Backing up collections

Hi all, I have found myself with a lot on my mind recently and as such have been spending an inordinate amount of time with my head buried in a book and also updating my logos collections. I spent a long time on that today and then realised that it may be a good idea to back up the search parameters etc that have been used and the additional resources added so that I can quickly get these back if by some unfortunate chance they should get wiped (given that I have 69 collections you can understand that that would be painful).

For my future reference, is there actually an easier way to do this than manually typing each and every collection out? I do not think that this has been answered elsewhere but apologies if it has.

For anyone who is interested I have attached a list of the collections that I have made and the search terms and additional resources (resources that were added individually are in red and marked with a + before each title or collection). Items will need to be manually removed from some of these collections but even I am not strange enough to spend time writing them out right now. any suggestions on how to improve these would not be turned down ;-)

5635.Logos Collections.docx

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Comments

Rosie Perera

That's pretty much how I've done it too. Perhaps a quicker way would be to take screenshots of each collection definition page (that would be fine if you had a small enough number of plus/minus resources that they would all visible without scrolling) and save those in a Word doc. Of course it you ever needed to restore from such a backup it could be a pain since it's just images. But OCR software such as ABBYY Screenshot Reader could help.

Lynden O. Williams

Rosie I was thinking that maybe he should backup the collections file. C:\Users\Lynden\AppData\Local\Logos4\Documents\ox010qnb.k1t\ResourceCollectionManager

Matt Longhorn

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/250498#Comment_250498

Thanks for the response both of you.

Lynden, if that works then I will be kicking myself for the time I spent on that!!!

Thanks.

Matt

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/250498#Comment_250498

Rosie I was thinking that maybe
he should backup the collections
file. C:\Users\Lynden\AppData\Local\Logos4\Documents\ox010qnb.k1t\ResourceCollectionManager

Yes, that could be another possibility (only of course his won't be named C:\Users\Lynden\AppData\Local\Logos4\Documents\ox010qnb.k1t\ResourceCollectionManager -- that random folder name is unique to each person's installation).

However, it's uncertain how/whether it would be possible to restore from that file. If it's a matter of a hard disk failure, everything should be backed up in the cloud and would be restored from the Logos servers when you reinstall on a new hard disk. If it's a careless user-initiated deletion, then perhaps just putting that file back from an older version of it would work. But it might get wiped out by the newer data from the server on the next sync. And unless you were saving copies of it frequent intervals, you might put it back to a point before some other collection edits you would have wanted to keep.

The best advice is to be careful with your collections! [:)]

Mark Smith

For my future reference, is there actually an easier way to do this than manually typing each and every collection out? I do not think that this has been answered elsewhere but apologies if it has.

I, for one, have been bitten twice in losing all my collections (I have 100 or more). In a recent post on the on-going work in Logos development I asked Bob Pritchett whether some sort of backup facility would be developed. The answer was, basically, that it hasn't been ruled out but isn't being worked on. So for now the only ways open are the one you've chosen or the one Rosie suggested.

Bob's post can be found here: http://community.logos.com/forums/t/33263.aspx?PageIndex=2

Lynden O. Williams

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/250502#Comment_250502

Make sure that it is the right file. I am not certain.

Matt Longhorn

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/250505#Comment_250505

Thanks Mark - it may have been your post that sparked something in my mind as I looked at all that I had created and got worried about losing it all!

Am looking forward to the day that Logos can automate it, but until then I shall try Lynden's way first and then go the painful way as a back-up option.

Matt

Mark Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/250503#Comment_250503

However, it's uncertain how/whether it would be possible to restore from that file.

My experience says you cannot. If the date stamps do not match with some other files, Logos just deletes the one you copied over to the directory and rebuilds it. The only way I restored was having a second installation of Logos and going to that installation and one at a time making a minor change to each collection, moving on to another collection and then returning to the first one and removing the change. Then be sure to synch from that installation, and return to the installation that is missing the collections, synch and they will download. You can do the changes a handful of collections at a time or do all of them, change them back and synch. It isn't fun but it is better than trying to rebuild all of them.

It may be possible to modify the backed up collection file if you know SQL and know what to change. I don't.

fgh

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/250514#Comment_250514

The only way I restored was having a second installation of Logos and going to that installation and one at a time making a minor change to each collection, moving on to another collection and then returning to the first one and removing the change. Then be sure to synch from that installation, and return to the installation that is missing the collections, synch and they will download. You can do the changes a handful of collections at a time or do all of them, change them back and synch. It isn't fun but it is better than trying to rebuild all of them.

I imagine the fastest way of doing that would be to find some totally uninteresting book, tag it something like unwanted, paste ANDNOT mytag:unwanted at the end of each collection search string, sync, and then remove the tag from the book. That way you wouldn't necessarily have to remove all the changes immediately. You could postpone it until the next time you worked on that collection. Or if you intend to make a habit of losing all collections you could leave it until the next time, and let the removal of that addition be the needed change then.

David Ames

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/250593#Comment_250593

I imagine the fastest way of doing that would be to find some totally uninteresting book, tag it something like unwanted, paste ANDNOT mytag:unwanted at the end

There is a "totally uninteresting book" in Logos? Which one? Now, After you inform us which one it is, we will all have to add it to our colllections and read it to find out why it is included in Logos if it is so "totally uninteresting". [enjoy your posts]

steve clark

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/250503#Comment_250503

However, it's uncertain how/whether it would be possible to restore from that file.

It did not work for me a while back. Somehow all my collections disappeared, i left L4 open all day hoping that sync would restore them but no joy there. i pulled the file off a external backup drive and replaced the empty db file in that location. L4 just deleted it and replaced it with a blank db. i suspect that the SQLite id codes did not match any longer. But i was able to use SQLite Browser to get most of the info back, but lost the info for Plus/Minus files.

So like many of you have replied, i use Excel and manually copy the info over.

EDIT: wish they provided API calls to read/create collections, favorites, shortcuts, etc. Perhaps i would get motivated to build my own backup mechanism.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/250604#Comment_250604

I imagine the fastest way of doing that would be to find some totally uninteresting book, tag it something like unwanted, paste ANDNOT mytag:unwanted at
the end of each collection search string, sync, and then remove the tag
from the book. That way you wouldn't necessarily have to remove all the
changes immediately. You could postpone it until the next time you
worked on that collection. Or if you intend to make a habit of losing
all collections you could leave it until the next time, and let the
removal of that addition be the needed change then.

That's a brilliant idea!
I have already hidden all the "totally uninteresting" books in my
Library (except the few that I use as separators in my Prioritization
pane -- I've renamed their titles to just a bunch of dashes: -----------
), but I could resurrect another one for this purpose.

EDIT: wish they provided API calls to read/create collections, favorites, shortcuts, etc. Perhaps i would get motivated to build my own backup mechanism.

Yes, that would be nice. I still haven't gotten into using the API, but I trust someone else would write something useful and share it with us all.

fgh

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/250618#Comment_250618

I have already hidden all the "totally uninteresting" books in my
Library (except the few that I use as separators in my Prioritization
pane -- I've renamed their titles to just a bunch of dashes: -----------
)

You could still use one for this, couldn't you? That sounds like the ultimate "uninteresting book".

Otherwise there is, of course, no particular reason it has to be an uninteresting book -- provided you remember to remove the tag again when you're done. I just said that because it would be a shame if someone spent half a year working on a thesis, only to find out they'd missed an important book in every search they'd done because they'd forgotten to remove that tag. But you could use something like a devotional, lectionary, novel or timeline that you're not likely to need in a search. Or your favourite Bible which you're certain to miss pretty soon if it isn't searched. Or the very first book in your Library, where the tag will be hard to miss (especially if you temporarily move the tag column). -- Or you can simply make sure to remember to remove the tag. Plenty of options.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/250620#Comment_250620

the very first book in your Library, where the tag will be hard to miss

The very first book in my Library isn't likely to remain forever the very first book, as I acquire new ones at quite a startling pace... [:)]

Armin

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/250504#Comment_250504

I, for one, have been bitten twice in losing all my collections (I have 100 or more).

Hi Mark,

Would you be willing to share your rules of your collections?

Armin

fgh

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/250625#Comment_250625

the very first book in your Library, where the tag will be hard to miss

The very first book in my Library isn't likely to remain forever the very first book, as I acquire new ones at quite a startling pace...

And I assume it is very common for those new books to have a title starting with "0"? [;)]

Besides, the idea was to remove the tag again directly you were done, long before even you have time to acquire lots of new books.