Those other tools, may be more powerful than you realize

i have been frustrated with some of the tools in a Passage Guide (or custom PG). After digging back into some of the other tools which are found in the Tools menu i have come to prefer a new layout which replaces some of the tools which i used in the PG.

1. The Explorer tool supplies more info for my commentaries than the PG's commentary tool. When you hover your mouse over one of the commentaries in Explorer, you get a pop-up which shows me what i will see in that commentary relative to my passage. But when i hover over a commentary in the PG all i get is info on that book (similar to clicking the (i) icon to find out about the book, not info in the commentary on that passage). Also notice that the order of commentaries shown in both are the same, since they are arrange per our priorities.

2. Also in Explorer i find several tools which i would see in the PG. So if i use Explorer i can create a very abbreviated custom PG (see item 4 below).

3. Another tool which i find useful is the Cited By tool. It allows me to see references to collections which i often would place in a PG. This may not be as useful, but i often see it finding good nuggets relative to my study that i would not find in the PG. And as Explorer does, it shows me a pop-up showing what i will see in that resource, which the PG does not.

4. So when i create a layout which has these tools in use, i can create a abbreviated custom Passage Guide and there place some tools which are truly unique to PG. This layout seems to load faster that the custom Guide as it only populates as i click on specific items.

just thought i would share this info in case some of you have forgotten about these other tools.

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Comments

DMB

I'm glad you posted this. I just loooove the Explorer window because, just like you said, you can hover the commentaries.

I was hoping that I could somehow do similar for my lexicons similar to L3 (tho not Explorer).

CitedBy is the ONLY way I've been able to efficiently use the Massorah.

steve clark

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/269587#Comment_269587

Hi DMB,

i also find CitedBy useful in searching my Topic collection (Nelson's Topical Bible Index and such), it yields various Topics which the current passage is listed.

Lynden O. Williams

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/269667#Comment_269667

I hardly ever use the default passage guide. I created my own a long time ago, and the only difference is I cannot get the cited by tool to be added to it.

Go to guide, and choose "make a new guide template".

steve clark

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/269670#Comment_269670

Hi Lynden,

Go to guide, and choose "make a new guide template".

i already have made several custom PGs. i think you missed what i was trying to explain. There are features in Explorer which surpass similar features in PG for the same tools.

Lynden O. Williams

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/269672#Comment_269672

There are features in Explorer which surpass similar features in PG for the same tools.

Ok, will try it out later on.

steve clark

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/269673#Comment_269673

For instance (my favorite one) the Commentaries tool

A. In the Commentaries tool in PG, when you hover over one of the commentaries the pop-up only shows you information about that book, not any information regarding the passage that the commentary has on it.

B. But when you hover your mouse over a commentary in Explorer you get a pop-up which shows you an excerpt of what that commentary has for your passage. I find this much more useful in that i can more quickly see if there might be a reason to open that commentary.

Another tool in Explorer which i like is People, Places, Things. Explorer combines these into one tool while in the PG you have to set these up separately. And in PG you have to click on each to try to expand it, and often only to watch the progress bar while it looks and then often it comes up empty.

spitzerpl

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/269678#Comment_269678

I can certainly see where the pop-up would be beneficial. For me it is not worth two trade offs you have to make. 1) having to click the "more" button to see all your commentaries and 2)not being able to divide your commentaries up according to academic, devotional, pastoral, etc.

Just for kicks I tried something out with the Personal Book tool currently in beta. I exported one of my saved guides to word, saved it, then imported it to L4 as a personal book. Here is what I got back in L4. I can now go into word, delete out the commentaries I'm not interested, add comments to each commentary, Put some stars beside the ones I really like or re-order the hyperlink, add hyperlinks to other, non-L4 resources. then all I have to do is save the doc, go into L4 and rebuild the Personal Book. I could even keep one master document with all my guides, add a tag to the beginning of each import and it becomes scrollable along with my Bible. Then whenever I come to a verse that I have generated a guide for it automatically comes up with all my additional notes.

I can't wait till Personal Books go Gold!

steve clark

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/269720#Comment_269720

I can't wait till Personal Books go Gold!

This does look promising! i hope that it will be affordable when it goes gold, i am on a tight budget. It would also be interesting how Logos will restrict distribution of books which might have copyrights. As well as how/when they plan to allow users to share these books. So i am still sitting on the sidelines waiting to see what happens.

Thanks for the input.

Bohuslav Wojnar

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/269720#Comment_269720

Then whenever I come to a verse that I have generated a guide for it automatically comes up with all my additional notes.

This looks very interesting. I need to play with that some more. Yes. PB will be very important addition to Logos 4. Can't wait for seeing it going Gold.

David Paul

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/269720#Comment_269720

HH,

Although I am remaining deliberately muted in my response to this info, this sounds like it might be interesting enough to get me to consider making L4 my first choice tool...but I'm not entirely clear on exactly how what you have described will actually play out. What I do in L3 with notes requires some awkward work-arounds, but it still provides me with something L4 can't. But if what you are describing here (although it sounds like you are jumping though quite a few hoops as well) can go "deep" into Logos content, essentially letting me remark texts with notes at will, while (key ingredient) presenting it in a visually pleasing and easily digestable way suitable for giving presentations, then I will be watching closely.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/269720#Comment_269720

Just for kicks I tried something out with the Personal Book tool currently in beta.

This may be an interesting approach to a lectionary based study problem ... I gotta go play with it[:D]

spitzerpl

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/269751#Comment_269751

this sounds like it might be interesting enough to get me to consider making L4 my first choice tool...but I'm not entirely clear on exactly how what you have described will actually play out.

I was going to tell you a bunch of the stuff that I can currently do with the beta. However Its probably better to wait until it goes Gold as they can change anything between then and now. Suffice it to say I believe you will be extremely pleased with what you will be able to do with the Personal Books.

David Paul

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/269781#Comment_269781

Sounds good...I'm hopeful. But I do hope that there is a notes pop-up feature that allows:

1) PINNING AND SCROLLING OF NOTES

2) ADJUSTMENT OF FONT SIZE FOR NOTES

With the above two features, Logos would become an unstoppable presentation Bible TEACHING tool...not just a search engine that gathers data for crunching and presentation in other programs like PowerPoint.

Jeffery Ferrell

How do I access these tools that you mentioned? Is there a tutorial video on this? If there isn't would you consider making one?

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/271022#Comment_271022

How do I access these tools that you mentioned?

Start here http://wiki.logos.com/Guides__

And look under Videos on this page.

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/271022#Comment_271022

How do I access these tools that you mentioned? Is there a tutorial video on this? If there isn't would you consider making one?

Just click on the "Tools" heading at the top of the L4 window. Personally, I don't use the Passage Guide, Explorer, or Cited by (this one in particular has never been useful).

steve clark

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/271022#Comment_271022

How do I access these tools that you mentioned?

There are a couple of wiki page: Explorer Cited By

There is a Logos video: Cited By Tool (i could not find a video on Explorer, i hope the wiki page above helps you, if not ask questions here on the forum)

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/271025#Comment_271025

George ... I can't believe you don't use Cited-By (if I understand you right).

I wouldn't even think about attaching the Massorah to the OT hebrew without using Cited-By. Not only does it show the massorah for the verse you're on, but the related verses as well that have the same issue. Nice.

It also has an apparatus section that quickly shows you which apparatus speak to the specific verse you're on. This is again very useful in the OT, where it goes and grabs the BHS apparatus, but also the LXX and the individual Gottengen apparatus. Talk about efficiency!! In the NT, I have more apparatus sources, so it saves me time.

Then to put tasty icing on the cake, you can hover the apparatus sources (as well as massorah) and quickly see if it's worth checking. Nice (again).

Steve's right ... there's so many hidden jewels in Logos4.

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/271060#Comment_271060

George ... I can't believe you don't use Cited-By (if I understand you right).

I miss the reference browser of L3. There I could pick a resource or a collection to search and not need to wade through everything to find what I want. It doesn't seem worth the trouble. I just do a search.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/271063#Comment_271063

There I could pick a resource or a collection to search and not need to wade through everything to find what I want. It doesn't seem worth the trouble. I just do a search.

For what it's worth, I've found that making a number of very narrowly defined collections, building a customized Passage Guide for the collections, and having everything closed initially in the Passage Guide, I can make it a very quick alternate to the Search. I rarely use either Cited By or Explorer but I can envisions places where they could be very useful.