[request] Bradley: Please expose the 'traits' column in collections

Hi Bradley,

I've been doing some digging in catalog.db and realised that the Traits column of the Records table contains some very useful information that power users would like to use when creating collections. For example, the data in the traits column would allow us to create collections of:

  • All our reverse interlinears
  • All the morphologically tagged resources (which a specific morphology)
  • All the resources used in the Illustrations section of the SSG.
  • All the resources that have spoken audio

I'm sure we could find other uses, once we had time to play around with the data.

Perhaps, as an experiment, it might be possible for now, to just allow filtering by that field (i.e. don't change the UI if that's extra work). If people found it useful, it could then be added to the UI later.

For people who are interested, I've posted a list of traits to the Wiki. It only includes traits supported by resources in my library, so it's not complete: http://wiki.logos.com/Traits

This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!

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    Very interesting, Mark.

    has-reverse-interlinear doesn't distinguish those with NT only, for which I have a tag.

    contains-cross-reference-footnotes  would appear to answer a query recently debated!

    equivalent-version:xxxx  has possibilities

    versified-text also has possibilities

    And others which are quite useful.

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

    has-reverse-interlinear doesn't distinguish those with NT only, for which I have a tag.

    True, but you can combine it with supports-lbs-morph+el and supports-lbs-morph+he.

    This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!

    True, but you can combine it with supports-lbs-morph+el and supports-lbs-morph+he.

    Ahh, yes!

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

    Perhaps, as an experiment, it might be possible for now, to just allow filtering by that field (i.e. don't change the UI if that's extra work).

    By "filtering", do you mean extending the query syntax in Library and Collections to search against these values? If so, that's unfortunately not a simple change due to the way the data is stored, and the presence of embedded punctuation characters inside the trait names. 

    Additionally, exposing the internal, undocumented trait names directly to you is probably not the right approach. (We don't make you filter by "text.monograph.dictionary" for example.) It's also not usable by non-English-speaking customers.

    I can understand the desire to be able to filter by these traits so I'll send this thread to our interaction designers to see if we can design what the "right" way to expose this data is.

    By "filtering", do you mean extending the query syntax in Library and Collections to search against these values?

    Yes, that's what I meant — to add a new library filter field called 'traits' or 'trait'.

    Additionally, exposing the internal, undocumented trait names directly to you is probably not the right approach.

    I know that, but I was trying to make your job easier for you [:)] by suggesting you add an undocumented feature that requires no front end changes. If we start doing useful things with it, then perhaps you could add a UI in future releases to widen its appeal.

    If so, that's unfortunately not a simple change due to the way the data is stored, and the presence of embedded punctuation characters inside the trait names

    I know only power users will use this, so forcing us to use quotation marks around the traits is no problem if that's what's needed (although type:bible-commentary works fine). There is a trait column in the Records table already, so it "only" requires you to convert trait:"has-reverse-interlinear" to AND Traits LIKE "%has-reverse-interlinear".

    I can understand the desire to be able to filter by these traits so I'll send this thread to our interaction designers to see if we can design what the "right" way to expose this data is.

    Thanks!

    This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!

    I know that, but I was trying to make your job easier for you Smile by suggesting you add an undocumented feature that requires no front end changes. If we start doing useful things with it, then perhaps you could add a UI in future releases to widen its appeal.

    Unfortunately, undocumented features have a way of becoming critical parts of customers' workflows, preventing us from ever changing them in the future. (I'm guessing you wouldn't be happy if a hypothetical Logos 5.5 took away this feature because of some unrelated internal change, and none of your traits collections worked anymore.) So we would be locked in to supporting whatever 5-minute hack we came up with today to get an undocumented feature in the hands of our power users.

    I know only power users will use this, so forcing us to use quotation marks around the traits is no problem if that's what's needed (although type:bible-commentary works fine). There is a trait column in the Records table already, so it "only" requires you to convert trait:"has-reverse-interlinear" to AND Traits LIKE "%has-reverse-interlinear".

    Library Catalog filtering is not implemented with SQL queries, so "unfortunately [it's] not a simple change".

    Unfortunately, undocumented features have a way of becoming critical parts of customers' workflows, preventing us from ever changing them in the future. (I'm guessing you wouldn't be happy if a hypothetical Logos 5.5 took away this feature because of some unrelated internal change, and none of your traits collections worked anymore.)

    Guilty as charged!

    Library Catalog filtering is not implemented with SQL queries, so "unfortunately [it's] not a simple change".

    That's a surprise, and does put a different complexion on things.

    This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!

    Unfortunately, undocumented features have a way of becoming critical parts of customers' workflows

    That is brilliant [:D]

    I can understand the desire to be able to filter by these traits so I'll send this thread to our interaction designers to see if we can design what the "right" way to expose this data is.

    +1 [Y] for the "right" exposure.  Personally have a variety of tags for morphology and interlinear.

    Keep Smiling [:)]

    I can understand the desire to be able to filter by these traits so I'll send this thread to our interaction designers to see if we can design what the "right" way to expose this data is.

    Here's another real-world example of someone needing this data exposed, that's was asked in the last few days. They wanted to be able to do a morphology search of the NT and LXX simultaneously, so needed a collection for resources with the same morphology. They also wanted to know if there was a version of LXX which had root data.

    This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!

    bump for Verbum collection purposes

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."

    100% behind Marks' traits request

    100% behind Marks' traits request

    Me too, again.  This would be even more helpful in light of resources tagged for specific L6 functions.  Here's an example of where this could be helpful: https://community.logos.com/forums/p/98729/682010.aspx

    Here's another real-world example of someone needing this data exposed, that's was asked in the last few days. They wanted to be able to do a morphology search of the NT and LXX simultaneously, so needed a collection for resources with the same morphology.

    I want to do this type of search quite often. I believe Libronix let you do this with Serial Resource Associations. I set up the LXX and NA27 in Libronix so I could easily jump to a NT or OT verse in Greek.

    I have a similar collection for searching Greek words in the LXX and GNT. I don't see any way to browse through the Greek Bible and jump from Romans to Isaiah as I did in Libronix.

    A minor problem is that Logos sorts the resources in the collection by alphabetical order, so the NT appears before the LXX in the search results. Not an earth shaking problem.

    I want to do this type of search quite often. I believe Libronix let you do this with Serial Resource Associations.

    You can do this in L5/L6 with custom series. However, a resource can only be in one series. Personally, I'd put your my main Greek Bible (NA27/8?) in a series with the Lexham Hebrew Bible, and another Greek Bible (perhaps an interlinear with the interlinear lines turned off) in a series with the Septuagint.

    A minor problem is that Logos sorts the resources in the collection by alphabetical order, so the NT appears before the LXX in the search results. Not an earth shaking problem.

    You could, of course, rename the Greek Bible you use in your Septuagint/NT series.

    This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!

    For example, the data in the traits column would allow us to create collections of:

    • All our reverse interlinears
    • All the morphologically tagged resources (which a specific morphology)
    • All the resources used in the Illustrations section of the SSG.
    • All the resources that have spoken audio

    Dreaming of a Faithlife supported exposure for interlinear(s):

    • Interlinear
    • Reverse
    • Bible Book range

    An interlinear change since this thread began 5 years ago is Logos 8 Basic including free access to many Reverse Interlinear resources.

    Also would appreciate a column showing Morphological tagging in resource that ideally matches Morph Search choices. One change since this thread began is the removal of one Greek Morphology (transitioned to Logos Greek Morphology). Work around for personal tagging is searching all resources for word(s) that frequently occur: e.g. the definite article.

    Like idea of a Library column that shows which resource(s) have their own audio recording (while dreaming of a Hebrew Bible Read Aloud for Lexham Hebrew Morphology)

    Keep Smiling [:)]

    Like idea of a Library column that shows which resource(s) have their own audio recording

    That would be great!

    “The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara

    I uses the trait from the resource metadata API to create search query string by title search. The collection rules are dumped in https://github.com/logos-extras/logos-meta-dump.

    From collection_rules_all.yml I created a bunch of example public collections started with “Collection—”

    And from collection_rules_traits.yml I created a bunch of example public collections started with “Trait—”, which is of interest in this thread. Examples are:

    • Collection Nested—Audio
    • Trait—media-type:audio
    • Trait—audio-target
    • Trait—audio-source
    • Trait—has-reverse-interlinear

    Note that it is not perfect because it is limited by the features Logos currently offered and specifically uses a title search. E.g. ‘Trait—has-reverse-interlinear’ includes “中文聖經和合本修訂版(上帝版.繁體)” for example, although its reverse interlinear feature is still in pre-pub. Not to mention some license that one might not own while owning a title with that name (e.g. one might not own the reverse interlinear license or an audio license.)

    Moreover, title search has some bug (in another thread) and not exact (e.g. different resource of the same title, or one has a longer title including the other might be included as well.)

    But right now, it is the best way one can create collection rules based on trait. For example, if you want to have an OR match on different traits, you can create 3 collections with those trait individually and then apply an OR-collection search, as an example in “Collection Nested—Audio” above.

    Also note that the performance is not great since it is not performing an exact search. But again it is the only way given the current feature available right now. If you own cared resources you own, then you can "collapse" that search by performing a library search and save that result as a collection and it will be collapsed into a collection with "add this resource" only, as noted by Mark from another thread.