Hello everybody,
A little background: Since November of last year, I have spent ~$4000 at Logos.com. I essentially gave up actually using the product 6+ months ago because I found that whenever I attempted to use it, I would spend more time filing bug reports (most of which were never answered by Logos), dealing with inconsistencies in the interface, and attempting to use the in-application help to guide me (more often than not a fruitless endeavor) than actually getting beneficial Bible study. Because, and only because I read post after post from the Logos faithful who stated that they had long experience with Logos and that Logos would come through on Logos 4, I, out of wanting to help a nominally Christian organization out, decided to wait and see what happened. For my general Bible studies, I ended up using another, much cheaper, much more dependable PC bible study program.
Today, I downloaded and installed with much anticipation the 4.1-SR3 release. I was extremely hopeful to find a new and rejuvenated Logos 4, where the many, many performance problems, interface lags, etc. would be a thing of the distant past. Alas, today, I have been using it for several hours and once again, I find that I have spent far more time filing bug reports, typos, etc. than getting any real study done. I will summarize briefly what I've been writing up most of the afternoon:
Bug #1:
In the following screenshot, the text Isa 9:6 using "Read Aloud" is read aloud properly. The text Isa. 28:16 is incorrectly read aloud as “28 minutes and 16 seconds.”
Bug #2
I wanted to add a note to some text in a reference. My window layout started out as follows:
So, I right-clicked on the text of interest and selected ‘Add a note to...’ After which, my window layout was this:
When I closed the notes panel, my window layout had been switched to this:
As can be seen, once the Notes panel closed, the Owen window filled up the space I had between it and the Power Lookup window. Not what I wanted and not what should have happened.
Bug #3:
Typing up a note is abyssmal! To type "This means that our deliverance by God from our apostasy is a virtual and meritorious deliverance." into Notepad.exe took 18 seconds. To type the same into a Logos 4 Note (mind you I don't mean creating the note, opening the panel, etc., I mean *only* the time it took to type those words into the 'Content' field) was 1 minute and 20 seconds. Why? Because after every few letters were typed, Logos 4 would hang, I'd see a spinning blue circle, and then after a few seconds, the program would be responsive, only to have the cycle repeat every few letters.
Bug #4 (this is the one that broke the camel's back):
I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what John Owen was saying when he (according to the $400 Logos 4 edition of the Works of John Owen) stated the following:
"for "Israel shall be this impregnable rock, this precious foundation. In the defence of these truths did they conflict, in prayers, studies, travels, and writings, against the swarms of seducers by whom they were opposed."
In the context in which those words occurred, it really was quite impenatrable what it meant, and there was what appeared to be an orphaned quotation mark, but unfortunately, I've become accustomed to the works that Logos puts forth not having been properly vetted. Yes, I know that's a herculean task, but apparently that's the reason we often pay so much more for the Logos edition than we would from another Bible software publisher and more than we pay for the print book! In any case, I'm used to Owen being somewhat discursive in his presentation of his arguments, so I kept coming back to it, doing my best to figure out what he was saying within the context in which he was saying it. Meanwhile, I kept running into abbreviation after abbreviation which was not handled by Logos 4, again, it seems with how expensive the resources are, a much better job would be done on handling these abbreviations. Don't get me started on the state of the BDAG! After I had compiled a list of over 10 items which were not abbreviated, I decided to check my mainstay PC bible study program which has the works of Owen included to see how it had handled the text. Lo and behold, I found the following things:
1. The Scriptural references are written out in a very nice and formatted style, instead of simply being junked together with the non-Scriptural text as Logos 4 does.
2. The phrase I was having trouble with doesn't exist in the other Bible study program's version of Owen's work. More research revealed that Logos had simply omitted and spliced together the remaining text that spanned almost seven paragraphs or 1,026 words!
Needless to say, this leaves me extremely distrustful of the materials that Logos charges so much for. As another example of what I can only qualify as price-gouging based upon the paucity of rigor employed in vetting the works offered, the complete works of Jonathan Edwards is yours for the bargain price of $120. Yes, the printed edition can be had brand new for $50, but with Logos 4, you will get the added surprise of chance bowdlerization which will leave you puzzling over sentences never penned by Edwards himself until you validate what Logos sold you in another Bible study program!
Bug #5:
When hovering over the footnote 66 in the search pane I see one representation (which makes no sense for what I had searched on):
But when I actually open the resource and hover, I see another representation (which does fit what I was searching for):
Maybe Not Bugs:
These are not deal-breakers for me. The following are what I consider to be UI design issues. I know Logos 4 is for both Mac and PC, but on a PC it should follow PC semantics and on a Mac it should follow Mac semantics.
User Interface Anomaly #1:
It is very unintuitive when clicking on File->Notes, to not be able to either from within the Notes panel itself, or some sub-menu to File->Notes to not be able to see the various notes files that have already been created. (I know that to the right there is a hodge-podge of all sorts of different file types, but since various incongruous types are supported, there should be an organizational element to them.)
User Interface Anomaly #2:
If I select some text in a work, and right-click on it, there should be an option to start a new ‘Notes’ file. Instead, I only see (apparently) the most recently accessed Notes file. In the former case, I have to dismiss the right-click pop-up, then go up to File->Notes, type the name for the new note file, go back to the original work that I wanted to add the note to, right-click again, then select the newly created Notes file.
User Interface Anomaly #3:
In the Notes panel, when entering ‘Content’, clicking outside of the content box should commit what you’ve written, instead, it behaves as though it’s still waiting for more text. At the very least there should be a button or some such that implies “I’m done editing the content.”
I have never experienced software so poorly designed and implemented (even freeware or shareware programs) as Logos 4. From the moment it came out the gates, to the present day, the program is riddled with bugs, and instead of fixing them, they keep glopping on new features and introducing more. I'm sure many of you are quite happy with it. I feel that $4000 should reflect quality, not a quantity of bugs and poor customer service. It has been almost 1 full year since Logos 4 was released, and if this was a volunteer effort, I would have nothing to complain about. I should be able to rely upon the integrity of the works that cost so much. I should be able to rely on the program operating correctly and reliably. With Logos 4, I can't do either.
Thanks for reading ,
Matt
