New search help page on the Wiki (draft - comments welcome)

Following much discussion on another thread about search syntax, I thought it was time Dave had a bit of help with his search page on the Wiki. So I started to revise Dave's page, but it's grown more than I originally envisioned. Rather than make massive changes to his page without consultation, I've temporarily saved it with a different name, to see what you all make of it. I've tried to be comprehensive, and to show by example. It covers basic searches and bible searches (not morph or syntax).

http://wiki.logos.com/Draft_Search_Help

Please give any useful feedback you wish - particulary any omissions, typos or errors. If you're happy with it, let me know where you think it fits within the Wiki structure.

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Comments

Kevin Becker

Mark,

This has significantly improved since I read your first draft earlier today.

One thought, why does this need to replace Dave's original SearchHELP? Sometimes all one needs is a "cheat sheet," a short-hand reminder of all the various tools in the search toolbox. If one wants the full details than this page will be an excellent resources.

It's also got me thinking about the need for a Morph search page if nothing else but to document the fact that the English of a RI must be linked with morphology using WITHIN 0 WORD and not ANDEQUALS. (But that's another thread... perhaps I could start a draft beginning of next week.)

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/130971#Comment_130971

why does this need to replace Dave's original SearchHELP? Sometimes all one needs is a "cheat sheet,"

Yes, that was my thought too. Dave's page is definitely better than mine as a quick reference guide.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/130975#Comment_130975

why does this need to replace Dave's original SearchHELP? Sometimes all one needs is a "cheat sheet,"

Yes, that was my thought too. Dave's page is definitely better than mine as a quick reference guide.

As I said in the earlier thread treat this as Advanced Search with references to/from Search Help!

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/130984#Comment_130984

As I said in the earlier thread treat this as Advanced Search with references to/from Search Help!

I'm not sure "Advanced Search" is quite right, as the intention is for it to be easier to understand, even for beginners.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/130971#Comment_130971

It's also got me thinking about the need for a Morph search page if nothing else but to document the fact that the English of a RI must be linked with morphology using WITHIN 0 WORD and not ANDEQUALS. (But that's another thread... perhaps I could start a draft beginning of next week.)

I think Morph is part of this wiki as it is intrinsic to formatting such searches for Bible and Basic search and uses search operators. It is easily linked from the TOC. Syntax is the only one that need be excluded.

Kevin Becker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/130987#Comment_130987

I think Morph is part of this wiki as it is intrinsic to formatting such searches for Bible and Basic search and uses search operators. It is easily linked from the TOC. Syntax is the only one that need be excluded.

This is fair enough. However, if this is the case then this wiki page will need to be expanded to include information using g: and h: and lemma: in the way only implemented by the Morph search. It would also need disclaimers about Original Language sequence searches being largely worthless with Reverse interlinears etc.

I'm suggesting that a Morph search page would be more consistent with the current structure of the wiki. Some information (such as stemming) is not relevant for a Greek/Hebrew search The parts that are such as the Boolean and Proximity paragraphs could be copied easily enough(but perhaps with Greek and Hebrew examples exchanged for the English). My question is, at what point will a page become cumbersome in length and thus discourage people to really digest the information? I am very unlikely to use the Basic or Bible search on Morphology. I would suggest explaining the syntax (<Lemma = lbs/el/γλῶσσα> and then link the the morph page for more example of what ANDEQUALS does. If someone wants to roll morphology and/or ANDEQUALS into a Basic or Bible search it's easy enough to apply what one might learn in a morph search page.

The strength of the wiki is not just in providing documentation but in giving examples. For this reason I suggest that there should be a separate Morph page.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/131009#Comment_131009

I am very unlikely to use the Basic or Bible search on Morphology. I would suggest explaining the syntax (<Lemma = lbs/el/γλῶσσα> and then link the the morph page for more example of what ANDEQUALS does. If someone wants to roll morphology and/or ANDEQUALS into a Basic or Bible search it's easy enough to apply what one might learn in a morph search page.

Let's see how a separate page works out. But people will use morph queries in Basic & Bible Search and for non-bibles. The g: and h: syntax also applies to those searches.

Graham Criddle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/131026#Comment_131026

Hi Mark

I don't understand the section on "Searching for Bible Verses and other References"

Where and how can you use the operators you describe in the table?

Many thanks

Graham

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/131130#Comment_131130

You would use them in a basic search. They would find every time a resource linked to the reference in question. I'll try and make that clearer.

Brent Gay

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/131131#Comment_131131

Thanks for the page! No biggie, but I found the following typos/inconsistencies while reading through it:

Both under the "Using Boolean Operators" Section

love OR neighbor searches for articles that contain either or of these words.
love ANDNOT neighbor searches for articles that contain ‘love’, but do not contain ‘neighbour’. You can also use a minus sign as a shortcut: love -neighbor. --Inconsistent use of word; not a big deal.

Thanks again to you and everyone else who contributes to the Wiki. Some of the documents on the Wiki I am copying/pasting into a note(s) within Logos so I always have quick access to them.

Brent

Mike Binks

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/131140#Comment_131140

But best to stick to the Scottish and Irish spelling.

Tootle pip

Mike

Mike Binks

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/131141#Comment_131141

Sorry read the heading as

Daft comments....

tootle pip

Mike

Brent Gay

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/131141#Comment_131141

One other thing--some further clarification and details on when particular searches only perform a surface search which could produce unexpected results would be helpful. I've ran into this in the past and it had me scratching my head for a while. This is briefly mentioned in Dave's page, but you may also want to describe it in your page if it's not out of the scope of what you are wanting to accomplish. Some basic examples would be beneficial as well.

Thanks again,

Brent

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/131148#Comment_131148

Thanks Brent. I've made the corrections you suggested. When you talk about examples, what sort of examples do you think are needed?

Brent Gay

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/131331#Comment_131331

Maybe an example that demonstrates that searching for a particular Greek or Hebrew word (either typed directly or using g:/h: translit) will produce different search results than when using the lemma: format. David's page touched on this.

Brent

Dave Hooton

It needs a mention of the NOTEQUALS operator. And maybe relevant to state that NOTEQUALS & ANDEQUALS are Proximity operators when formulating complex queries with Boolean ops.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/131373#Comment_131373

Thanks for those two suggestions. I've improved the page by:

Adding the NOTEQUALS operator, and the two workarounds for ANDEQUALS in morph searching.
Added a section on Searching
in Greek and Hebrew and included a few examples.
Adding ANDEQUALS and NOTEQUALS to the Proximity Searches list.
Adding information about the search history dropdown.
Added information about searching images.
Giving it a new address (http://wiki.logos.com/Detailed_Search_Help) and linking to it from other relevant pages.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/131560#Comment_131560

Adding the NOTEQUALS operator, and the two workarounds for ANDEQUALS in morph searching.
====> Please note: For some reason, ANDEQUALS and NOTEQUALS
do not work in morphological searches if you use the @sign

The lemma:word@morph construct is the implicit ANDEQUALS for Morph Search - it sabotages any attempt to use the operator explicitly. For a manuscript or surface word you must use the ANDEQUALS workaround eg. greek:φωνῆς WITHIN 0 words @NGSF

Brent Gay

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/131560#Comment_131560

Looks great, Mark. Thanks!

Brent

Anon

Thank you Mark - found the page very helpful.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/131583#Comment_131583

Two special proximity operators ANDEQUALS
and NOTEQUALS
are described below. They’re equivalent to WITHIN 0 WORDS
and NOT (WITHIN 0 WORDS), and are especially useful in
interlinears.

NOT is confusing since there is no operator of that name and there is no direct alternative for NOTEQUALS in Morph Search.

Jesus NEAR love – NEAR is a quick way
of typing WITHIN 10 WORDS.

Except that NEAR searches footnotes & WITHIN does not. In a footnote-rich text Basic Search results can be very different.

Bible is for searching just Bibles. A Bible search will
only search the main text of your bible (called the surface text).

A Bible Search is not restricted to surface text** - it is restricted to bible text & basically excludes introduction, footnotes and pericope headings.

** Logos defines it as "Text that is visible using default view
settings; in interlinears, the top line using default view settings".

Morph is for searching Bibles that are morphologically
tagged (so you can search for just verbs, or past participles, etc.).
Like a Bible search, a morph search only searches the surface text.

Similarly misleading wrt surface text. Morph Search also searches non-bibles eg. Lightfoot's Apostolic Fathers in Greek.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/131644#Comment_131644

Thanks Dave, suggestions included!

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/131679#Comment_131679

I've added some screenshots now. I'm conscious I haven't included information on the different views: Ranked/By Book and Grid/Verses/Aligned/Analysis. Anything else I've missed out?

steve clark

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/131730#Comment_131730

Nice page Mark!

thanks

steve clark

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/131745#Comment_131745

Was using the new page. The images are small. Had to zoom quite a bit, the text was huge and the images fuzzy. It would be nice if the images were a little larger. (BTW i am running on a laptop with a 17" wide screen display)

thanks

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/132098#Comment_132098

It would be nice if the images were a little larger.

I've uploaded the files at a large enough size to be read, but didn't want to place them in the document at that size in case they overwhelmed the page. If you click on the image you get taken to a description page (with an even smaller image). If you click again, you'll get the full-size. I don't think the Wiki software allows me to remove that intermediate click, unfortunately. I'll add a note that explains what to do, though.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/132110#Comment_132110

I was wrong. There's an undocumented syntax that enables you to bypass the description page, and have the original image any size you wish. Here's the syntax in case anyone else is interested.

[[ {{$ http://wiki.logos.com/media/simple-search-syntax.png?maxwidth=550 }} >> http://wiki.logos.com/media/simple-search-syntax.png ]]

You can use maxheight as well/instead of maxwidth if you wish.

steve clark

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/132113#Comment_132113

Thank you Sir!

Much better! Where did you find this info? On the EdgeWiki Formatting page?

Thanks for the search page, i have already found it useful and am sure that i will be using it again.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/132188#Comment_132188

Where did you find this info?

The maxwidth/maxheight parameter is not documented, but normally when you insert an image and click on it you get a thumbnail. I just looked at the URL of the thumbnail and found the maxwidth/maxheight parameter. Then it was just a case of trial and error to add the image syntax to the link syntax in the right way.

steve clark

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/132192#Comment_132192

Very resourceful! Thanks for the info. i will try to remember it for later use. Although my mind is very leaky. Thank God that He doesn't have a leaky mind!!

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/132209#Comment_132209

i will try to remember it for later use

The nice thing about the Wiki is that you can edit someone else's page to view the source when you can't remember the syntax!

steve clark

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/132216#Comment_132216

Mark,

it might be helpful if you added a short section on using Passage Lists to limit searching too.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/136441#Comment_136441

Thanks, Steve. I've added a link to the passage lists page under 'Limiting your search'.