How Long Before Mac Developers Will be Allowed to Catch Up to Windows version?
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I have looked over the forum history and, as such, have no faith this is going to get better any time soon-sorry, just don't.
Some of the current issues ( bugs, problems etc.) go all the way back to 2009 and have not been resolved yet. So, perhaps two or three more years and they will fix it where it will "open without crashing every other time", freezing, crashing in the middle of studies"?
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Fr. Charles R. Matheny said:
I have looked over the forum history and, as such, have no faith this is going to get better any time soon-sorry, just don't.
Some of the current issues ( bugs, problems etc.) go all the way back to 2009 and have not been resolved yet. So, perhaps two or three more years and they will fix it where it will "open without crashing every other time", freezing, crashing in the middle of studies"?
Observation: Logos 4 Mac experience seems to vary a bit depending on computer and user. By way of comparison, my wife and I do not remember last time stable Logos 4 Mac crashed on her (using Snow Leopard) since many weeks have elapsed; she uses Logos 4 Mac daily (nominally 5 windows open with a variety of resources and search, including Read Aloud). If Logos 4 Mac not working for her, personally get an earful. Watching memory usage in Activity Monitor, do have tendency to reboot Mac every few days. Also appreciate current Logos 4 Mac is not usable for everyone.
This Logos 4 Mac forum history includes Alpha and Beta pre-releases. Do remember a Logos 4 Mac Alpha pre-release that crashed every time (couple years ago). Have noticed volume of Logos 4 Mac forum postings has dropped substantially (e.g. last 50 threads span 14 days vis Logos 4 Windows forum whose last 50 posts span 3 days), which includes reports of Logos 4 Mac crashes.
Over couple years, Thankful for numerous Logos 4 Mac improvements (also remember bi-weekly alpha pre-releases: felt like opening a gift every couple weeks). Some issues, especially crash prone items that can be repeated, have been fixed faster than others. For some things, likewise have no idea when for improvement on Mac and PC: e.g. Logos User Suggestion => Improve Logos 4 Menu Responsiveness (or when handouts will be revamped in Logos 4). Likewise wonder about Logos improvements to be delivered over next few years.
Currently Logos 4 Mac is more crash prone on OS X Lion. Thankful for Logos development insight about XCode 3 incompatibilities with XCode 4 (updated for OS X Lion). Thankful for God's providence (anticipating gift of older MacBook Pro in few weeks), planning to use OS X Lion later this year and hopefully replicate some crash issues.
Keep Smiling [:)]
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Thankfully the Apollo programmers had a can do attitude. We got to the moon in 72K of memory
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Larry Good said:
Thankfully the Apollo programmers had a can do attitude. We got to the moon in 72K of memory
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
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Currently Logos 4 Mac is more crash prone on OS X Lion.
I know experiences are varied from user to user, but I'm not having any issues, especially crashes, with Logos that I can attribute to using Lion.
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15" rMBP 2.6 GHz i7 | 16 GB RAM | 1.0 TB Flash Drive | OS X 10.12.3 | Logos 7.0 (7.3.0.0062)
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I can appreciate that Bob. I just wanted to make sure that the post I started was not lumped in as a generic "complaint" against the devs, just hoping to get some progress on a few specific bugs/regressions that have not been addressed in over a year (some closer to 6 months) that reduce the value of an otherwise excellent product.Bob Pritchett said:Sorry, Joe... the problem is that I don't know the answer as to why specific bugs/regressions/partiy problems aren't fixed, so I tend to ignore them in my responses. I often don't get to the forum till late at night (like now!) or on the weekend, and I can't just pick up the phone and ask someone why "headings in passage list" aren't fixed. In fact, I'm not sure which team member to ask, so it's the kind of thing I need to walk over to the devs and ask around about.
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Joe Miller said:
I just wanted to make sure that the post I started was not lumped in as a generic "complaint" against the devs, just hoping to get some progress on a few specific bugs/regressions that have not been addressed in over a year (some closer to 6 months) that reduce the value of an otherwise excellent product.
What he said!
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Fr. Charles R. Matheny said:
A poster on one of the other threads made a good point:
Mac's are still a very small part of Logos Sales, thus, as such a small marketshare footprint, I doubt we are going to see much improvement in the speed of changes.
I sure hope that's not their way of thinking. Logos claims there is no Mac or Windows version because the software is "multi-platform". I've tried it on both OSes and although the core Logos 4 engine is the same, there are very obvious differences in functionality and the Mac version is way behind. Someone needs to crack the whip because there are a lot more Mac users out there. Besides, the user minority shouldn't be looked down on as unimportant. As a Mac user I don't want the crumbs and if I'm going to get the crumbs why am I paying the price of a full platter? The software and book bundles are not cheap. If I pay the same as a windows user, I should get the same features as the windows user.
As far as Logos sales and market share goes, I hope Logos is doing this for the right reasons and not for the $$$$. I'm sure their intent is to further the gospel and aid in spiritual growth through better bible study tools. Their tools are excellent, but let's have some equality. If the Mac version is behind, make the effort to get it right.[:D]
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Looking back in this thread, noted Bob Pritchett's reply on 31 Oct 2011 included => http://community.logos.com/forums/p/40349/301147.aspx#301147
Bob Pritchett said:Sigh.
There's no conspiracy here. Yes, we make more money from Windows sales. But Mac is growing fast, and that may flip sometime in the near future. We did, however, have about 17 years head-start on the Windows side. So unless we make the Mac team 3-4 times larger than the Windows team, it'll be a bit behind.
To say we're ignoring the Mac, or aren't committed to the platform, is simply silly. Our iOS platform support is excellent and keeps advancing; we don't even have a Windows Phone version. And Proclaim (which is the first app we wrote that didn't have 17 years of Windows history already) has been in near lock-step parity all along the way.
For what it's worth, the client-side Mac team is (at my last inquiry) larger than the Windows team.
Mike Bloomfield said:The software and book bundles are not cheap.
In 2009, Logos changed licensing so software is $ 0.00 (free) for all platforms; pay once for resource licenses, then use on your desired devices. Logos business model is funding software development on many platforms from ongoing resource purchases.
Mike Bloomfield said:I've tried it on both OSes and although the core Logos 4 engine is the same, there are very obvious differences in functionality and the Mac version is way behind.
Please elaborate what is behind, ideally start a new thread for each issue. Wiki has Mac and PC User Interface Differences => Feature Parity segment that has been primarily gleaned from many forum discussions. Thankful for Logos 4.5 Beta has improvements for 7 listed items. Stable Logos 4.3 release provided reason to remove 6 items from feature parity list. For past 9 months, Logos developers have implemented ~ 1.5 feature parity items per month. If historical trend continues, should have reason to remove Feature Parity segment from wiki Mac and PC User Interface Differences sometime next year.
Keep Smiling [:)]
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Mike Bloomfield said:
I sure hope that's not their way of thinking. Logos claims there is no Mac or Windows version because the software is "multi-platform". I've tried it on both OSes and although the core Logos 4 engine is the same, there are very obvious differences in functionality and the Mac version is way behind.
I have run and used just about every Bible software package there is over the last 15 years and actually multi-platformed Bible Software is something that is still not widespread in the industry. Not only that, but multi-platform now means supporting an array of handheld devices such as iOS, Android, Windows mobile, etc.
The good news is that four years ago we Mac users didn't have a way to run Logos. The bad news is that the process to get to version 1.0 (which was based on Logos 3) was painful and took literally years. You can go read some of the forum posts in the Logos 1 forum to get a flavor of this. Sadly, the old Logos USENET newsgroup server was taken down unceremoniously a while back and it had a repository of even older stuff on this subject. (anyone else remember this service? [:)] )
Without sounding like a fanboy, the Logos product has made huge strides in the last two years and many of us were starting to despair that we were ever going to see the Mac product get even as good as it is today. Based on some of the awesome Logos Mac Devs performance to date and the general growth of the Mac market, I can personally assure you that I think we are on course. (I have no connection to Logos, so I say this purely as a Bible software enthusiast)
If your temperament or patience to wait for the product to continue to mature is wearing thin, I would be happy offline to share experiences on another excellent Mac Bible product that I use every day. This would be the direction to go particularly if you have no need for multi-platform capabilities such as being able to use your library on Windows.
Hope this helps.
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Larry Good said:
Thankfully the Apollo programmers had a can do attitude. We got to the moon in 72K of memory
Ahhhh - but then they didn't have to code for a schizophrenic mega GUI, using a required cross-platform emulation layer running on top of yet another abstraction layer.
"I want to know all God's thoughts; the rest are just details." - Albert Einstein
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Donovan R. Palmer said:
Sadly, the old Logos USENET newsgroup server was taken down unceremoniously a while back and it had a repository of even older stuff on this subject. (anyone else remember this service?
)Not necessarily sad for me. Some of my most caustic posts were made in that medium as we waited for the appearance of Logos for Mac [:$]
Donovan R. Palmer said:I can personally assure you that I think we are on course. (I have no connection to Logos, so I say this purely as a Bible software enthusiast)
[Y] (The star does not designate me as a Logos fan-boy. It simply means I post a lot and some of them seem to actually help others)
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Joe Miller said:
For a long time, I have reported that some of the most basic functions just don't work.
For example, I cannot even organize the sub-folders in Favorites to organize them. Of course, this is easily done in the Windows version, but Mac seems unable to find the time to fix this...
Even more significant is that the Passage List feature is virtually useless for teaching because section titles are missing and do not appear in the Mac version (as far as I know, the Windows version does work properly)...
I am pleased to find that both of these bugs/regressions were fixed in 4.5. Thanks. On the downside, the Headers in the Passage list were fixed, but now it does not display multiple translations properly. I am not sure who runs quality control, but significant feature regressions are being missed.
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David Mitchell said:
I've been working at Logos longer than we've had a Mac team. In fact, there was a time when I was the Mac team. During this time, we have been able to find and hire exactly one qualified candidate with prior professional Mac experience (he's on the Logos 4 team).
There has been no great exodus of Mac developers from Logos 4 to Proclaim. In fact, there's only one Mac developer on the Proclaim team who ever worked on the Mac version of Logos 4. All the others have picked it up as they've gone along—and they've done a splendid job.
Am I understanding this correctly to say that besides you, there is only one other Mac-native developer working for Logos? If so, that explains a lot of things.
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Darren Huckey said:David Mitchell said:
I've been working at Logos longer than we've had a Mac team. In fact, there was a time when I was the Mac team. During this time, we have been able to find and hire exactly one qualified candidate with prior professional Mac experience (he's on the Logos 4 team).
There has been no great exodus of Mac developers from Logos 4 to Proclaim. In fact, there's only one Mac developer on the Proclaim team who ever worked on the Mac version of Logos 4. All the others have picked it up as they've gone along—and they've done a splendid job.
Am I understanding this correctly to say that besides you, there is only one other Mac-native developer working for Logos? If so, that explains a lot of things.
By no means! I thought that would have been quite clear from my repeated references to the Mac developers (plural) on both the Logos 4 and Proclaim teams. We have a number of incredibly talented people working with Apple technologies.
David Mitchell
Development Lead
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David Mitchell said:Darren Huckey said:David Mitchell said:
I've been working at Logos longer than we've had a Mac team. In fact, there was a time when I was the Mac team. During this time, we have been able to find and hire exactly one qualified candidate with prior professional Mac experience (he's on the Logos 4 team).
There has been no great exodus of Mac developers from Logos 4 to Proclaim. In fact, there's only one Mac developer on the Proclaim team who ever worked on the Mac version of Logos 4. All the others have picked it up as they've gone along—and they've done a splendid job.
Am I understanding this correctly to say that besides you, there is only one other Mac-native developer working for Logos? If so, that explains a lot of things.
By no means! I thought that would have been quite clear from my repeated references to the Mac developers (plural) on both the Logos 4 and Proclaim teams. We have a number of incredibly talented people working with Apple technologies.
The unfortunate part of this statement is that "Proclaim" was built with Apple programers that could have been working on the "Mother ship" Logos 4, making it function right.
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A huge reason we were promoted to go with Logos at our sem was because it was dual platform. However, nothing has been more frustrating than the lack of basic features working, or features available on PC not being present in Mac. Logos even advertises that you can go from working on a Windows computer to a Mac computer seamlessly and that currently is not the cae.
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Agreed. Thank you, Logos for continuing your Mac efforts. However, I have not been able to recommend Logos for Mac to my friends & colleagues because of the continued sluggish performance and the nature of persistent bugs. The 4.5 version seems to be packed full of bug-squashers, but we still have a long way to go. If the bug-fixes continue to be addressed as in the 4.5 update, I hope to be able to recommend Logos for Mac in the near future.
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Michael Walton said:
A huge reason we were promoted to go with Logos at our sem was because it was dual platform. However, nothing has been more frustrating than the lack of basic features working, or features available on PC not being present in Mac. Logos even advertises that you can go from working on a Windows computer to a Mac computer seamlessly and that currently is not the cae.
Specifically, what would Logos 4 Mac improvement help you the most ?
Please elaborate what is frustrating; would like to replicate using Logos 4.5a Beta 1 on Mac and PC. Wiki Mac and PC User Interface Differences => Feature Parity has items gathered from many forum discussions. Several items have Logos User Voice suggestions: more votes helps business case for prioritization.
Darren Huckey said:Agreed. Thank you, Logos for continuing your Mac efforts. However, I have not been able to recommend Logos for Mac to my friends & colleagues because of the continued sluggish performance and the nature of persistent bugs. The 4.5 version seems to be packed full of bug-squashers, but we still have a long way to go. If the bug-fixes continue to be addressed as in the 4.5 update, I hope to be able to recommend Logos for Mac in the near future.
Please help me understand "we still have a long way to go" by elaborating what needs improvement Curious what would be most helpful for you ?
Last month started thread => What's needed for better Bible Study ? Logos 4 Mac Feature Parity ? From forum discussions this week, am aware of couple Logos 4.5 Mac users that want automatic hyperlink creation in Notes like PC has.
Logos User Voice suggestion => Improve Logos 4 Menu Responsiveness For example, Logos 4.5 Search menu for choosing a collection has a noticeable lag from click until drop-down list available on Mac and PC
Keep Smiling [:)]
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Please help me understand "we still have a long way to go" by elaborating what needs improvement Curious what would be most helpful for you ?
Last month started thread => What's needed for better Bible Study ? Logos 4 Mac Feature Parity ? From forum discussions this week, am aware of couple Logos 4.5 Mac users that want automatic hyperlink creation in Notes like PC has.
Logos User Voice suggestion => Improve Logos 4 Menu Responsiveness For example, Logos 4.5 Search menu for choosing a collection has a noticeable lag from click until drop-down list available on Mac and PC
I probably need to start a list, but off the top of my head I can think of a few things:
- Performance
- Performance
- Performance - Even running on a 2.4GHz duo-core MacBook Pro with 6GB of RAM, this app is the worst performing app I have (and I'm even comparing it to my running Photoshop CS1, which is not an Intel-native app). It's just painful & frustrating to use.
- Another issue related to performance is search time. I would think the incredibly long indexing time (see below) would make this pretty snappy.
Then there are little things that are annoying, that should work, such as
- Being able to use COMMAND-~ to switch between windows and actually put the front window in focus, rather than having to activate it.
- Being able to click into a Bible passage field that is out of focus, rather than having to activate it and then re-click to enter the passage.
Other things are -
- Why does it take Logos an incredibly long amount of time to index my files when I add a 200 page book, when the Finder can index my entire 200GB harddrive in less time?
- Why is the File menu such a mess? Can't we make this like a standard MAC File menu? It would make more sense to have the "New" flyout to the doctype options (like many other Mac apps). All of your existing "files" (Notes, Passage Lists, Clippings, etc.) should be moved somewhere else, possibly under File > Open, and then be listed according to type. It's currently just a big clutter.
Hope that gives you some ideas of what I'm talking about.
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Another thing is why do we need to hit the Escape key when we're finished with a note, rather than clicking off, like we can do for a Prayer Request. There should be consistency.
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Just to comment on part of your post
Darren Huckey said:I probably need to start a list, but off the top of my head I can think of a few things:
- Performance
- Performance
This has slowly been getting better, which is very noticeable for those of us who have been waiting for Logos Mac since 2005/6. Admittedly, it still has a ways to go however.
Darren Huckey said:I would think the incredibly long indexing time (see below) would make this pretty snappy.
Actually, the search itself is rather snappy. The bottleneck is with displaying results, and this area has show little progress.
Darren Huckey said:Why is the File menu such a mess?
That's part of the Windows legacy of L4. Users over there are not very fond of the File menu either.
In addition to what you have said, I would add that creating a custom Passage Guide could qualify as torture. When you add a Collection to the guide, the colored pizza spins, spins, and then spins some more. I finally gave up, fired up Parallels and completed the operation in L4 Win. Added 12 authors to one PG and 14 other collections to another. This was complete and synched in less time than it would have taken to add just 2 authors in L4 Mac.
Overall, L4 Mac is improving, but the pace of progress is agonizing. It was rather irritating to find that Tom Philpot was pulled off Mac development to work in Proclaim.
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And why can't you hit ESCAPE to escape out of a contextual menu???
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Darren Huckey said:
I probably need to start a list, but off the top of my head I can think of a few things:
- Performance
- Performance
- Performance - Even running on a 2.4GHz duo-core MacBook Pro with 6GB of RAM, this app is the worst performing app I have (and I'm even comparing it to my running Photoshop CS1, which is not an Intel-native app). It's just painful & frustrating to use.
- Another issue related to performance is search time. I would think the incredibly long indexing time (see below) would make this pretty snappy.
Please elaborate what is painful & frustrating, especially repeatable actions.
Logos 4 Mac is usable on older hardware; albeit: need to choose what to do. Wiki Mac Troubleshooting => Slow Performance includes many tips and links for Logos 4 speed usage ideas. Personally have learned to have less open at same time, using several layouts (save and switch as appropriate).
Darren Huckey said:Then there are little things that are annoying, that should work, such as
- Being able to use COMMAND-~ to switch between windows and actually put the front window in focus, rather than having to activate it.
Apologies: using Logos 4.5a Beta 1 on 2.93 GHz i7, am unable to replicate. Can use "Command-` (the Grave accent key--above Tab key on a US English keyboard layout)" to switch between open windows, the window in focus has red, yellow, and green circles in upper left corner. On a MacBook Pro with 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, noticed some lag time with keyboard shortcut to switch windows in Logos 4.5 SR-1
Darren Huckey said:Being able to click into a Bible passage field that is out of focus, rather than having to activate it and then re-click to enter the passage.
Apologies: newer, faster hardware is more responsive. Unable to replicate using 2.93 GHz i7 iMac.
Darren Huckey said:Why does it take Logos an incredibly long amount of time to index my files when I add a 200 page book, when the Finder can index my entire 200GB harddrive in less time?
Intriguing question. Related one is why does Logos 4.5 on Mac take lots longer to rebuild index than Logos 4.5 on PC => Logos 4.5 Beta 12 Library Indexing Speed Regression - Mac is Slow
Darren Huckey said:Why is the File menu such a mess?
Logos User Voice suggestion => Organize files popup by file type, alphabet and recently used has 154 votes.
Thread => Logos 4.5 Release Candidate available includes a Logos developer reply => http://community.logos.com/forums/p/43997/327507.aspx#327507
Bradley Grainger said:There will be one item on the File menu per Notes Document. Creating one per resource may be unwieldy (until the File Menu is improved).
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Darren Huckey said:Hope that gives you some ideas of what I'm talking about.
Thanks; looking forward to more.
Darren Huckey said:Another thing is why do we need to hit the Escape key when we're finished with a note, rather than clicking off, like we can do for a Prayer Request. There should be consistency.
Thanks; personally living and learning. Using escape key with Compact notes is nifty.
Keep Smiling [:)]0 -
Darren Huckey said:
And why can't you hit ESCAPE to escape out of a contextual menu???
[Y] Adding escape to close right click would be appreciated.
Likewise learned escape does not close contextual menu for shortcuts.
Keep Smiling [:)]
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I'd like to be able to hit escape to enter the command box. Currently, the "shortcut" (HA!) involves multiple keys and both hands. Doesn't make it easy to jump in and out of that box... like another program does.
"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected."- G.K. Chesterton
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I understand that power users have some problems with the Mac version.
However, I only use a fraction of what this program has to offer on my MBA and I'm very pleased with the performance of it. The only thing that I can think of to complain about is the lack of ability to remove individual books or sets of books from the drop down menus for bible and commentary selection. I tried the prioritize option but it doesn't always work properly. I also wish that linking more than 2 windows didn't slow the program down so much.
Over all I love this program on the Mac because I don't have to use windows!!!
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Greg M said:
I understand that power users have some problems with the Mac version.
However, I only use a fraction of what this program has to offer on my MBA and I'm very pleased with the performance of it. The only thing that I can think of to complain about is the lack of ability to remove individual books or sets of books from the drop down menus for bible and commentary selection. I tried the prioritize option but it doesn't always work properly. I also wish that linking more than 2 windows didn't slow the program down so much.
Over all I love this program on the Mac because I don't have to use windows!!!
Greg,
And if you play soitaire on your computer you could be happy with the performance of that too... You are missing the point!
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MJD said:
Greg,
And if you play soitaire on your computer you could be happy with the performance of that too... You are missing the point!
Now what kind of comment is that? Of coarse I've read through some of your other comments and this one doesn't surprise me after reading those. You insult or cut down those who don't view things as you do. If you're so disappointed in the Mac version then go back to windows.
Most companies that have windows based programs rarely take the time or expense to develop a Mac version. Most established windows programs that are ported over to Mac don't have the same functions available in the Mac version as they have in the windows version.
You miss my point! I'm happy that Logos decided to make their wonderful program available to those of us that can't stand windows. I also understand that the Mac version may never fully catch up to the windows version. One problem is that Apple continues to change their OS without backwards compatibility and Microsoft doesn't (this is both good and bad). It's looking like it may happen again if the rumors are right.
The Mac version of Logos 4 is a wonderful and VERY useful program just the way it is. Can it be improved? Of coarse and I look forward to the improvements as they come. I'd much rather have a slightly watered down Mac version than a powerful windows version. I strongly dislike when I have to use windows. I do want equality between the Mac and Windows versions but I'm very happy with what I've got in the meantime.
Patience grasshopper or go back to the darkside (windows).
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No Greg, I don't agree. Are you saying I am coarse, of course you are.
I am glad you are enjoying your experience with your MBA. There are many of us that use both Mac and Windows OS.
Hence we can speak about the shortcomings from an INFORMED perspective.
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Jack Caviness said:
Overall, L4 Mac is improving, but the pace of progress is agonizing. It was rather irritating to find that Tom Philpot was pulled off Mac development to work in Proclaim.
Jack, I'm currently helping out with iOS now, but I can assure you that Martin, Grayson and the rest of the Mac devs are making the app better, faster than I ever could. And, Lord willing, I'll be working on the Logos app again at some point. I still watch the forums occasionally and keep up with what is happening in the app.
Mobile Development Team Lead
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Tom Philpot said:
Jack, I'm currently helping out with iOS now, but I can assure you that Martin, Grayson and the rest of the Mac devs are making the app better, faster than I ever could. And, Lord willing, I'll be working on the Logos app again at some point. I still watch the forums occasionally and keep up with what is happening in the app.
Still disappointed that Logos pulled anyone from developing L4 M to another project when L4 M is still anemic is some vital areas.
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Jack Caviness said:Tom Philpot said:
Jack, I'm currently helping out with iOS now, but I can assure you that Martin, Grayson and the rest of the Mac devs are making the app better, faster than I ever could. And, Lord willing, I'll be working on the Logos app again at some point. I still watch the forums occasionally and keep up with what is happening in the app.
Still disappointed that Logos pulled anyone from developing L4 M to another project when L4 M is still anemic is some vital areas.
Tom - I am disappointed too, especially when there is a shortage of developers in the marketplace, and Logos admitted that they were struggling to find qualified developers. [*-)]
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MJD said:
Tom - I am disappointed too, especially when there is a shortage of developers in the marketplace, and Logos admitted that they were struggling to find qualified developers.
We have a lot of projects going on, all of which need developers, not just Mac. Dave Dunkin (Mobile Lead) and I just moved to Mesa, AZ this week to start up an office and hire more developers. We've already hired one and we'll be continuing to interview and find others, in addition to coding.
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