Does Anyone at Faithlife Use 'Advanced' Timelines? (another bit of sarcasm)

Actually, I'm a quite positive person ... except with poorly designed software.

And I really have to wonder about staff at Faithlife. Normally in a company, word sort of gets around, 'what were they thinking??'. That was certainly the 'killer' question at our company.

Today's wondering began with the Logos resource 'Like a Bird in a Cage', which looks at Sennacherib II (quite good):

Like a Bird in a Cage: The Invasion of Sennacherib in 701 BCE

And by the way, upcoming (in March, but the ship keeps moving like Ahab's army):

Ahab’s House of Horrors: A Historiographic Study of the Military Campaigns of the House of Omri (Logos Edition)

But anyway, I wanted a quick look to see where Sennacherib II 'sat'. I quickly pulled up my Accordance Timeline, did a search on Sennacherib, looked around at everyone else, and finished up. Perfect.

Then I thought, I'll try out Logos (I paid for the 'Advanced' version somehow). After 20 minutes I gave up. I'm sorry, but it sure looks like a quick events database-dump tool (versus a Bible study tool).

Then I knew the pre-Advanced-Timelines (way back when) are usually better. Nope. Had some kings and that was it.

I did figure out, saving Timelines views (however unusable) is done using Favorites.

OK, call me the sarcasm lady.

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Comments

Dave Hooton

Then I thought, I'll try out Logos (I paid for the 'Advanced' version somehow). After 20 minutes I gave up. I'm sorry, but it sure looks like a quick events database-dump tool (versus a Bible study tool).

I'm not a Timeline user, but I filtered for Sennacherib and got results

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1244403#Comment_1244403

I think you might have misunderstood.

Accordance does the same ... and then quickly (key feature) shows surrounding events (organized, another key feature) for orientation.

You're back to your reading, using Accordance. With Logos you're trying to get the controls to display usable results (beyond a simple lookup of Sennacherib-y data).

Added:

Back to my (Logos) reading, I saw the word 'Sennacherib' and thought .... well, that'd be an advantage for Logos. Right-click and hit Timeline. Nope.

Simon’s Brother

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1244405#Comment_1244405

Accordance timeline is definitely better thought out.

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1244405#Comment_1244405

No need for another thread, but reading up on Sennacherib (above resource), another player came in view, with timing in question. This time I knew to go to the 'other' Bible software.

"A new reading of the Tiglath-Pileser III Summary Inscription 9: Rev. 11" . . . which Logos identifies as the instructions for building the new eternal temple. Tiglath early on, knew his temples.

Robert Kelbe

I agree that Timelines in Logos has never been very usable for me as well. However, call me an optimist but I still see a strategic advantage to the Logos Timeline philosophy that could enable it to be better than the competitor in the future.

The competitor's timeline is a glorified graphic, much like a Timeline that you would buy a poster of to put on the wall. Sure, you can zoom in and out, limit by regions and types of data, etc. But all of the data is hand-chosen.

Logos, on the other hand, seems to pull dates from resources. This gives it the potential to be much more powerful. However, in order for them to take advantage of that power, they need to do a few things:

First, make a Timeline ontology so there is one label for a given event (perhaps this is already done).
Then, tag resources consistently for timeline events (this has been done very sparingly compared to the number of good reference and history resources available in Logos).
Allow each resource to contribute its own date or date range for the event in question. These varied dates could be displayed superimposed on the timeline.
Next, allow the user to filter timeline events by resource or collection of resources (and perhaps other attributes of the resource such as denomination or whether it is conservative or liberal).

Now, instead of Logos having to choose a late date or an early date or choose for some reason that we don't have access to the reasoning behind it, we could see at a glance what the resources we trust have to say. We would also be able to quick click to the resource in question where we can read about it further.

In addition, I think it would be useful not to have everything be its own line, but, like the competitor's Timeline, mimic timelines that you might put on your wall by having dominant empires or periods of history be the background of the events that take place during those periods of history.

Like many, I would love to see Timeline and Atlas become more usable!

Robert Kelbe

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1244734#Comment_1244734

Also, I was surprised to find no results when I searched for "Methuselah", as an example. Don't most timelines have some attempt at a chronology beginning with Adam?

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1244734#Comment_1244734

Robert, agree with your points. And indeed Accordance has a glorified graphic ... but quickly usable. And Bible class needs 'usable', not 'what?'.

You mentioned tagging ... also agree. But Logos 'could' also allow right-clicking any text for passing to the Timeline tool. Currently (I guess) tagging is needed, or they just forgot. Currently, untagged text supports automatic dictionary passing, but not Atlas, or Timeline.

Beloved Amodeo

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1244734#Comment_1244734

I agree that Timelines in Logos has never been very usable for me as well. However, call me an optimist but I still see a strategic advantage to the Logos Timeline philosophy that could enable it to be better than the competitor in the future.

The competitor's timeline is a glorified graphic, much like a Timeline that you would buy a poster of to put on the wall. Sure, you can zoom in and out, limit by regions and types of data, etc. But all of the data is hand-chosen.

Logos, on the other hand, seems to pull dates from resources. This gives it the potential to be much more powerful. However, in order for them to take advantage of that power, they need to do a few things:

First, make a Timeline ontology so there is one label for a given event (perhaps this is already done).

Then, tag resources consistently for timeline events (this has been done very sparingly compared to the number of good reference and history resources available in Logos).

Allow each resource to contribute its own date or date range for the event in question. These varied dates could be displayed superimposed on the timeline.

Next, allow the user to filter timeline events by resource or collection of resources (and perhaps other attributes of the resource such as denomination or whether it is conservative or liberal).

Now, instead of Logos having to choose a late date or an early date or choose for some reason that we don't have access to the reasoning behind it, we could see at a glance what the resources we trust have to say. We would also be able to quick click to the resource in question where we can read about it further.

In addition, I think it would be useful not to have everything be its own line, but, like the competitor's Timeline, mimic timelines that you might put on your wall by having dominant empires or periods of history be the background of the events that take place during those periods of history.

Like many, I would love to see Timeline and Atlas become more usable!

Robert, your observations are keen. Would you be able to be convinced to author a FeedBear on your ideas along with an original post? I think it would generate a good deal of interest.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1244734#Comment_1244734

First, make a Timeline ontology so there is one label for a given event (perhaps this is already done).

I've not run into inconsistencies here but then history is not a primary interest of mine so I use the timeline sparingly. Do you have some examples?

Then, tag resources consistently for timeline events (this has been done very sparingly compared to the number of good reference and history resources available in Logos).

At one time, FL was adding time tags into every resource - the open flags were not connected to the Timeline, the dark flags were. I assumed that cost factors limited the linking. Perhaps, we could put our heads together for some sort of crowd sourcing to achieve the linking.

Allow each resource to contribute its own date or date range for the event in question. These varied dates could be displayed superimposed on the timeline.

This is somewhat the case now as the timeline entry has a list of the resources supporting that date. I know what you are proposing is slightly different, but I'd have to spend some time thinking over what it gains vs. what it might add to the clutter.

Next, allow the user to filter timeline events by resource or collection of resources (and perhaps other attributes of the resource such as denomination or whether it is conservative or liberal).

I personally "hate" this suggestion because it implies history is fluid -- denominations, conservatives, and liberals should all work from a common source of "factual" history. That being said, I think this is a solid idea that should be added to the feedback site as a suggestion.

In addition, I think it would be useful not to have everything be its own line, but, like the competitor's Timeline, mimic timelines that you might put on your wall by having dominant empires or periods of history be the background of the events that take place during those periods of history.

I know what you are getting at but I'd want a more nuanced approach as many of the timelines that interest me work best in a semi-one line per event format as we currently have. My own inclination would be to allow the selection/deselection of event on an individual basis as a way to declutter.

But what I think is the most important thing is that as long as the Timeline is not meeting our needs, we keep throwing out suggestions for improvement.