Help with a Topic search please.

Hi, I've just done a basic topic search for 'Simeon' having clicked the magnifying glass icon to start a search. I've also configured it to search my entire library. Yes, I get loads of search results, but in the top Topic Section I only have the one highlighted dictionary (The New Bible Dictionary), BUT I have many dictionaries with 'Simeon sections' - shouldn't these be listed there? And if so - why aren't they?

Many thanks.

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TCBlack

Mine is a bit more full, but I'm not convinced that all of it is there either. of course I haven't checked against it. It could be an issue of proper topic tagging (or even of indexing?).

I can't offer any sound reasons Stephen, but those are my best guesses.

spitzerpl

What happens if you click on the "Search for ("Simeon", "Symeon") instead?" Link? Here are the options I have...

Robert Pavich

Stephen,

Off hand I'd guess that you need to prioritize your other bible dictionaries...

the other thing that I'd recommend is that you make a collection for this type of of search

Here is an easy way to make a collection of bible dictionaries: (I just used the titles)

Then when you search; you get much more relevant hits than searching your whole library.

Notice that Simeon is the topic of a lot of these hits..

Stephen Thorp

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/53978#Comment_53978

Thanks everybody for your suggestions. I've tried everything suggested and nothing has worked, apart from Robert's suggestion of creating a collection which is a good 'work aroiund' but the fact remains that the dictionaries are still not showing in the 'Look it up' section of the Topic section.

Do you think a complete re-indexing of Logos 4 will solve the issue and how do I go about forcing a completely fresh index rather than a merged one?

Stephen

TCBlack

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54129#Comment_54129

Do you think a complete re-indexing of Logos 4 will solve the issue and how do I go about forcing a completely fresh index rather than a merged one?

I can only guess that it might and it might not.

The only way to reindex in L4sr7 is to delete (or rename) the index file. But in the beta you can issue a "rebuild index" command in the command box.

Stephen Thorp

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54137#Comment_54137

Thanks Thomas.

I'm not using the beta as I've always been a bit nervous about trying such things - perhaps I should give it a go? Or wait for the next upgrade which hopefully won't be too long. Appreciate the help.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54145#Comment_54145

Stephen,

For some reason, dictionaries have to be especially tagged before they will appear in the topic search. Logos employee Sean Boisen has attempted to explain why. More are tagged in that way now then when Logos was first released, so you'll need to update resources if you don't do that automatically.

Anyway, unless you have resources which are showing in other people's "Simeon" searches, but not in yours, it's not an indexing problem. FWIW, I see the following:

Stephen Thorp

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54153#Comment_54153

BRILLIANT! Thanks Mark that was really helpful and has put my mind to rest - for a moment I thought my Logos was broken and metaphorically and literally I can't afford that!! Guess I just don't have as many of the tagged dictionaries as the rest of you!

Sean Boisen

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54172#Comment_54172

Mark hit the nail on the head. We're going through Bible dictionaries and similar kinds of resources, and organizing them into the new Logos 4 topics, but that's on-going work that only covers seven dictionaries at present: New Bible Dictionary, Eerdman's Bible Dictionary, Eerdman's Dictionary of the Bible, Tyndale Bible Dictionary, Bake, ISBE, and Anchor-Yale Bible Dictionary. Only articles from those resources will show up in the Topics section for now.

There have been quite a few comments on the forums about how topics work in Logos 4. I'm definitely interested in further feedback, but i'd suggest first reviewing what's already there to avoid rehashing well-trod ground (i've already had an earful [:)] ). The "topics" tag will catch many of those previous posts: http://community.logos.com/forums/tags/topics/default.aspx.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54172#Comment_54172

Guess I just don't have as many of the tagged dictionaries as the rest of you!

That said, you can pick up that entry in many other Bible Dictionaries if you use the Right and Left Arrow keys starting from any listed dictionary.

I had 4 listed but found entries in 10 others!

Stephen Thorp

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54452#Comment_54452

Thanks everyone for your help, and thanks Sean for responding on behalf of Logos - I didn't mean to give you 'another earfull'. Just for the record I did search the forums for an answer but didn't spot the thread that Mark kindly directed me to.. There's an awful lot of stuff contained within the forums but finding it isn't always easy. Cheers!

Robert Pavich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54514#Comment_54514

Did you notice?

Now, when you do this search:

topic: simeon

You get only topics from your bible dictionaries and not all of the "surface text" hits?

THIS:

VS THIS:

Robert Pavich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54561#Comment_54561

Additional comment to my last post...

Actually having both of these options

topic: word

and

word

is a good thing....that way you can zero in on actual topics when you want, and search more "peripheral" mentions of the word if you want to....

Stephen Thorp

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54563#Comment_54563

Thanks Robert. I didn't know this, so that's very helpful!

Robert Pavich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54568#Comment_54568

Thanks Robert. I didn't know this, so that's very helpful!

Thank YOU for starting this thread...I had no idea this was in place until now either!!

Thanks Logos for listening (but not to me...I didn't see that it would be that vaulable until now...) [:$]

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54569#Comment_54569

Thanks Robert. I didn't know this, so that's very helpful!

Thank YOU for starting this thread...I had no idea this was in place until now either!!

Thanks Logos for listening (but not to me...I didn't see that it would be that vaulable until now...)

Sorry to rain on the party, but they're not listening (or at least they might be listening, but haven't done anything). It's always worked that way. There is no search term "topic", except in one or two very old LLS resources. But whilst the entire library tries to use the search field (and therefore returns zero results) the 'topic' search ignores the search field, which makes it look as though it's doing a topic search.

So bible:Simeon returns a 'topic' search too, as does not-a-search-term:Simeon

Robert Pavich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54622#Comment_54622

Sorry to rain on the party, but they're not listening (or at least they might be listening, but haven't done anything). So bible:Simeon returns a 'topic' search too, as does not-a-search-term:Simeon

Mark,

There seems to be a miscommunication....

Quoting Sean above:

We're going through Bible dictionaries and similar kinds of resources, and organizing them into the new Logos 4 topics, but that's on-going work that only covers seven dictionaries at present: New Bible Dictionary, Eerdman's Bible Dictionary, Eerdman's Dictionary of the Bible, Tyndale Bible Dictionary, Bake, ISBE, and Anchor-Yale Bible Dictionary. Only articles from those resources will show up in the Topics section for now.

Also, when you use "topics:word" you ONLY get topically tagged resources...not your whole library....and the hits within them are not "highlighted" like a regular search...

Topical: only returns topically tagged resources even though WHOLE LIBRARY was selected

Same search without using "topic:" returns WHOLE LIBRARY results....

This isn't the way it's always worked that I can recall....

Sean, can you verify?

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54626#Comment_54626

Sean said:

Somebody mentioned using topic:someterm in search, but that doesn't seem to behave as i'd expect if it were really searching topics. I'll inquire further.

Then he later said:

BTW, while i'm not sure yet what the search syntax "topic:Gentiles" means, it doesn't do a "topic search" in the L3 sense: that's incorrect information from some earlier posts about topics. If you want to find the (new style) topic, just search for "Gentiles". If there's a topic, you'll see a Topic section in the Passage Guide: otherwise you won't.

My reply that follows that last citation from Sean demonstrates exactly the functionality you're describing above, and is from a month ago.

Sean went on to say:

A better statement on my part would have been "what topic:XXX does isn't very predictable". A few resources have been tagged in such a way that this finds the tags (note this is now a _third_ sense of "topic", different from new-style Logos 4 topics, and different from matching strings!), but most have not. So it's not a reliable way to find topics (in whatever sense one means) in your library.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54622#Comment_54622

I'm also not happy with the way the TOPIC section works. It's very misleading to return a TOPIC result when performing a Field search eg. words-of-christ:simeon means I only want Library results for words-of-christ in a bible. You'll get exactly the same TOPIC result for topic:simeon, but as Mark says the topic field is only found in a few resources and its Library results are not true TOPICs. I'm going to file a bug report.

EDIT: If the topic: field search was able to return true TOPICs then we wouldn't be having this debate. The L3 topic search was topic(simeon), which also returned much better results than topic:simeon but L4 is trying to provide more accurate results than topic(simeon). But I'm not convinced that a Basic Search on a single word is the best way to return TOPICs eg. (simeon AND son) does not return TOPICs.

Robert Pavich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54633#Comment_54633

A better statement on my part would have been "what topic:XXX does isn't very predictable". A few resources have been tagged in such a way that this finds the tags (note this is now a _third_ sense of "topic", different from new-style Logos 4 topics, and different from matching strings!), but most have not. So it's not a reliable way to find topics (in whatever sense one means) in your library.

thanks for clarifying....much appreciated..

Robert Pavich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54641#Comment_54641

Are you saying (Mark and Dave) that you ONLY want topical hits showing when you do a "topical search" using the topic:word syntax?

Robert Pavich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54641#Comment_54641

EDIT: If the topic: field search was able to return true TOPICs then we wouldn't be having this debate. The L3 topic search was topic(simeon), which also returned much better results than topic:simeon but L4 is trying to provide more accurate results than topic(simeon). But I'm not convinced that a Basic Search on a single word is the best way to return TOPICs eg. (simeon AND son) does not return TOPICs.

I just don't think I understand.... [:$]

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54651#Comment_54651

I just don't think I understand....

That's why I want to dispel the notion that topic:simeon has anything to do with obtaining true TOPICs, so the only result you get is a map of a place called Simeon!

I'd also like Logos to have a more explicit Topic Search along with Basic Search, Bible Search etc. so that we don't get distracting results from the Library!

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54651#Comment_54651

OK, here's my understanding, pieceing together Sean's posts and the various user requests.

Logos 3 did not have a true concept of topics. Confusingly, however, we all thought it did and you could search for topic(searchterm).
In Logos 3 searching for topic(searchterm) actually searched the headings of Logos resources, and therefore worked quite well as a topic search, particularly when searching journals or dictionaries.
In Logos 4, a true concept of topics has been introduced. Articles in certain resources (such as dictionaries) are especially tagged with topic information. This topic list is controlled by Logos, to ensure consistency between resources. Unfortunately very few resources are currently tagged in this way.
In Logos 4 there is no way to specify a topic search. It happens automatically when you do a basic search.
Very frustratingly however, the headings tagging that masqueraded as topics in Logos 3 still exists in Logos 4, but you can't (easily) search it. This is what users are complaining about so much.
- If you look at most dictionary-type resources there is an index of headwords. BUT YOU CAN'T SEARCH IT.
- Every resource also has a contents pane which records the headings from the outline/table of contents. BUT YOU CAN'T SEARCH IT.
So, users are:
- Glad to hear the Logos 4 will improve topic searching by introducing true topics.
- Utterly bewildered that we cannot search headwords of dictionaries and the table of contents of resources, which would cover the current deficiencies in true Logos 4 topic data.
So, all we want is to be able to restrict a search to just headwords and table of contents headings.

Robert Pavich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54652#Comment_54652

I just don't think I understand....

That's why I want to dispel the notion that topic:simeon has anything to do with obtaining true TOPICs, so the only result you get is a map of a place called Simeon!

but Dave...I DID get TOPICAL (and not surface hits) dictionary results for "Simeon".... [:P]

Robert Pavich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54653#Comment_54653

OK, here's my understanding, pieceing together Sean's posts and the various user requests.

Logos 3 did not have a true concept of topics. Confusingly, however, we all thought it did and you could search for topic(searchterm).

In Logos 3 searching for topic(searchterm) actually searched the headings of Logos resources, and therefore worked quite well as a topic search, particularly when searching journals or dictionaries.

In Logos 4, a true concept of topics has been introduced. Articles in certain resources (such as dictionaries) are especially tagged with topic information. This topic list is controlled by Logos, to ensure consistency between resources. Unfortunately very few resources are currently tagged in this way.

In Logos 4 there is no way to specify a topic search. It happens automatically when you do a basic search.

Very frustratingly however, the headings tagging that masqueraded as topics in Logos 3 still exists in Logos 4, but you can't (easily) search it. This is what users are complaining about so much.
If you look at most dictionary-type resources there is an index of headwords. BUT YOU CAN'T SEARCH IT.

Every resource also has a contents pane which records the headings from the outline/table of contents. BUT YOU CAN'T SEARCH IT.

So, users are:
Glad to hear the Logos 4 will improve topic searching by introducing true topics.

Utterly bewildered that we cannot search headwords of dictionaries and the table of contents of resources, which would cover the current deficiencies in true Logos 4 topic data.

So, all we want is to be able to restrict a search to just headwords and table of contents headings.

Mark...wow...two things....

1.) You are much smarter than I....

2.) Now I get what you're saying... [:D]

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54663#Comment_54663

1.) You are much smarter than I....

2.) Now I get what you're saying...

If I was really that smart, you'd have have got it five posts ago!! [:P]

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54653#Comment_54653

So, all we want is to be able to restrict a search to just headwords and table of contents headings.

In its utter simplicity that is what Topics are all about. Headwords = Topics = Section Headers dealing with a subject of interest. IF we were allowed to search for "simeon" in headwords we would have more hits than the current Topic section AND they would be more relevant/accurate than L3's topic search. Logos is not providing this feature because they want to improve the quality of the results by automatically including equivalent topics like "symeon". This then saves us having to think about a topic search for "Simeon OR Symeon".

Dan Cleghorn

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54440#Comment_54440

Which ISBE has been completed? I do not have it showing up in my topics yet.

Dan Cleghorn

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54653#Comment_54653

For topic searching I just go back to my old L3 or my new WS9. They both lay out topics far better, IMHO, then L4. Maybe when L4 gets the multitude of books tagged it will improve in this area.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54673#Comment_54673

Which ISBE has been completed? I do not have it showing up in my topics yet.

The revised version (not the one from 1919 or whenever it was).

LLS:14.0.24
2009-10-28T00:54:14Z
ISBE.logos4

Dan Cleghorn

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54679#Comment_54679

I have the 1915 edition. Do I need to buy a new one to get this feature?

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54694#Comment_54694

Yes the modern edition is entirely different to the old one, despite the same name. It's possible topic searching may be added to the old one at some point, but Logos have not indicated one way or the other whether this will happen.

Sean Boisen

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54699#Comment_54699

Yes the modern edition is entirely different to the old one, despite the same name. It's possible topic searching may be added to the old one at some point, but Logos have not indicated one way or the other whether this will happen.

Yes, the ISBE is the new one: the content is also substantially revised in the modern version, and i see no good reason for us to go back to work on the outdated one.

Sean Boisen

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54653#Comment_54653

OK, here's my understanding, pieceing together Sean's posts and the various user requests. (... trimmed)

Mark:

That's a nice summary of the basic issues, and while i could pick a few nits, it's basically correct.

Two further comments:

some L3 resources did have "keyword topics" that functioned in topic search (for example, the NBD article on wheat might have topics "barley", "chaff", etc.). But their usage wasn't consistent across resources, and not all resources were tagged this way: that's one sense in which L3 topic search doesn't do what some people think. So rather than try to patch up that approach, we've elected to do something more sustainable that we hope will provide even better functionality.
I think where you say "you can't search it", you mean "you can't restrict a search to only this information", right? Searching does cover headwords, but they're mixed in with all the body-of-the-text results, and it would be more useful to be able to only search these parts of the text.

Ted Hans

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54703#Comment_54703

Yes, the ISBE is the new one: the content is also substantially revised in the modern version, and i see no good reason for us to go back to work on the outdated one.

I hear what you are saying Sean but the older edition was more conservative in its entries IMHO.( No need to fight about this for those who disagree)

Ted

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54707#Comment_54707

I think where you say "you can't search it", you mean "you can't restrict a search to only this information", right? Searching does cover headwords, but they're mixed in with all the body-of-the-text results, and it would be more useful to be able to only search these parts of the text.

Yes, that's right. I mean we can't restrict our search just to those headwords. I could be wrong, but I would see it as relatively low-hanging fruit to give us a headwords keyword. You would make a lot of people VERY happy if we could run headword:grace across our dictionaries or journals.

Sean Boisen

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54758#Comment_54758

I could be wrong, but I would see it as relatively low-hanging fruit to give us a headwords keyword. You would make a lot of people VERY happy if we could run headword:grace across our dictionaries or journals.

I agree that this is an important feature for us to offer. There are some technical reasons why the fruit isn't hanging quite a low as you might think, and we've got an lot of feature requests on the development list, but rest assured this one has not gone unheard.

Jerry Harned

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54641#Comment_54641

I have a collection named "My topics" which contains mostly Bible dictionaries. Doing a basic search with operative "topic:house" in this collection yields a "Look it up" with a single dictionary referenced. However, it seems like the "house" article, which each of my dictionaries have, should be listed in the "Library Results" list, but they're not.

I guess the work around for now is to click on the resource that comes up in "Look it up" and then in that window page through the other like resources with the right or left arrow.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54931#Comment_54931

I have a collection named "My topics" which contains mostly Bible dictionaries. Doing a basic search with operative "topic:house" in this collection yields a "Look it up" with a single dictionary referenced. However, it seems like the "house" article, which each of my dictionaries have, should be listed in the "Library Results" list, but they're not.

Arrrggghhh!!

If you search on "house" you will get all the Library results AND the topic section. A search on "topic:house" is very different but it gives you topics WITHOUT all those Library results because only a few resources have words tagged as "topic".

"topic:house" has got nothing to do with REAL TOPICS, because you might as well search for "Jerry:house".

So, YES, stay with the infinitely more satisfying use of left and right arrows as they do give you additional REAL TOPICS.

[Excuse the use of loud caps, as this thread has valiantly tried to debunk the use of "topic:word"]

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54931#Comment_54931

I guess the work around for now is to click on the resource that comes up in "Look it up" and then in that window page through the other like resources with the right or left arrow.

Ditto what Dave said, but with the addition that clicking on the resource that comes up, and then the + tab is the best workaround, and then use the list of resources in the righthand column (not the covers list which is worthless).

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/54850#Comment_54850

I could be wrong, but I would see it as relatively low-hanging fruit to give us a headwords keyword. You would make a lot of people VERY happy if we could run headword:grace across our dictionaries or journals.

I agree that this is an important feature for us to offer. There are some technical reasons why the fruit isn't hanging quite a low as you might think, and we've got an lot of feature requests on the development list, but rest assured this one has not gone unheard.

Yahey! Progress [:D] - I shall be first in the queue for the beta when it comes....

Stephen Thorp

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/55186#Comment_55186

As the person who initially started this thread, I'm naturally grateful that I received the corresponding answer that only seven dictionaries have been sufficiently tagged to allow them to appear in the 'Topic' section of a search, but I have been completely AMAZED at how this thread has developed into a much deeper line of inquiry, which is something that I feel both good and bad about. I feel a little bad that so much anxst has been generated between forum users taking part in this discusion, but equally I feel good that so much profitable thought and help has come out of it. Well done everybody and thank you.

Signed - one proud forum user.

Robert Pavich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/55202#Comment_55202

Steven,

as one who contributed to the angst, I'm grateful for this thread...up until now...I can tell you that I didn't fully understand the issues involved.

It also reinforced my respect for some sharp Logos users; Dave H and Mark B...both we are fortunate to have here.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/55202#Comment_55202

Signed - one proud forum user.

There was some angst but we have a proud user and some valuable understanding at the end! That's a good result!