Not Too Happy about Highlighting\Notes merge

Richard Lyall said:

Could this feature be switched off, or could there be an option to save highlights to a Notes file specified in System Settings?

In a future beta we will have an option to chose the default note document highlights are saved to per palette.

Dave Hooton said:

I'm sure by now that you should know the temperament of Logos beta testers and NOT have introduced a feature that appears to be badly designed,

I'm sorry to have downloaded this beta. The saving grace is that I am replacing my hard drive within the next few days and was going to have to "scrub" Logos 4 anyways.

I Rarely use Notes but the ones I have are now "ruined." And I have a large group of new ones that are totally useless with a large number of references to individually coloured words (for emphasis) and for eseof locating on a page.

. Unfortunately the discussion in the other thread as to why this new system is being used is over my head.

I am going to try to delete all notes. I'll stick to clippings and Word documents.

I am glad that I was able to get the TOC for the Church Fathers turned intoa PBB before this came down the pipe.

Suggestion: I realize that it is too late now--BUT with all of the changes & fixes to broken parts of the PBB this long-awaited beta would have been great to have those fixed. THEN issue a new one with the "new notes method" as a new issue to deal with /fix etc.

MJ. Smith said:

which thread?

http://community.logos.com/forums/t/39459.aspx

Bob Pritchett


Replied: Today 5:01 PM

The old design was single-user oriented, so it was okay that there was no "highlight document." 

The change is driven by several things:

- Support for mobile devices and web-presentation of notes/highlights (Biblia.com), which drove some technical changes.

- New use cases requiring multiple sets of highlighting on a single
book. (You can search within a highlight, do the Search Analysis on
highlights, etc.) This requires "named" or "document-like" highlight
sets.

- Document sharing -- in the future you'll be able to collaborate on
annotations, or let select individuals take copies of your annotations;
this also requires named and manageable highlight documents.

We could have duplicated the whole notes file system for highlights,
but people are also asking for highlighting capabilities on the
selections to which they attach notes. So it just made sense to merge
these things together into a single annotation system.

MJ. Smith said:

Thanks Steve, I'd missed that post.

You are most welcome MJ [:)]

SteveF said:

I Rarely use Notes but the ones I have are now "ruined."

I agree that the new method is not a good approach. It does not make sense to treat highlights like notes. They are separate features and deserve separate technical treatment.

That said, I don't think existing notes should be affected. At least for me, new note files were created for all my highlights, so no highlights were added to existing note files. The trouble will be going forward, having to remember to select the right note file before making a highlight, a problem that will be fixed when the new option is added. But even with that, I think merging notes and highlights is a bad idea.

I can understand the need for keeping the highlights in named sets, but I think the best approach would keep those sets completely transparent. I could see the benefit of creating a separate highlight file for every resource, but users should never need to see that file. There is no reason for users to know about it. It would be simple, transparent, avoid the need to switch around active note files or specify one note file to dump all highlights in (which I assume would then diminish collaborative features?), etc. 

SteveF said:

But to just wildly stick them into whatever note file happened to be last opened is .......

tom collinge said:

each resource needs its own note file.

or set of note files (plural--more than one, which gets us no more than we have now in L4 or L3).

BillS said:

If highlights are in a separate note file, then I'll need to see them to control which one...

How is that different than the current ability to turn highlights on/off? For your class situation, just create different palettes for your different classes, and turn off the ones you don't want to see. I usually keep highlights turned off for my Bible text since, like you, I don't really want to see them while doing sermon prep.

Hi Chris,

Wow, & THANKS! Are you saying that we already can have separate note / highlight files??? Somehow, I missed that...

MJ. Smith said:

Tim Hensler said:

It would also be helpful if when you highlight something and it automatically creates a note, that the note is presented to the user so text can add to it

Absolutely!

[Y]

BillS said:

Hi Chris,

Wow, & THANKS! Are you saying that we already can have separate note / highlight files??? Somehow, I missed that...

What Chris is saying Bill is that before this beta came out you could create different highlighting pallets and use them for each class, and then create a note file for each class, so you choose the highlight palette you want to view in the resource, and open the respective note file for that class.  I agree with what Chris is saying, that this was already possible; the new approach seems to more tightly integrate it by combining these two 'options' into one file rather than two.

I'm not in the Beta program since I really need a stable product...but highlighting is very important to me--and I don't exactly understand what Logos is trying to change in this version--but anything that effects highlighting really gets my attention.  I don't use Notes much because it is so slow and limited--and don't like the way they sometimes act like highlighting, depending on how text is "noted"--but am having a hard time understanding why Notes and Highlighting would be considered the same thing...unless I could optionally add text to a highlighting I did, in whatever style/pallet I wanted to use.

[:S]

Really hoping that whatever change finally rolls out doesn't wipe out years of hard work in highlighting.

I have great concern about the move of highlighting to the notes foundation. It theoretically seems to be okay, but the concern for me is in performance. I pretty much limited my use of notes a long time ago because of the issues with performance when a file grew too large. Now we find the foundation for highlighting using this foundation. I have used highlighting for years and now all these highlights have created an extremely large note file - and surprise, surprise, the performance has become horrendous. Sure, I can go back and painstakingly pull out highlighting and make smaller files to avoid the problem (and this will likely be a necessity), but why could this not have been done by default - large note files has always been anathema.

I am technically minded and can/will make it all work. But what about new users, and people who just want to use Bible software? Implementations need to always start simple (preferably defaulting to a very usable solution, with options for power users) and with an eye to performance.

I am not a complainer and have been in every beta. However, I sure hope that this turns around radically before implemented for the general users. Because I assume the performance is because of the very large files, perhaps the default needs to be oriented to a file per resource. At a minimum we need advice on how to set these files up for best performance.

Okay. I have vented.

I haven't really played with the new beta due to it being installed on an external hard drive that I have to boot up, however that being said after playing with this feature a little I do share all the concerns that have been listed about having overblown note files that are difficult to work with.

But I was thinking this morning of one way in which this could be useful, possibly more so for sermon preparation, would be to have the highlighting note as part of another note. For example, if I'm studying Phil 2 i would usually create a note file for that study, if the highlights was then attached to this note f lie I could then disable this the next time I study Phil 2 so I have fresh eyes.

Now I know at current this would happen, but what I'm thinking is rather than have the highlights contained within all my other notes and observations on that verse, if there was a tab for the highlights you could then switch between them, in one note file, and turn that note file off when you look at a passage again.

Just thought I'd throw that out there.....

Vladimir Lukyanov said:

I am more of a believer of "doing it right the first time AND doing it even better the second time" Do you think Apple would have such a "cult" following if they designed this poorly?

Its a paradigm shift rather than a poor design in my view....betas are about trying things out, see how they work, get feedback from end users, so I have no problem with the product Logos has made available for beta testing (besides the fact the PBB stuff should not have been mixed in with such a big change)...I don't expect them to get it right in the first or second beta release.....the conditions of beta testing are quite clear... you can't expect it to be right first time. I expect this feature to change throughout the beta cycle before it settles down to something that  gets us close to what it will finally look like....as for cult following I pray that nobody looks upon Logos in that manner, they provide a product that enriches are bible study, but Christ is the only one we should be following.

MJ. Smith said:

Ward Walker said:

unless I could optionally add text to a highlighting I did, in whatever style/pallet I wanted to use.

You can in the current beta.

Tks for the clarification

Mitch Davis said:

P.S. - Can you follow Apple's lead and give us a "Siri" equivalent in Logos 5? Example: MITCH: "Logos, will I finish my sermon on time for this week?" LOGOS: "Not at this pace...get back to work". :-)

[:P]

tom collinge said:

option to chose the default note ... will not work for me

What if in the Program Settings there were places to:

1. Select a default Highlight note file (from a list of all available note files.  Would default to last active note file if one is not selected.)
2. Select a "Default Action" for Highlight notes - send Highlight Note to:
   • Default Highlight note file (Highlight note would automatically go to the note file selected in #1 above)
   • Last active note file (Highlight note would automatically go to the last active note file .  If not found, then to the default file selected in #1 above)
   • Prompt user to select note file (pop-up, scrollable list would let user select which of all available note files the Highlight Note should go to - press ESC or select "default note file" at the top of the list and the Highlight Note goes to the default note file selected in #1 above)

I like that idea better - Highlight default settings in the Highlighting pane.

Or how about in the Highlighter Pop-up where the user can already set they style default?

tom collinge said:

remember which highlight note file belongs with each resource

Hi Tom,

How would you handle it for those of us who want more than one highlight file per resource? (Multiple Bible classes to keep separate?)

Thanks,