DESIGN BUG: or has Logos ever considered the purpose of a style sheet

MJ. Smith · 2023-07-29T23:55:57+00:00

Two excerpts from a current project: [quote] * Sweeney, James P. “John, Third Letter of.” In The Lexham Bible Dictionary, edited by John D. Barry, David Bomar, Derek R. Brown, Rachel Klippenstein, Douglas Mangum, Carrie Sinclair Wolcott, Lazarus Wentz, Elliot Ritzema, and Wendy Widder. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016. *…

MJ. Smith

Two excerpts from a current project:

[quote]

Sweeney, James P. “John, Third Letter of.” In The Lexham Bible Dictionary, edited by John D. Barry, David Bomar, Derek R. Brown, Rachel Klippenstein, Douglas Mangum, Carrie Sinclair Wolcott, Lazarus Wentz, Elliot Ritzema, and Wendy Widder. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016.
Faithlife, LLC. “Third Epistle of John.” Verbum, Computer software. Verbum Factbook. Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, LLC, July 30, 2023.

[quote]

Johnson, John C. “Maccabees, Third Book of the.” In The Lexham Bible Dictionary, edited by John D. Barry, David Bomar, Derek R. Brown, Rachel Klippenstein, Douglas Mangum, Carrie Sinclair Wolcott, Lazarus Wentz, Elliot Ritzema, and Wendy Widder. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016.
Faithlife, LLC. “Book of Third Maccabees.” Verbum, Computer software. Verbum Factbook. Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, LLC, July 30, 2023..

Notice that the headword one must type in for the LBD is different from the headword one must enter for the Factbook. And whether or not Factbook has the alternative format is iffy to say the least. There isn't even consistency between letter and epistle. And it gets worse if one is using other Logos resource/tools e.g. Brannan, Rick. Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: A Guide. Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2022. And the less used a book is, the greater the likelihood of alternative names that actually match decreases. And note the common 3 John and 3 Maccabees usually fails for both resources. This lack of consistency means that the user (me) can't get a pattern established in my mind as to "what works." Rather to get these two simple references usually takes me 5 to 6 tries -- which is a ridiculous, undisciplined, ill-considered UI and a waste of my time.

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Comments

Andrew Batishko

Can you explain a little better what you are trying to do? Are you trying to get either from the book to Factbook or the reverse? If so, there are different ways to do that then trying to guess the headword.

The headwords in books are typically based on the article title in the surface text of the book, and as such, it is expected (across many books) that there will be little consistency between the book's headword and the Factbook page title.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1266379#Comment_1266379

it is expected (across many books) that there will be little consistency between the book's headword and the Factbook page title.

Yes, for books that are not written by Logos to support Logos functions and usually included in the features packages. But for Logos books written to support Logod functions, i.e. within the "tool support" functions, I should be able to know what to enter and the lack of consistency within a given resource makes it look as if Logos does shoddy work. What I am doing should be irrelevant to navigating these particular resources as my complaint applies to all usage but what I am doing is building a tool for named passages with some minimal art, literature, and music references as what Factbook has done is not suitable for my needs. A sample heading part includes links to Logos resources as shown below:

a sampling of the detail

Andrew Batishko

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1266419#Comment_1266419

Yes, for books that are not written by Logos to support Logos functions and usually included in the features packages. But for Logos books written to support Logod functions, i.e. within the "tool support" functions, I should be able to know what to enter and the lack of consistency within a given resource makes it look as if Logos does shoddy work.

Unfortunately, the books were put together with different design goals, and there are no plans to go back and change article titles or headwords in these books.

What I am doing should be irrelevant to navigating these particular resources as my complaint applies to all usage but what I am doing is building a tool for named passages with some minimal art, literature, and music references as what Factbook has done is not suitable for my needs. A sample heading part includes links to Logos resources as shown below:

It's not irrelevant if we can find another way for you to accomplish the same thing with less pain.

It looks like you just need the headword to construct the link in the personal book? If that's the case, why guess at this? Navigate to the entry in the resource, then copy the location as a url. This should give you the desired headword, although you may need to unencode spaces and other special characters in the url (most of that should be pretty obvious).

https://ref.ly/logosres/lbd?hw=John%2c+Third+Letter+of => "John, Third Letter of"

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1266430#Comment_1266430

Navigate to the entry in the resource

That is exactly where the problem is ... I may be anywhere in Logos and I can't navigate to the entry in the resource because I don't know what entry in the navigation box will work - there is no consistency, no predictability in what equivalents are recognized. It is precisely the NAVIGATION that I am complaining about. I don't need to know the headword for the entry ... I need to know (predictably) to get there.

Unfortunately, the books were put together with different design goals, and there are no plans to go back and change article titles or headwords in these books.

That is precisely my major complaint with Logos ... doing the convenient rather than thinking through the user experience. Standardizing names across applications or building equivalency tables across them has been an industry standard for half a century, a basis for data analysis and data design, for building ontologies etc. Logos doesn't seem to recognize the part this plays in users rejecting Factbook or how user interface inconsistencies make the system seem complex (I think it was NB Mick who started a long thread on interface inconsistencies.) I am seeing positive changes, but not a recognition of the root cause of Logos' own making - expediency over discipline. It will take a decade or more to recover from company myopia.