Westminster Bible Dictionary Searching issues

George Simopoulos
George Simopoulos Member Posts: 60 ✭✭✭
edited November 2024 in English Forum

After making an effort to use the Westminster Bible Dictionary (WBD) in my daily bible study using Logos, I am routinely frustrated at how persnickety the search function is. Allow me to explain the problem and a typical day with the WBD. 

Words listed in the WBD, perhaps because of the date of its publishing, are spelled with a series of hyphens and apostrophies, denoting the use of prefixes, suffixes, and syllables. In certain limited contexts, I could imagine that being useful. The trouble though emerges when I attempt to search for a word that is longer than one syllable. You see, one cannot simply search for a word in the WBD using the Logos search bar. All those apostophies and hypens have to be accounted for in the spelling. Annoying, but okay. Now, sounding out each word to account for these parameters, I spell the word. Another problem emerges. The search function ceases to work the moment I use a apostophy. In fact, even if I spell the word exactly as it appears in the dictionary, the search function will still fail to redirect me to the word.

Here is an example: suppose we want to search for 'Wayfaring Man' in the WBD. The first thing we note is that it has both multiple syllables and a suffix. So we must render it Way'far-ing Man. I begin to spell it and get as far as 'Way'. As soon as I get to the apostophy, the predictive search function stops and any attempt to proceed with the spelling is for naught. woe is us. 

I am hoping that this problem could be addressed for this and any resource which uses the notation seen in the WBD. I think this will go a long way for older resources that you (Logos) might plan to digitize and make available. 

Many thanks and God bless.

Comments

  • Bruce Dunning
    Bruce Dunning MVP Posts: 11,163

    George, thanks for bringing this to light as I've never noticed this before. I'm not sure of all the technical reasons why the search doesn't work for words like wayfaring but I also tried searching without success. I hope this can be fixed. It also makes me wonder how many other resources may fall into the same category.

    Using adventure and community to challenge young people to continually say "yes" to God

  • Don Awalt
    Don Awalt Member Posts: 3,555 ✭✭✭

    Not sure how you intend to use it, but have you tried just entering it in the box within the resource? For your example, "I just typed "way" and found it:

  • Ken McGuire
    Ken McGuire Member Posts: 2,075 ✭✭✭

    Don Awalt said:

    Not sure how you intend to use it, but have you tried just entering it in the box within the resource?

    [Y][Y]

    Don't have this resource, but this trick with indexes is something I use all the time.  Using it will help you so much in finding things in your resources.

    SDG

    Ken McGuire

    The Gospel is not ... a "new law," on the contrary, ... a "new life." - William Julius Mann

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  • Bruce Dunning
    Bruce Dunning MVP Posts: 11,163

    Don Awalt said:

    Not sure how you intend to use it, but have you tried just entering it in the box within the resource?

    YesYes

    Don't have this resource, but this trick with indexes is something I use all the time.  Using it will help you so much in finding things in your resources.

    SDG

    Ken McGuire

    It is good to have a work-a-round but it would be even better to be able to search for the entire word.

    Using adventure and community to challenge young people to continually say "yes" to God

  • NB.Mick
    NB.Mick MVP Posts: 16,330

    Logos shipped an updated version of WBD today which seems to fix all of this.

    Have joy in the Lord! Smile