BUG: (5.1 RC-3, old bug, not a regression) Prioritizations ignored in command box dropdown list

Rosie Perera
Rosie Perera Member Posts: 26,194 ✭✭✭✭✭

When you try to open a book by typing its title into the command box, the list of matches there takes no account of prioritizations, which is unfortunate. I've prioritized the Battles translation of Calvin's Institutes, for example, and I would want that one (not any of the several other editions in my Library) to show up at the top of the list.

But in fact, it's last:

Maybe this isn't technically a "bug" in behavior that was meant to work the way I expect it and isn't working right. More likely it was just an oversight in the design, and the logic to do this was never thought up or implemented. But I think it should be. I'm reporting it as a bug rather than a suggestion. It appears to be a malfunction to any intelligent user who knows the product fairly well.

A related bug/oversight which was fixed recently in this code, which gives me hope that you'll also see this as something worthy of fixing (even if it's deferred to a later release because of where we are in this release cycle):

http://community.logos.com/forums/t/68047.aspx

Comments

  • Jack Caviness
    Jack Caviness MVP Posts: 13,636

    I'm reporting it as a bug rather than a suggestion. It appears to be a malfunction to any intelligent user who knows the product fairly well.

    Agreed. Thank you for reporting this.

  • Rich DeRuiter
    Rich DeRuiter MVP Posts: 6,729

    Maybe this isn't technically a "bug" in behavior that was meant to work the way I expect it and isn't working right.

    I agree that it should work the way you suggest. It appears to list in alphabetical order (which also makes sense, though prioritized should come first IMHO).

    In the meantime, if you give it a short title, you can type that into the command bar instead. For example, give it the short title ICR-Battles (Institutes of the Christian Religion - Battles). Type the short title into the command bar and that's the one that comes up. This works for other ambiguous titles as well.

    If you wanted you could edit the title itself, remove the "Volumes 1&2" and replace that with "Battles," then edit the other one and add "Beveridge" to the end of the title. This can work with other resources that have very similar or identical titles.

    I also notice that if I type "Battles" in the command bar, his translation comes up first. But that may be more related to my library not having a title that precedes that alphabetically.

    BTW, It looks like you may have 4 sets of the Institutes, one of which is the Battles translation (the one with "Volume 1 &2" in the title). I found I had 2 copies of the Beveridge translation. One of them is a legacy version, that I just hid. I don't need two copies of the Beveridge edition, when I'm not even sure I need one. Not sure what that 4th one might be.

     Help links: WIKI;  Logos 6 FAQ. (Phil. 2:14, NIV)

  • Mark Barnes
    Mark Barnes Member Posts: 15,432 ✭✭✭

    Prioritisation can't be taken into consideration here, because Logos doesn't know what datatype you're concerned about. This list ranks by relevancy and recency. If you choose Battle's translation, then later typed in exactly the same entry in the command box, then Battle's would be at the top.

    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!

  • Mark Barnes
    Mark Barnes Member Posts: 15,432 ✭✭✭

    Not sure what that 4th one might be.

    I have translations from Norton, Allen, Beveridge and Battles. The first three all came as part of the Calvin set.

    <edit>Unless Rosie's renamed her copies, that's not the case for her. Norton's translation is called "The institution of Christian relgion".</edit>

    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!

  • Rosie Perera
    Rosie Perera Member Posts: 26,194 ✭✭✭✭✭

    In the meantime, if you give it a short title, you can type that into the command bar instead.

    Yes, I know. I did that as a workaround for now. Actually I just called it "Battles" and then I can type calvin battles (I discovered you can combine words from the full title and short title when you type in the command box, and it will match). I never remember clever shortcuts like the one you suggested. Actually "Calvin battles" is a pretty good description of the book, because he spends large sections of it defending his theology against all sorts of opponents. [:)]

    If you wanted you could edit the title itself, remove the "Volumes 1&2" and replace that with "Battles," then edit the other one and add "Beveridge" to the end of the title. This can work with other resources that have very similar or identical titles.

    That's a good idea.

    I also notice that if I type "Battles" in the command bar, his translation comes up first. But that may be more related to my library not having a title that precedes that alphabetically.

    Yeah, that works for me too.

    What, you mean you don't have The Battles of the British Expeditionary Forces, 1914-1915 in your library? [;)]

    BTW, It looks like you may have 4 sets of the Institutes, one of which is the Battles translation (the one with "Volume 1 &2" in the title). I found I had 2 copies of the Beveridge translation. One of them is a legacy version, that I just hid. I don't need two copies of the Beveridge edition, when I'm not even sure I need one. Not sure what that 4th one might be.

    The other one is the John Allen translation (1816). It came with the Calvin 500 bundle.

    I'm having a hard time telling which of the two Beveridge editions is the "legacy" version:

    The one I had first, which I acquired as part of the Logos Series X Scholar's base package, lists publication date 1997 (that's what Logos did the digital book no doubt, but I dislike it when they use that as the publication date of an older work like this). When I look inside it looks very old indeed. There is no publication date shown inside, but there are a few dates mentioned in the preface: 1581,1599, 1845, 1866, and 1947. So it looks like that print edition might have been published after 1947 (unless that 1947 was in a parenthetical comment added by Logos during digitization; they did write a special Preface to the digital edition so I wouldn't put it past them).

    The other one, which came with the Calvin 500 bundle, has a publication date of 1845. But it looks much nicer, has a picture of Calvin inside and better formatting. That's the one I'd want to keep if I keep any Beveridge version. The John Allen one I'm going to hide.

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 36,339

    Prioritisation can't be taken into consideration here, because Logos doesn't know what datatype you're concerned about. This list ranks by relevancy and recency. If you choose Battle's translation, then later typed in exactly the same entry in the command box, then Battle's would be at the top.

    The disadvantage is having a resource listed first when it was just opened! Relevancy (if that is what it is) results in some unexpected choices e.g. if I just type Calvin, I only get five of his "Commentary on" books to open,  not "Commentaries on", nor the Institutes.

    When you try to open a book by typing its title into the command box, the list of matches there takes no account of prioritizations.

    It might be easy to suggest Prioritization but that ignores the fact that you are trying to open a specific resource and will only get a maximum of five results from the library catalog i.e. it may not list the one you want. In the example above I needed to be more specific and type Calvin Commentaries.  If that isn't sufficient I need to type more information or fix Titles/Short titles to get what I want with the least amount of typing, OR type the same info into Library to get a more complete list, including metadata.

    I have duplicate titles with the Beveridge translation of Institutes (and you might have a similar situation with "The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge") so I will consider hiding the "original" edition as the "Electronic" edition has an extra system of footnotes.

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

  • Todd Phillips
    Todd Phillips Member Posts: 6,736 ✭✭✭

    I'm having a hard time telling which of the two Beveridge editions is the "legacy" version:

    The one I had first, which I acquired as part of the Logos Series X Scholar's base package, lists publication date 1997 (that's what Logos did the digital book no doubt, but I dislike it when they use that as the publication date of an older work like this). When I look inside it looks very old indeed. There is no publication date shown inside, but there are a few dates mentioned in the preface: 1581,1599, 1845, 1866, and 1947. So it looks like that print edition might have been published after 1947 (unless that 1947 was in a parenthetical comment added by Logos during digitization; they did write a special Preface to the digital edition so I wouldn't put it past them).

    The other one, which came with the Calvin 500 bundle, has a publication date of 1845. But it looks much nicer, has a picture of Calvin inside and better formatting. That's the one I'd want to keep if I keep any Beveridge version.

    I'm having a hard time hiding the older Beveridge resource because it has:

    • an introduction by John Murray. 
    • hot-linked list of chapter sections at the beginning of each chapter.  
    • decimal chapter numbering instead of Roman numerals (Roman numerals make the TOC sidebar more cluttered) 
    • additional footnotes by Robert J. Dunzweiler

    The newer Beveridge has none these, whereas it does have:

    • more concise formatting (smaller headings and fewer blank lines)
    • a couple pictures of Calvin.
    • facsimiles of title-pages of the earlier Editions of the Institutions of the Christian Religion

    Hmm.  I'm almost inclined to hide the newer resource.

    MacBook Pro (2019), ThinkPad E540

  • fgh
    fgh Member Posts: 8,948 ✭✭✭

    I actually brought this up in the thread you're linking to (maybe you saw it, and just wanted to give it more visibility?). 

    In the meantime, if you give it a short title, you can type that into the command bar instead.

    Good luck! http://community.logos.com/forums/p/68047/483030.aspx#483030 

    This list ranks by relevancy and recency.

    If it did, I wouldn't get results like http://community.logos.com/forums/p/68047/486806.aspx#486806.

    Mac Pro (late 2013) OS 12.6.2

  • Mark Barnes
    Mark Barnes Member Posts: 15,432 ✭✭✭

    fgh said:

    This list ranks by relevancy and recency.

    If it did, I wouldn't get results like http://community.logos.com/forums/p/68047/486806.aspx#486806.

    I didn't say the algorithm for determining relevancy was any good, but it is relevancy and recency. The first five hits in your library (when you sort by rank) will almost always be the same as those in the command box. (Not always, because your library searches all the fields, whereas the command box is only title, short title and author.)

    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!