Shouting to the Wall

I don't know about others, but when I make a suggestion to companies, 99% of the time, I don't get a response. Support is GREAT for Logos. The people I know at Logos are wonderful and caring. But when I make a suggestion, all I hear, on the most part, is silence.

I have been a Logos user for over 5 years now, and I am hooked! The only thing that keeps me from buying more resources is the... well... lack of resources! Logos is the tool that any serious Bible student, teacher, pastor, and scholar shouldn't be without. Yet one of the greatest hang ups of the entire suite is one of Logos' greatest weaknesses.

The greatest problem I face is that of RESOURCE NAVIGATION.

At the moment, I have between 2500-3000 resources. Once Logos reinstates PBB Resources in Logos 4, I will have a ton more! But everything falls back on Resource Navigation.

Let me pose the question, and please, if you are reading this - kindly answer....

Do you not own books in your Logos Collection that you not only did not use, but also books you never knew you had?

I sure do! And I wish Logos would provide a more robust way of analyzing my library.

Now that I am crying ... it would be irresponsible for me to NOT give some ideas on how to solve this...

1.) Make the Library Screen Bigger. You know the drop down box when you click on the Library Button? This is great! Much better than what I recall Logos 3 had. But to be honest, this is good if you know what you want, but it is a miserable tool when you are trying to wander through your library to see what you already own. Give us something BIGGER, very much like the Home Page you have put together for us. This would allow us to look at the Library as a whole, rather than a small sampling of our list.

2.) Make the Library Screen MORE PERMANENT. At the moment, the Library Screen is nothing more than a drop down box. Instead, allow us to have it open much like our Home Page. This will allow us to wander our virtual bookshelves and see what we have. Currently I can see only 16 resources on my Library Screen/ drop down box. If I grab the lower-right corner and drag, I can see more, but at the moment I take my focus OFF the screen, it disappears. Can we make this more permanent?

3.) Allow us to integrate Collections into our Library Screen. This is where I get a bit foggy on my idea, because I am not quite sure how to have this set up. I envisions tags being able to be placed on each book. These tags automatically convert the related books into a Collection. If I tag 20 books with the word "Calvinism" then this becomes a Collection and is quickly seen in my Library Screen. If a book has more than one tag, it is included in multiple Collections. Then the Collections are easily seen, much like virtual bookshelves in my Library Screen. I know we have Collections already, but it seems to me that my Library is separate from my Collections. This shouldn't be.

I don't know.... does anyone have some suggestions?

4.) Provide the ability to see Book Titles, Abstracts of these books, and their tags in our Library Screen that we do not own yet. This would allow us to see what is available in Logos that we have not purchased, and yet might need for our studies. Right now, I am doing studies on the Will of God. I am trying to search my resources to see what I have, but to also see what is not in my Library, but is available for this topic would be a valuable too.

All of these are suggestions on improving the Library Screen for Logos. Yet, for all I know, they won't get read except by a handful of fellow users who also patronize this Topic/ Thread. Logos, please, help us with this problem.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Graham Criddle

Hi John

In terms of the library screen being bigger or permanent have you tried opening it in a floating window?

Ctrl-L does this and you can then resize / position the window as you want.

Have you looked at the Bibliography report (http://community.logos.com/forums/t/23223.aspx) produced by Mark Barnes to help you visualise your library in a different way? It's "popularity report" might give you some of what you are looking for in terms of finding out about books you don't have.

Graham

Rosie Perera

Oh dear, John! I cannot imagine how much you've been suffering without knowing about the full screen Library view. I'm afraid that's probably Logos's fault for not making it more obvious. But sometimes when people have a big critique or suggestion about Logos, all it takes is a question and you'll find out about something really useful that you didn't know about before. [:)]

So... Instead of clicking the Library button (which only gives you a quick & dirty temporary view of the Library), you can either open the library in a new tab (where it will stay up permanently -- until you close it intentionally) or you can open it in a floating window which you can then maximize to have it fill the whole screen -- wonderful big library window!

To open it in a tab, either (1) RIGHT click on the library button and select "Open in a new tab" or (2) DRAG the library button to wherever you want to open the tab.

To open it in a floating window, either (1) RIGHT click on the library button and select "Open in a floating window" or (2) press Ctrl+L. Then to maximize the Library window, click the maximize button in the upper right of it:

And now you'll have the full screen real estate for your (permanent) Library window. You can Alt+Tab back and forth between this and the rest of your Logos layout. I keep my Library open in a maximized floating window all the time!

That solves your first two suggestions.

3.) Allow us to integrate Collections into our Library Screen. This is where I get a bit foggy on my idea, because I am not quite sure how to have this set up. I envisions tags being able to be placed on each book. These tags automatically convert the related books into a Collection. If I tag 20 books with the word "Calvinism" then this becomes a Collection and is quickly seen in my Library Screen. If a book has more than one tag, it is included in multiple Collections. Then the Collections are easily seen, much like virtual bookshelves in my Library Screen. I know we have Collections already, but it seems to me that my Library is separate from my Collections. This shouldn't be.

I don't know.... does anyone have some suggestions?

I'm assuming from the content of this suggestion that you don't know about the tagging feature in Logos. You can already place tags on each book. These tags can "automatically convert the related books into a Collection" by using the collection rule mytag:Calvinism for example, if you'd tagged a bunch of books with this tag. You can see all the books tagged Calvinism (which is identical to your Calvinism collection) by clicking on the header of the My Tags column to group the Library by that field (if you don't see the My Tags column, right click on any column header and turn on the My Tags checkmark). Or you can filter your library just like you created the collection, by typing mytag:Calvinism. To learn more about tagging books in your Library, see Tagging.

4.) Provide the ability to see Book Titles, Abstracts of these books, and their tags in our Library Screen that we do not own yet. This would allow us to see what is available in Logos that we have not purchased, and yet might need for our studies. Right now, I am doing studies on the Will of God. I am trying to search my resources to see what I have, but to also see what is not in my Library, but is available for this topic would be a valuable too.

Since tags are user defined, they are not assigned to book titles you don't own yet, so you wouldn't be able to search (even on the Logos website, at least as it currently stands) for books with a given tag that you don't own yet.

I'm not sure if you've heard, but Logos has been at work for several months now on redesigning their website, logos.com, to make it more usable. This will include much better access to all the titles in their catalogue so you can more easily find books you don't have but might need for your studies. Currently the old website has not knowledge of whether you own a book or not, but the new one will. So you'll be able to easily search for books you don't have that mention Calvinism anywhere in their title or description, for example.

Also on the plans for a future feature enhancement to Logos is the ability for users to create tags that they share over the Internet with the Logos user community. There is already a column (called Tags) in the Logos library which for the moment just replicates what you've assigned (in the My Tags field), but it will be used in the future for this shared tags feature. I'm guessing that it might be possible for Logos to integrate the shared tags into the Logos website so you could search for all titles you don't own yet that any users have tagged with the word Calvinism.

I hope that addresses all of your concerns.

Yes, it's disappointing that Logos never responds to suggestions in the Suggestions forum, but they have said elsewhere that they do read them. However they've chosen not to reply to each one since there are so many, and they can't promise anything. They've also started using the UserVoice forum as a preferred method for users making suggestions, so that others can vote on them and Logos can gauge user interest and make wiser decisions about whether to expend the development effort for a new feature. However it's still best to post your ideas, suggestions, disappointments here on the main forums first, because who knows, you might get a reply explaining that the feature you requested already exists and you just hadn't discovered it yet! [:)]

Blessings!

Floyd Johnson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/185256#Comment_185256

Oh dear, John! I cannot imagine how much you've been suffering without knowing about the full screen Library view. I'm afraid that's probably Logos's fault for not making it more obvious. But sometimes when people have a big critique or suggestion about Logos, all it takes is a question and you'll find out about something really useful that you didn't know about before.

So... Instead of clicking the Library button (which only gives you a quick & dirty temporary view of the Library), you can either open the library in a new tab (where it will stay up permanently -- until you close it intentionally) or you can open it in a floating window which you can then maximize to have it fill the whole screen -- wonderful big library window!

To open it in a tab, either (1) RIGHT click on the library button and select "Open in a new tab" or (2) DRAG the library button to wherever you want to open the tab.

I solved this problem by opening the Library in a tab - and then saving a Layout with that tab open. If I want the full screen Library view, I just open the Layout that I have created.

Scott Warren

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/185275#Comment_185275

Ctrl + L is neat. Wish I would have known that sooner. Is there away to make the book covers on the left side of the screen bigger? When I increased font size the font got bigger but not the covers. I would love to visually be able to scan the book cover icons when I'm browsing the library. Thanks

Kevin Becker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/185287#Comment_185287

Ctrl + L is neat. Wish I would have known that sooner. Is there away to make the book covers on the left side of the screen bigger? When I increased font size the font got bigger but not the covers. I would love to visually be able to scan the book cover icons when I'm browsing the library. Thanks

You could make them bigger if you tweaked the program scaling, but that might have undesired effects elsewhere in the program. Try turning the scaling up and the font down to compensate.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/185287#Comment_185287

Is there away to make the book covers on the left side of the screen bigger? When I increased font size the font got bigger but not the covers. I would love to visually be able to scan the book cover icons when I'm browsing the library. Thanks

Have you tried Mark Barnes' bibliographic report utility with its visual bookshelves view? If you thought Ctrl+L was neat, wait till you see this!

http://www.4-14.org.uk/logos/logos4-bibliographic-report

Here's a preview of what it looks like (click to zoom in and see it as it actually appears, with large readable covers):

Bohuslav Wojnar

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/185303#Comment_185303

Have you tried Mark Barnes' bibliographic report utility with its visual bookshelves view? If you thought Ctrl+L was neat, wait till you see this!

http://www.4-14.org.uk/logos/logos4-bibliographic-report

Here's a preview of what it looks like (click to zoom in and see it as it actually appears, with large readable covers):

Yes, and that is something I would be very happy to be able to see in Logos directly. Let's say, toggling between the 2 ways of displaying of the Library content to make it 3 ways. One of that would be similar to Mark Barns one. It might be improved by opening it in a full screen coming down like Home Page does. Just an idea.

John Calvin Hall

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/185309#Comment_185309

This is WONDERFUL! No, I didn't know about Ctrl-L... until now. [Y]

Mark Barnes has done a great job, and everything you have shown me is extremely helpful. It would be nice if Logos would incorporate what he has done into Logos. I would think it would be a bit faster.

Thank you all for your generous help!

John Calvin Hall

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/185256#Comment_185256

Rosie,

You are fantastic! Apparently Logos is several jumps ahead of me, and you are knowledgeable enough to help a poor soul like me in time of need.

Thank you!

Would you allow me to post your reply as an addendum on my blog (http://www.BibleBlogger.org)?

Paul N

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/185417#Comment_185417

Hey John,

I liked where you were going with the issue of not knowing what resources we own. Yes its partly our fault but if there was some way for us to be more informed about our books. Does the software ever collect data on the books we use most frequently (and the ones we don't use at all) in an attempt to show us neglected resources?

BillS

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/185422#Comment_185422

Does the software ever collect data on the books we use most frequently (and the ones we don't use at all) in an attempt to show us neglected resources?

Sounds like a possible home page 'article"... "Today's Least Used Resource" I like it!

[Y]

Bob Pritchett

John, I'm sorry it seems like we aren't listening. We are -- we read just about everything posted here, plus the feedback sent to us by phone, email, etc. (I can no longer read every post, but I try to stay current, and many other Logos people are in the forums, too.)

The problem is that we have around a million suggestions (okay, maybe not a million...) and we don't make snap decisions on each one. We collect the feedback and then make plans for future releases. I'm not sure what kind of answer we could give that would help; I can't just look at this list and say "Yes. No. No. Yes. Yes. Tuesday." to what you're asking for. :-)

The geek in me would just say "ACK." But that comes across as rude to people not familiar with ASCII control characters.... ("ACKnowledge.")

I believe Rosie has shown how much of what you're looking for is already addressed. In the case of locked books, I can say right now we have no plans to show them in the Library browser. (We did that in the past, and it was unpopular.) We will instead be revising the web site, and making it easier to find books that we sell if/when they're linked from inside books (or reading lists) you have.

steve clark

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/185422#Comment_185422

Does the software ever collect data on the books we use most frequently (and the ones we don't use at all) in an attempt to show us neglected resources?

not that i am aware of [:(]

But on the Home page there is a Library Slideshow. While you are drinking coffee in the morning, you could view this and see some of the books which you may not have seen.

The Library Slideshow is found in the ribbon in the upper (if you have it turned ON, see step 3 & 4) area of the window.
It will show a book for about 10 seconds. If you click on a book, it will open in a new Tab.
If you want to skip a book, click on the arrows to advance or go back.
If you don't have the Library Slideshow turned ON, click on Customize in the bottom left side of the Home page.
In the pop-up menu, click to check Library Slideshow.

Perhaps this might be helpful to you.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/185426#Comment_185426

Does the software ever collect data on the books we use most frequently (and the ones we don't use at all) in an attempt to show us neglected resources?

not that i am aware of

But on the Home page there is a Library Slideshow. While you are drinking coffee in the morning, you could view this and see some of the books which you may not have seen.

You can also try out the nifty Facilitate Serendipitous Discovery command (or simply its abbreviation fsd), and no I'm not making this up, despite my propensity to joke around on these forum. It will open a random resource from your library to a random position. Great way to discover little known gems that you didn't know you had. And you can drag that command to your shortcut bar (the icon looks like this: ) to remind yourself that this command exists and click on it every once in a while when you're bored (but who could be bored when using Logos to study God's Word?). See my more extensive write-up on this little known and undocumented feature: http://community.logos.com/forums/p/23093/173038.aspx#173038