Creating collections

Part of the problem stems from using multilple line entries for each resource with accompanying thumbnail of the book making the list excessively long. 

Click the "View" button (on the right above the list) to make the entries smaller.

The fourth problem is that there seems to be no method to add items as a group rather than selecting each individually. I find this totally unsatisfactory when creating a large collection such as "Journals" or "Anchor Bible Commentaries." 

Yes it would be nice to be able to drag a group from the library to the collection window.

On the other hand, have you tried using the "Start with resource matching" field to build your collections?  For journals you could put in type:journal or for ABC you could type in

series:"Anchor Bible Commentary"

(I don't have Anchor, but I do know that series:"Word Biblical Commentary" works for WBC)

Even if you do type "wbc" and it fills them in as an option to be selected - they still must be done one at a time AND if for any reason you have other resources already in that selector or  in that collection it is worse! Then the window must be tugged to the place where eg the wbc volumes are.

This was a common misconception at the beginning of the beta. The collection is not the books under the "Add addition resources" but primarily the resources under "Resulting Collection". "Plus these resources" are items that are exceptions to your "Start with" string. The benifit is that collections now become dynamic. When you have a devotional collection with "type:devotional" and you add a new devotional to your library, it is automatically added to your collection. If there is a devotion that is returned which you do not want in your search you drag it to the "minus these resources" block.

To summarize, this is all you need to do to have a wbc collection

Go to tools>collections

Click New ***This is important or you will mess up a collection you already made!

Name your collection

under "start with" type "wbc"

close the collection tab.

Your collection is now made.

-What Philip said.-

Any books you see in the Collection main window are IN the collection.  They don't have to be added. They already are.

You forgot to include one important detail:  "Your collection is now made (half an hour after you began)"

half and hour? Your a slow typer, George!

With respect, Philip, I understood that part of the goal of this new software was also to attract "non-geeks."

I strongly suspect that many of them do NOT know Command Line Programming.(whether using "type:" or qualifiers like  "not x" "and x" etc).

Now, if they are so non-geek that they cannot figure out collections anyways then it becomes a non-issue.

Quote: "This was a common misconception at the beginning of the beta." (and perhaps still is? - and what happens when the software hits the street? That will not be the end of "misconceptions" - without some very clear instructional materials, I am afraid that there will be many more.)

The biggest issue:  We/they (new users)  have been trained since Windows 95  into  "select-drag-drop." (All) Logos had to do was make it possible to select more than one-at-a-time (and no, I do not know the programming ramifications).

Unfortunately I suspect that this will only degenerate into an "apples-versus oranges" debate.

But thank you, Philip, for all the very helpful things you have added into L4.

Steve

I strongly suspect that many of them do NOT know Command Line Programming.(whether using "type:" or qualifiers like  "not x" "and x" etc).

I agree that the syntax feels very much "your on your own to figure it out." I believe something needs to be added along the lines of the morph filter assistance to where it allows you to select "type:", "author:" and the other tags.

To have a "drag and drop" collection like you have mentioned means you have to maintain your collections. The primary direction Logos seems to be going is low maintenance. If you add resources to your library you have to think "now what collections would I want these resources in." otherwise they sit in your library and don't get searched when they need to. That systematic Theology you purchased lays buried in your library. what happens you you add that collection to your library that has 25
different resources? you now have to through each one and make sure
they are in the collections you need them to be in. But if you create a dynamic collection you don't have to think about it later.

I think where L4 is weak and really needs strengthening is in the "help" department. There needs to be a little question mark somewhere in the collection window that gives GOOD examples of collection rules. I can understand why help is a little weak right now. Why invest heavily in help while its being developed? all you'll end up doing is re-writing things later. But beefing up help should be right beside Note and markup importers.

Unfortunately I suspect that this will only degenerate into an "apples-versus oranges" debate.

yeah, I guess it did :-)

This thread might have been valid a while ago but its' not now.

I can type the following:

title:Bible and Spade

Then name the collection "bible and spade" and click close

MUCH FASTER than I can:

open the window; click "New Collection" wait for it to catch up.

click "all unlocked resources" and sort by type

find the right ones

highlight it

Click "add" and wait for it to catch up.

Keep clicking add for all of the same resource type.

In the case of bible and spade that was 31 clicks to add each one.

then click to close.

1643.creating collection_PC.avi

Phillip: In L3 I did all that you talk about above and I kept it current. (That is why I found the "collection" software choice so slow.)

But here in L4 I got so tired of Bibles appearing in all the little helping windows: "cited by"  "power lookup" "searches".

Nor did I need the same commentaries to show up in "bible explorer" that also have just appeared when I've run a passage guide.

Logos 4 was just not getting to all of the other resources that have the articles and references to a verse.(Well it was, but I had to sift through many, many pages to find them-- the present "searching formula" negates finding stuff in the unique but "niche" resources without plowing through every bible and main line commentary first. This may relate right back to Bob's discussion on "hits" and why "this" resource gets so many versus that "one" disappearing way down the rankings.

If I needed to go to the trouble of "searching the whole library" to find a verse reference I did not want every bible and "that books" commentary messing up the pages of the answering hits.  . (At least I was able to  hide the fragments - thanks Logos!)

SO... (foolishly or not) I created an "anything but bibles and commentaries collection...yes it took forever.

But at least now I can get to a journal article - or theology book article etc And yes, perhaps I could have asked it to" just" search "journals" or "theology resources" but then we are right back to L3 collections - are we not?

Obviously we do our searches differently, because my "mileage" is certainly different. 

I'm NOT trying to 'diss" the software. I'm trying to use it!

Regards

Steve

Quote: The "Start With" rule is [rating:>=0 ANDNOT (type:bible,commentary,
grammar, harmony, clause, lectionary, manual, apparatus, concordance,
reference)] it includes everything (rating:>=0) except (ANDNOT)
types I don't want (blah, blah, blah).

Thank you, Philip:

That "step-by-step" may have saved a lot of anguish, but, as noted in an earlier post,  Logos deliberately left us to "leap in" without "help" so that they could note and learn from our struggles.  So, in terms of collections/searching anyways, I was obviously one of those who "sunk."

Thank you to all of you "swimmers" for all the help you give (and have given over the years on the former "news groups.")

Steve

That "step-by-step" may have saved a lot of anguish, but, as noted in an earlier post,  Logos deliberately left us to "leap in" without "help" so that they could note and learn from our struggles. 

to the right of "resulting collection" click "view" this will turn it into a table and you will be able to see the tags column

That shows my tags, but not the tags Logos has used.  For example, how do I know something is tagged as a "Journal" or a "Magazine"?  

Yes it would be nice to be able to drag a group from the library to the collection window.

On the other hand, have you tried using the "Start with resource matching" field to build your collections?  For journals you could put in type:journal or for ABC you could type in

series:"Anchor Bible Commentary"

(I don't have Anchor, but I do know that series:"Word Biblical Commentary" works for WBC)

 

It would be even nicer if it weren't necessary to use the brain-dead "drag and drop" method of compiling a collection.  Bring back the 3.0 method.  I can create a collection in 3.0 10X faster than I can in 4.0 and with considerably less frustration. 

I do use that method to pare down the list.  Otherwise the list would be even more intollerably long.  Ditch the thumbnails and confine them to the information page on the resource.  If someone is more interested in looking at the pretty pictures, let them buy the print editions to put on their shelves and look at them.  Personally, I am interested in the information.  Why else would I want a bible study program such as Logos? 

You can turn off the images if you don't want them.            Open library           Just right click on row under "find" - then deselect image    Finis!

........    Mel

The only thing I would improve would be to be able to close the section with rules and see just the collection. When I want to change it, I would open the section with something like "edit" button or so. I am always afraid I will mess-up my collection accidentally.

GREAT idea!

Unfortunately, while it turns them off in the library, it doesn't affect collections where it is particularly offensive.