistically is beyond your ability to achieve - but not beyond our combined effort.  

- bring on every book the publishers you're working with are putting out on the market - especially the top books. Get contracts early and put the books up for pre-sale prior to them becoming available in other venues. Gauge your ability to produce Logos versions and let everything that is beyond your capability to build as a Logos edition come in as edition:eBook the same day it's available for Kindle. 

Those are the big three. Of course I'd like native support for liturgical dates (did you know that way more than 90% of protestant pastors in Germany preach from the lectionary - one not tied to any of the lectionaries supported by Logos) and a more functional UI for the PB tool. Workflows that are not restricted to one, but allow for multiple references (linked to a liturgical date, or a theme) would help. But those things we can work our way around.

What would make Logos 9 an irresistible upgrade for you?

If you want to rake in subscriptions, make PBs usable - if possible: shareable - on mobile and web for Connect subscribers. PBs are not so bad as Bob thinks. They allow you to tackle markets in foreign languages or theological traditions you are not able to serve alone. You know you can't produce the number of books the PB community churns out (and you can retain the right to revoke shared and/or mobile PBs that conflict with your own intentions of selling them, maybe even take over former PBs into your own program). 

If different, what should we do to win the next generation of new users?

Think hard about bringing features to the pad-sized mobile devices, either through beefed up apps for Android and whatever iPads run on, or - preferably - the web app. 

What improvements should we make to existing features?

Workflows still need a lot of work before they're truly useful.

I 100% agree that we need to be able to specify a collection in the Commentary section for Workflows (also see Uservoice).  Honestly, I guess I didn't read the fine print when I upgraded to Logos 8 - I assumed that this would obviously be possible and have been super disappointed that this omission hasn't been rectified.  For this feature, I definitely agree with Mark:

I appreciate that to sell upgrades to Logos 9 you need something new, but I don't think that's what Logos needs right now.

I also strongly believe that the Sermon Editor should obviously be able to handle poetic formatting and would significantly benefit from a drag-and-drop interface.

There seems to be some confusion here.  I copy and paste a lot of stuff.  And I like to have the footnotes in what I paste.  When I enable Copy Footnotes, Logos copies every abbreviation found in the text and then gives the explanation in the footer with the footnotes.  Every time the text has LXX, the footer will say LXX Septuagint.  Every abbreviated Bible version (e.g. NASB, NIV) will have that abbreviation plus its full title.  

These are not footnotes.  It is very time-consuming if I want to eliminate these. Logos exists to save users time in their work.  I hope you will fix this.

Logos needs the ability for a user to mark resources in, say, a passage guide.  There will be a lot of times where, in studying a particular passage or subject, we will use the same search tool, like the passage guide.  We will have hundreds of resources to look at.  We need some way to mark them as: read, helpful, not helpful, really good, refer back, etc.   If I'm studying a subject over a period of time, I won't remember which journal articles I looked at, or which commentaries.  I need some way to mark them so I don't repeat things I did before.

Logos 7 had an option where we could star a commentary in the passage guide if it was particularly good.  This option should be back but expanded.  

The simplest way would be to put, say, 5 stars next to each resource.  When you hover over the stars, it gives the meaning: 1 not helpful  2 read

3  good   4  really good

this is something that some serious thought should be put into to determine how many stars and for what.  But certainly at least these 4.

The text to speech feature in Mac is so helpful. However, when I do the Mac text to speech function in Logos it seeming reads what sounds like footnotes, not the text I have selected.

Please enable the Mac text to speech.

Hi Phil, 

Great thread.  One of my primary pet peeves is with the guides.  If you follow a guide through each step by the time you reach the end, you've got a huge number of notes icons in your passage.  I think a good idea would be to simply have one note icon show up for each passage in which a guide is used.  This will still allow people to see the icon and refer back to the full guide but will de-clutter the passage landscape. 

Cheers and Happy New Year!