Factbook - Is there a way
Is there a way to add books to the Factbook search to where Factbook searches them all automatically?
Inquiring minds ... you know... 
Edit: So I get to thinking.... "I've got a topic guide".... so I go to Topic Guide and search for "Zechariah"... It lists "Naves Topical Bible", "Book of Zechariah".... but none of my dictionaries.... none of my books like "All the Men of the Bible" .... THEN it gives me a bunch of books from the Logos Store that I don't own.... as suggestions... and includes some dictionaries I don't own and such.
If it can search Logos Store for dictionaries.... shouldn't it search the dictionaries I own first?
Believe me.... am I confused or what? lol No comprende!!
Edit #2: I just looked at another Guide... "Outlines" and now I am wondering "IF" Factbook, Topical Guide and the Passage Guides were all built to access only Logos prime books... by that I mean... us people that have WordSearch books .... the WordSearch books are not searched??
Everytime I use a guide, or such.... I am finding that I am very uncertain as to whether they are actually accessing "my books" and giving me the information I am searching for....
Personally... I don't need them to be just advertisements for Logos Store (as the Topical Guide does) ... I need to get information.... I mean that in a humble way! I love Logos... think the Faithlife people do a fantastic job...
xn = Christan man=man -- Acts 11:26 "....and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch".
Barney Fife is my hero! He only uses an abacus with 14 rows!
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I'm so glad this topic got moved to a Logos 9 subforum.
I have a much larger library than I have features to search it. I get almost nothing in factbook, except zeros. I am not complaining, and will use the other search methods that do show results. But I am very pleased to read along in this thread, in case there are some tweaks or tips that will make factbook search my library better.
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I customized a Topic Guide by adding my collections to it. It searches for articles on the topic and is mostly accurate.
First of all, your dictionaries are searched under topic, you just need to click more:
You can remove the store from the guide and add collections. Here is a screen shot of some of mine and then a few that I expanded for examples:
This is the best way to search for topics in your library through the use of collections. I think FL is considering expanding Factbook so it can be similarly customized and would probably replace the Topic Guide at that time. Until then try this method.
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Thanks so much, John!
The Catholic Topical Index does a great job displaying my Catholic/ancient/medieval resources and The Great Books and some other classical sets that must have been tagged years ago when there was some type of classical languages and literature thing going on. But my modern protestant stuff is just not coming up.
I'll try setting something like this up.
I am scrambling to balance my "Fear of the Lord" paper.
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If it can search Logos Store for dictionaries.... shouldn't it search the dictionaries I own first?
Are your store suggestions in English? For my current paper, all that is offered for me to buy is a book in German. LOL.
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I customized a Topic Guide by adding my collections to it. It searches for articles on the topic and is mostly accurate.
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This is the best way to search for topics in your library through the use of collections.
Does this number of collections slow down the software significantly? For those of us running under-powered machines, what is a good limit for number of collections?
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Kathleen, I do not know. I have my entire library tagged, so I use those to create collections rather than long formulas. I think that helps. I have a late 2012 MBP, but it has SSD and everything works great.
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Thank you! I will study the different methods of creating collections and make sure I use the one that is most efficient, even if it takes longer to set up.
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Is there a way to add books to the Factbook search to where Factbook searches them all automatically?
Inquiring minds ... you know...
Edit: So I get to thinking.... "I've got a topic guide".... so I go to Topic Guide and search for "Zechariah"... It lists "Naves Topical Bible", "Book of Zechariah".... but none of my dictionaries.... none of my books like "All the Men of the Bible" .... THEN it gives me a bunch of books from the Logos Store that I don't own.... as suggestions... and includes some dictionaries I don't own and such.
If it can search Logos Store for dictionaries.... shouldn't it search the dictionaries I own first?
Believe me.... am I confused or what? lol No comprende!!
Edit #2: I just looked at another Guide... "Outlines" and now I am wondering "IF" Factbook, Topical Guide and the Passage Guides were all built to access only Logos prime books... by that I mean... us people that have WordSearch books .... the WordSearch books are not searched??
Everytime I use a guide, or such.... I am finding that I am very uncertain as to whether they are actually accessing "my books" and giving me the information I am searching for....
Personally... I don't need them to be just advertisements for Logos Store (as the Topical Guide does) ... I need to get information.... I mean that in a humble way! I love Logos... think the Faithlife people do a fantastic job...
I'm a bit puzzled by this: we have several dozen Factbook pages for people named Zechariah (which happens to be the name with most different biblical people), as well as many other types of pages on All Factbook pages for “Zechariah”. What books you see in Factbook depends on the size of your library and which books have been tagged for Factbook: my library shows me 14 for Zechariah (Prophet).
There are quite a few newer WordSearch books for which we haven't yet added the tagging to enable them to show up in Factbook: that is on our task list, however.
Another potential issue for Zechariah: for this and other ambiguous biblical names, we often have a separate page for the name itself, because some dictionaries put all the content for several individuals into the same article. So (for example) you'll find the Zondervan Encyclopedia of the Bible article that covers 34 Zechariahs linked to Zechariah (Name).
All that being said, we're considering strategies to help bring back more of the content in your library for specific topics (while also bringing back the right content: as the case of Zechariah makes clear, a simple string search often won't find that).
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Sean,
Factbook cannot replicate the articles found using the Topic Guide with collections. While Zechariah may not be the best example, most topics have content in monographs that, unless you allow Factbook customization, will not populate.
Just opining so the point is not missed. Please do not replace Topic Guide with Factbook until it can be customized in a similar manner.
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I'm a bit puzzled by this: we have several dozen Factbook pages for people named Zechariah (which happens to be the name with most different biblical people), as well as many other types of pages on All Factbook pages for “Zechariah”. What books you see in Factbook depends on the size of your library and which books have been tagged for Factbook: my library shows me 14 for Zechariah (Prophet).
There are quite a few newer WordSearch books for which we haven't yet added the tagging to enable them to show up in Factbook: that is on our task list, however.
Another potential issue for Zechariah: for this and other ambiguous biblical names, we often have a separate page for the name itself, because some dictionaries put all the content for several individuals into the same article. So (for example) you'll find the Zondervan Encyclopedia of the Bible article that covers 34 Zechariahs linked to Zechariah (Name).
All that being said, we're considering strategies to help bring back more of the content in your library for specific topics (while also bringing back the right content: as the case of Zechariah makes clear, a simple string search often won't find that).
My suggestion would be.... We don't need more guides or such, we have plenty of guides and Factbook and Topic Guides .... but to enhance the guides we already have, particularly to include the WordSearch books (which I think most of them, if not all of them are excluded now).... and to have a way of distinguishing what we are searching for. For example Zechariah (Name) or Zechariah (Prohet) or Zechariah (Writer). In my searching... I find many names that fall into this category of confusion.
I have wondered that, for us converted WordSearch people anyway, that we must know the name of the WordSearch resource we have to look for to find information about something we are looking for simply because most of the guides, including Factbook and Topical Guide do not search them.
I do often load up WordSearch 12.... do my searches.... which is not the best... but it works.
Having said that.... I really do appreciate your answer and the possibility of all that being corrected!!!
xn = Christan man=man -- Acts 11:26 "....and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch".
Barney Fife is my hero! He only uses an abacus with 14 rows!
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We don't need more guides or such, we have plenty of guides and Factbook and Topic Guides .
That depends upon the tasks you are doing -- for myself, I have guides I will never use ... and I have some where additional guide sections (and one guide) are needed.
and to have a way of distinguishing what we are searching for. For example Zechariah (Name) or Zechariah (Prohet) or Zechariah (Writer)
I have been doing this for some time. The problem occurs for myself only when dealing with minor characters for whom the qualifier is not obvious
we must know the name of the WordSearch resource we have to look for to find information about something we are looking for simply because most of the guides, including Factbook and Topical Guide do not search them.
We all suffer from the fact that when Logos pushes out features that require new tagging, the old resources do not instantly get updated. That is why the user ability to tag as in the label for sermons and community tags are so critical for Logos to get right. Logos prioritizes updating the old resources in a reasonable manner, one that should favor WordSearch while I remain in a unfavored category. Patience is the name of the game. It takes time to move resources from one platform to another and more time to add the new platform's features into the resources from the old platform. In a few years, most resources will not be distinquishable as "formerly WordSearch" vs "native Logos".
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."
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I'm in 100% agreement that Factbook should show you all the defining content (headword + definition/discussion) in your library from your dictionaries, encyclopedias, glossaries, and monographs and other resources with embedded glossaries. It's been an ongoing task to provide complete coverage, but we're not making progress as fast as I had hoped. I've been discussing with the team how we could speed it up and have some ideas.
In the meantime, the best way to find defining content is to use a headword search (e.g., {Headword Supersessionism}). Some headword searches return false positives. We're fixing the bug causing that. In the meantime, if you intersect the headword with the heading field, you'll get the right results (e.g., {Headword Supersessionism} INTERSECTS heading:supersessionism).
There's a feedback item for this here: https://feedback.faithlife.com/boards/logos-desktop-app/posts/add-all-dictionaries-encyclopedia-and-glossaries-to-factbook.
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Does this number of collections slow down the software significantly? For those of us running under-powered machines, what is a good limit for number of collections?
It is often stated that a large number of collections slows down Logos. I subsequently deleted many collections, but the speed did not improve. Only since FL started to focus more on the speed issues in Logos, things have improved.
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It is often stated that a large number of collections slows down Logos.
This has been stated by FL developers, and can be seen when looking into logs - but it only refers to the startup of Logos. The reason is that all collections in the installation are built/evaluated at program start.
I subsequently deleted many collections, but the speed did not improve.
If you refer to program speed during use, this is not to be expected. If you refer to startup, it depends on the complexity of the collections (and complex rules for the program may sometimes look easy to the user, if e.g. wildcards are used).Only since FL started to focus more on the speed issues in Logos, things have improved.
Glad to hear.
Have joy in the Lord!
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Does this number of collections slow down the software significantly? For those of us running under-powered machines, what is a good limit for number of collections?
It only slows down the startup process. And it's not the number per se, but how they are built (long, complex rules, possibly containing wildcards etc). I personally have many dozens of rather complex collections (like commentary collections for all bible books, commentary collections for their type/group, theological collections with long author lists etc) and it doesn't matter to me.
Have joy in the Lord!
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Thanks everyone!
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It would be really nice to have on a resource's product page any guides or tools (including Factbook) the resource will show up in due to being tagged..
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I'm in 100% agreement that Factbook should show you all the defining content (headword + definition/discussion) in your library from your dictionaries, encyclopedias, glossaries, and monographs and other resources with embedded glossaries. It's been an ongoing task to provide complete coverage, but we're not making progress as fast as I had hoped.
Please continue to make this a real priority. As our libraries grow it is so helpful to have simple ways to bring out content in an easy to use way. I know I would be much more apt to purchase resources when I know their content will be brought out in tools such as Factbook.
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