Logos 6 Best Feature: NO INDEXING !!!!!!!!!!

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531657#Comment_531657

Would it be an acceptable solution to require an Internet connection for searching to work?

Absolutely NOT

Lynden O. Williams

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531657#Comment_531657

One possibility is to move the index from your computer to our servers (similar to what is done for the mobile apps right now). Would it be an acceptable solution to require an Internet connection for searching to work?

Bradley, you can move the index to the clouds, just allow the user an option. How about a copy is stored in the clouds, and one on the machine (for those of us who do not always have internet on the road), then we can sync the changes.

Sean

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531657#Comment_531657

One possibility is to move the index from your computer to our servers (similar to what is done for the mobile apps right now). Would it be an acceptable solution to require an Internet connection for searching to work?

No, not everyone has internet access all the time (or, good internet access all the time) and that's not likely to change in the next few years at least.

Indexing can be a bit wearying but a) search is much better than it was on Libronix (hit search, go do something else for 10 minutes) and b) there's always the option to pause it.

DAL

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531657#Comment_531657

One possibility is to move the index from your computer to our servers (similar to what is done for the mobile apps right now). Would it be an acceptable solution to require an Internet connection for searching to work?

How would you do that in a desktop? I sure would like for my desktop to index as fast as my iPad. When new books are added or even when I downloaded the Logos app for the first time, indexing was/is lighting fast. I'd say it doesn't even take a minute to index and perform searches on my iPad.

Blessings!

DAL

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531670#Comment_531670

Another option:

would be to have pre-configured indexes for each book and on the server side stitch together custom indexes for each user. Then allow the user to download the stitched together index. Let Logos absorb the time consuming process. It would just cost the user some time before they are notified when the stitched together index is ready for download.

Bruce Dunning

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531657#Comment_531657

Would it be an acceptable solution to require an Internet connection for searching to work?

Personally I don't like this as a solution in light of the times that I don't have access to the internet.

mike

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531657#Comment_531657

I'm sure those smart programmers guys at Logos will know how to fix this (I'm praying for a miracle)

One possibility is to move the index from your computer to our servers (similar to what is done for the mobile apps right now). Would it be an acceptable solution to require an Internet connection for searching to work?

That'd be GREAT!

so we could actually work functional 100% all the time we want & utilize the newest books purchased right instantaneously .

The best part the requirement system for Logos doesn't have to be mid or high, low spec could also run Logos because indexing is run outside (not simultaneously with power-to-search)

Is this something coming soon?

Wild Eagle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531678#Comment_531678

It might be good to have an option to do index locally, or just disable it so it would do through the server. If a computer (like desktop) always uses internet, then why not to use it from the server

Randy W. Sims

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531678#Comment_531678

David Thomas

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531667#Comment_531667

Would it be an acceptable solution to require an Internet connection for searching to work?

Absolutely NOT

I agree with Steve! There are times when I take my Surface into church services where Wi-Fi is unavailable.

Josh

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531678#Comment_531678

The issue isn't on Logos end. It's on our end. We need faster computers. Within the next ten years computers will be so fast that indexing will be almost instantaneous. Ten years ago most people had only 128mb of RAM, now most people have a least 4-8gb of RAM!

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531684#Comment_531684

The issue isn't on Logos end. It's on our end.

i politely disagree.

Virtually every Logos user owns KJV, BKC, and many other common books. Each time a user needs to re-index, this task is duplicated on each user's computer. Such a waste of time. If the books were pre-indexed, then they would not need all this distributed time duplicated.

Wild Eagle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531683#Comment_531683

Would it be an acceptable solution to require an Internet connection for searching to work?

Absolutely NOT

I agree with Steve! There are times when I take my Surface into church services where Wi-Fi is unavailable.

If we would have ability to use icloud indexing, or local indexing then this would not be an issue. You would use it locally, but I would use on one of my computers through iCloud and would not have to download all books. That would save my time and SSD space.

It seems to me that one of the things users were begging for way back when they were knocking corners off the rocks to fashion wheels was that there be an index to speed up searches. Now it appears that some want NO index—go figure.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531707#Comment_531707

Now it appears that some want NO index—go figure.

i think my suggestion was to let Logos build the index once, and we download it. Since we search specific books, each book could have it's own index. With solid-state drives improving and looking to take their place in our future, then accessing individual indexes per searched book would be fast. Plus the indexing crashing problem would go away since Logos builds and tests them for each book, all we have to do is download an index along with each book we get. As it is now, i have had to do a complete re-index in excess of 36 times since '09, which means i have rebuilt the KJV, BKC etc. indexes 36 times and repeatedly wait for repeating such process (you get the idea).

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531709#Comment_531709

Now it appears that some want NO index—go figure.

i think my suggestion was to let Logos build the index once, and we download it. Since we search specific books, each book could have it's own index. With solid-state drives improving and looking to take their place in our future, then accessing individual indexes per searched book would be fast. Plus the indexing crashing problem would go away since Logos builds and tests them for each book, all we have to do is download an index along with each book we get. As it is now, i have had to do a complete re-index in excess of 36 times since '09, which means i have rebuilt the KJV, BKC etc. indexes 36 times and repeatedly wait for repeating such process (you get the idea).

I'm sorry to hear that you've had that problem. My experience has been somewhat different. There is some time after downloading a resource when indexing takes place, but other than that, I think I've perhaps had to re-index once. Who can say why there are such differences from one machine to another? I'm not sure, however that a per book index would be that effective.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531712#Comment_531712

Praise the LORD that you haven't experienced this problem. But do a search on the forum for indexing problems, you will see many of our brother/sisters who have experienced this issue. Plus who knows how many with similar problems have called Logos tech support directly. Again, i am pleased that you haven't had this issue!

Mitchell

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531713#Comment_531713

This problem is really unavoidable. We're using powerful software, we need powerful computers to use it, that's just the facts of life. Nobody expects Photoshop to run seamlessly on a netbook, why should we expect that of Logos?

As mentioned here, there are certainly ways to get the indexing time down, but all of that requires compromises in functionality (either requiring an internet connection, or increasing search times). The devs could (and, I'm sure, do) optimize the code, but that only goes so far.

Do you want to use powerful searches in a brief amount of time? Get a faster computer. That's life.

Allen Browne

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531657#Comment_531657

One possibility is to move the index from your computer to our servers

No! Please don't do that.

I much prefer the current situation.
Running Logos 5 on an SSD, indexing is minimal.

William

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531712#Comment_531712

I just wish there was a way not to always babysit getting updates or books or whatever. I would love it if It would just automatically do everything needed if the computer was on and connected to the net. It would seem like Logos would just send a index of the library to us. it would be better . I mean we may get ugartic vocab with no ugartic books.....but we would never use that part of the index.....

Am I just being a computer neophyte?? I very well could be off my rocker.

Josh

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531715#Comment_531715

This problem is really unavoidable. We're using powerful software, we need powerful computers to use it, that's just the facts of life. Nobody expects Photoshop to run seamlessly on a netbook, why should we expect that of Logos?

As mentioned here, there are certainly ways to get the indexing time down, but all of that requires compromises in functionality (either requiring an internet connection, or increasing search times). The devs could (and, I'm sure, do) optimize the code, but that only goes so far.

Do you want to use powerful searches in a brief amount of time? Get a faster computer. That's life.

[Y] My point exactly.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531709#Comment_531709

Since we search specific books,

I rarely use a search against a single book ... not to mention that I heavily search collections in My Passage Guide.

Virtually every Logos user owns KJV, BKC, and many other common books.

Ofter because they were included in base packages, not because of frequency of user.

-----

Okay folks, now add into your equation the indexing of all the personal documents and PB's ... remembering that, at this time, the PB's are not even synced.

mab

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531722#Comment_531722

Indexing gets shorter if you have lots of RAM and/or an SSD. You can access most books in Logos on Biblia right after your purchase.

There's still a whole lot you can do while your computer is indexing. It's still a whole lot faster than the typical defrag drive process times.

Fr Devin Roza

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531725#Comment_531725

Please don't require Internet access. Indexing isn't that big of a deal, especially as SSDs become more popular.

Paul-C

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531657#Comment_531657

One possibility is to move the index from your computer to our servers (similar to what is done for the mobile apps right now). Would it be an acceptable solution to require an Internet connection for searching to work?

Suspect this would be disastrous for missionaries in remote areas too.

My mileage varies. Blessed to have a quick SSD and fast Internet connection (with no download limits) at home and in the office. I'd rather leave things the way they are than lose the ability to have full functionality when off-line.

That said, if Logos found a way to avoid indexing but preserve the full functionality of its software with or without an Internet connection - go for it! [:)]

Benjamin Varghese

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531729#Comment_531729

With Mobile Apps using Cloud based index, this an be easily made an option for users of the desktop app. I suppose that local indexing as an option can be still preserved until such a time the world catches up on internet.

An additional option can be the ability to keep only needed resources locally and the rest on the cloud, like the mobile apps.

That way, downloads and indexing can be minimal and to the liking of the end-user as opposed to the current all or none philosophy.

Currently with regular purchases an updates my laptop grinds daily

Bohuslav Wojnar

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531722#Comment_531722

Okay folks, now add into your equation the indexing of all the personal documents and PB's ... remembering that, at this time, the PB's are not even synced.

Exactly!

As for me, I will rather index every day [:O] but be able to use my Logos without being dependent on Internet. This was one of the things discussed widely at the time of Logos 4 launch. Offline full functionality of Logos is a must IMHO.

NB.Mick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531715#Comment_531715

Nobody expects Photoshop to run seamlessly on a netbook, why should we expect that of Logos?

Very true. Actually Logos runs much better on my Acer Extensa than Photoshop: in order to somewhat "work" with a long outdated, XP-compatible version of Photoshop (CS 2), I need to shut down everything else on my computer including outlook, browser, resident virus scanner, screen capture, printer management etc. (who all run happily alongside Logos).

What this thread tells is that people in different circumstances might need different options: Users with a big fat new machine but a limited or expensive internet connection may want to index themselves, whereas users with a smaller/older machine but an unlimited internet connection will prefer to either download precompiled indexes or to access those on-the-fly. Users with permanent high-speed internet access but limited storage space (due to old hardware or a small SD) may want to go without downloaded indexes - or downloaded resources they rarely use - whereas this "mobile-app-like" usage seems out of question for most here.

I think the best way to go for Logos is to make the various options available in a configurable way.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531719#Comment_531719

I just wish there was a way not to always babysit getting updates or books or whatever. I would love it if It would just automatically do everything needed if the computer was on and connected to the net. It would seem like Logos would just send a index of the library to us. it would be better . I mean we may get ugartic vocab with no ugartic books.....but we would never use that part of the index.....

Am I just being a computer neophyte?? I very well could be off my rocker.

[:D] Just being serious JOKING [:D]

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531712#Comment_531712

Now it appears that some want NO index—go figure.

i think my suggestion was to let Logos build the index once, and we download it. Since we search specific books, each book could have it's own index. With solid-state drives improving and looking to take their place in our future, then accessing individual indexes per searched book would be fast. Plus the indexing crashing problem would go away since Logos builds and tests them for each book, all we have to do is download an index along with each book we get. As it is now, i have had to do a complete re-index in excess of 36 times since '09, which means i have rebuilt the KJV, BKC etc. indexes 36 times and repeatedly wait for repeating such process (you get the idea).

In essence this would be a reversion to Libronix because its lbxlls resource format (still with us!) includes the book's index! However, searching those indexes was slow and competitor's products searched at lightning speed. So we (users) demanded and got a centralised Index of all our books. Logos improved the efficiency and speed over time but also introduced a separate index for Bibles** on the basis of efficiency. These books are thus indexed twice but I can't detect any benefit in search speed++ whilst indexing is measurably longer.

Logos could remove the Bible Index and also be much smarter about scheduling resource updates. Users can reduce aggravation by allowing updates to queue for a while by setting Automatically Download Updates = NO!

** and language resources with morphology.

++ run a search for God using <lemma = lbs/he/אֱלֹהִים> OR <lemma = lbs/el/θεός> in ESV (or favourite RI) in Bible, Morph, Basic (All text) and Basic (Bible Text). Bible and Morph use the Bible Index whilst Basic uses the much larger Library Index. The second & subsequent search will benefit from the first so restart Logos before each search. Morph or Bible are expected to be faster as they don't have to check if searching in Bible text, unlike Basic (Bible Text), and the Index is much smaller.

JoshInRI

Not complaining...seriously....but I have noticed a preponderance of indexing that takes 4 hours messages lately myself too.

I need to leave my old pc going longer I guess.

Blessings / Joshua

Paul-C

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531770#Comment_531770

Not complaining...seriously....but I have noticed a preponderance of indexing that takes 4 hours messages lately myself too.

I've noticed that the recent updates have taken a lot longer to index than normal.

I'd put this down to the fact that Logos updated so many RIs and Bibles in one go, which I assumed take longer to index than other book types because of all the tags?

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531774#Comment_531774

I've noticed that the recent updates have taken a lot longer to index than normal.

I'd put this down to the fact that Logos updated so many RIs and Bibles in one go, which I assumed take longer to index than other book types because of all the tags?

See? I've been trying to tell everyone that RIs are bad. Now will you believe me? [;)]

abondservant

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531709#Comment_531709

I would not like the index being stored on the cloud. My internet connection can be quite weak at times. My desktop is not a slow machine, the SSD can handle any indexing you want to throw at it.

Alternatively - since most of my updates happen at night while I sleep, why not just allow people to have the option to also download the index? Not a book by book index, but a large centralized delta-updated index.

Delta updating iirc is when only the new parts are appended to the end. Its a system used in antivirus technologies.

So if the index was ABCDE, but you downloaded three new books today (which are represented by FGH) So instead of downloading ABCDEFGH, you simply download FGH and append it to the end of your existing index (ABCDE) for the net result of having index ABCDEFGH.

Make sense?

Bob Pritchett

this constant indexing really cripple my computer and my life

Mike, just curious... are you on Windows or a Mac?

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531765#Comment_531765

Reading Australian Dave's initial comment, there's somewhat of an epiphany of sorts. '... and competitors searched at lightning speeds.'

I'm pretty much burned out on the question. I downloaded A-Company, it installed. It allowed me to select which books I wanted on my PC. And I started working. It was only later that I remembered I hadn't 'watched the videos' or 'signed up for Camp Accordance' or .... 'indexed'. Indeed I'm not sure whether they have a manual or a forum (I guess they probably do).

All the hand-wringing to try to defend the current process is just that.

Bob Pritchett

Back in 2009 we posted a lot of technical info on why indexing 'is what it is.' While there may still be some room to optimize, a large part of the required time is literally required in order to do what we do.

Everybody has hundreds (or thousands) of different books making up their library. The permutations of ownership of 36,000 different books make it impossible to store every possible index and then just download it. While people who buy the same base package, and nothing else, in the same window of a few months might all have the same index, that's still a lot of combinations, and within a very short time someone will add a book and then need their own special index.

We can't just index each book separately, because if we did A) ranked results across your library would be impossible to compute with any accuracy, and we'd have to search each book, dramatically increasing the number of seeks on your hard drive.

Physical hard drives are much faster reading in sequence than 'seeking' to new locations. Wikipedia reports an average of 9 milliseconds for a seek on a desktop hard drive. That means that to load hits for "term" we have to spend 9 ms just getting to the list of hits, which can then be read continuously from that location. If you have 1,000 separate books with 1,000 separate pre-built indices, that'll be 9 ms x 1,000 = 9 seconds just in hard drive seek. Even super-smart coding can't argue with physics. And worse, you can't find the location of the hits in a single seek -- that seek just gets you there. You have to do other seeks (at least one) to load the index of where the term's hit lists are.

So we build a single index of your library -- but building that index involves 'reading' every book and storing the hits. We can use more memory to minimize seeks for writing the index file, but it's still going to take a lot.

This is why SSD's make a huge difference -- much faster seeking. (None, really -- it's direct access to memory.)

So how does Google be so fast even over the Internet?

A) Google has only one index for the whole Internet, not a separate index for every permutation of books a user owns. (We could pre-build a single index of all 36,000 books, but for most of you we'd keep returning results in books you don't own. Filtering out the books you don't own would slow you down. And you might not want us to re-download that multi-gig index to your hard drive every night as new books are released. We could leave it on the Internet, but then you'd have to be online.) Which leads to...

Google makes you use an index in the cloud, and does not support off-line use, like we do.

C) Google never 'seeks.' Google stores the entire index to the Internet in memory. Lots of memory. On lots of computers. Using lots of power. "Build my data center next to the dam" kind of power.

It's possible we could hand-optimize our indexing process and squeeze 10% or more out of it. (I'm not sure, but it's possible -- anything is possible.) But that's 6 minutes out of an hour, and may be literally the end of what we could do without changing behavior / functionality.

But laptops are quickly moving to SSDs, and there you'll see much bigger improvements than code will ever offer. If you're on a desktop, adding an SSD as an extra drive, and then moving resources and indexing there, is another option.

Sorry I don't have an easy solution, like "Bradley, stay up all night and optimize this!". :-) But I hope the explanation helps...

-- Bob

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2048120/benchmarks-dont-lie-ssd-upgrades-deliver-huge-performance-gains.html

Randy W. Sims

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531791#Comment_531791

Is it possible to better hide indexing? Smoke & mirrors. Find a way to make it more invisible, more transparent? Push it further into the background, an indexing service that is separated from resource downloads (which in turn could be given more user control, what downloads and when, etc). Download now. Make it available now for reading. But the indexer does it's magic in the background later, tonight, or next week. I imagine that would be quite a re-working, but it might be easier than trying to squeeze out optimizations. Sometimes illusions are more useful than realities.

Rich DeRuiter

this constant indexing really cripple my computer and my life regardless whether I change the schedule of updates in setting or not.

When it gets in the way of doing my work, I hit the "Pause indexing for 4 hours" option and then start indexing over lunch, or supper, or some other time when I'm away from the computer. Really, unless you need to do heavy searching in the resource you just downloaded, it isn't necessary to index it right away.

On the other hand, the index is what makes searches work. Logos won't work without an index. If we want large libraries and quick searches, indexes are as necessary as a card catalogue (or a computerized inventory) in a large library. You can find things without it, but...

What could be done, though, is to rework the way indexing happens. And actually indexing is much faster now than it was when Logos4 was first released. However, I think it could be further streamlined by doing things like running at the lowest priority (on Windows) for certain kinds of resources (like Vyrso books), or for single resource updates (except for Bibles, Lexicons & Commentaries?). I would think this option (tiered indexing priority) may have some merit. It may also be possible to streamline the indexing process itself. This is not at all a simple task, but I'd be surprised if this doesn't get studied from time to time.

Another thought is to have a "Download anytime," along with a "Schedule indexing for later" command. It would also be helpful to automate the indexing command to run automatically with a "Download later" command (this was suggested in another thread). That way we could set our Logos to update at 5pm (or whenever we typically walk away from our work computer for the day), and know that when we return in the morning, it will have updated and indexed and we could hit the ground running.

Really, this past month the indexing is just waaaaaaaaaay too much.. I really couldn't use the computer & I always play the waiting game whenever I want to use Logos.

There were some major updates to the RI and some other critical resources this month that required some heavy duty indexing. There were also problems with the way that update was released that caused multiple update sessions instead of one major one. But the pace and size of updates we experienced this month is not typical. We could ask Logos to stop updating our resources, but I don't think most users would want that (I know I wouldn't).

What if I buy 1-2 books everyday & want to read those right away.. I HAVE to index all the time???

No you don't need to index the book to read it. You only need to index it if you want to included it in a "Basic" (AKA Library) search.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531657#Comment_531657

I'm sure those smart programmers guys at Logos will know how to fix this (I'm praying for a miracle)

One possibility is to move the index from your computer to our servers (similar to what is done for the mobile apps right now). Would it be an acceptable solution to require an Internet connection for searching to work?

What if Logos would build one large index for all the books in there data base? Then it would just have to be down-loaded as it changes. This would greatly reduce the time compared to indexing on our much slower computers. [Assuming Logos has some real speed demons [6] they use.] There would have to be changes to check what books each user has purchased in the search routine. Just build a filter to drop the un-purchased books so they don't show in the search results. We could even have an option to see a small part of what is available in other un-purchased books. Which may increase sales for Logos! [:$]

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531800#Comment_531800

What if Logos would build one large index for all the books in there data base? Then it would just have to be down-loaded as it changes.

You mean every day? While I may not receive new resources every day, something is generally being released every day.

Francis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531797#Comment_531797

Thank you, Bob, for once again, coming in to provide explanations.

I too find the frequency, length and computer slowdown caused by indexing tedious. I like Randy's direction of thinking. It is nice to be able to postpone indexing but perhaps it would be better to be able to prioritize or "send to background" (where we understand it will take more time but will have little effect on computer performance). If someone is in a hurry to have new resources indexed and searchable, the prioritize functionality could be invoked. If it's just regular updates, perhaps it does not need to be so demanding all the time. I know there are other programs that have options to do the background maintenance work with CPU usage is below a certain percentage.

I don't have any complaint about the frequency of downloads. I understand and appreciate the constant work of updating resources. So mere frequency is not the issue when it comes to indexing. The real problem is how it affects usage given that it is both slow and demanding on computer resources.

Perhaps this will become a non-issue once SSD becomes everyone's lot, but we are far from being there yet.

Here is a question about the suggestion of an online index that was made earlier. Does it have to be either/or (online or offline)? Can it be both? In other words, when working "online" can the desktop software call on the online index while indexing in the background for whenever offline use might come into play? I confess freely that I have no idea of what's under the hood, so it's just an idea, nothing more.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531804#Comment_531804

What if Logos would build one large index for all the books in there data base? Then it would just have to be down-loaded as it changes.

You mean every day? While I may not receive new resources every day, something is generally being released every day.

Yes! A zipped index would not be that bad to down load.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531808#Comment_531808

Or allow us to down load once a week as an option or when we purchase new books or when there are considerable changes in the books we own.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531809#Comment_531809

Or allow us to down load once a week as an option.

Why not simply postpone indexing until you go to bed. In the meantime you can read your books, but searches involving any new additions will be a bit iffy.