Interface....inital impressions

Could someone post a  few screenshots?  I'm a DVD install tester, and so I'm waiting to see...

RevKellyTodd said:

I have all of my resources on my drive... how can I change the store directory in V4 to /xxx.xxx

Check the FAQ discussion - it sounds like its not possible in Beta 1.

Nice.  Can you pick which fonts are displayed?

I really like the font. I would like to be able to change it if I wanted to, but I am happy with this one.

Thus far I'm quite pleased. Some of the changes and improvements have amazed me. I love the ability to drop notes all over the place, prioritize resources, set favorites, etc. The interlinear/tagged/paragraphed ESV put tingles down my spine. I love the tab interface along with the ease of adding tabs and such. Also love that when you open a commentary from the passage guide then go to the commentary window to add a tab, it automatically shows just the resources with info for the passage. I'm rambling. Again, I'm impressed.

The downside is overall things have been sluggish. This probably is due to indexing still being in progress and the program seems to be improving in performance. I've found a few places that hang for a bit before continuing on, I'll hold off on bug reports until indexing is through and I've played a bit more. No crashes for me thus far.

Great job, Logos. Look forward to seeing testing continue and I can't wait to see what this looks like when it makes its way to the Mac. Expose or no, I hope the interface remains quite similar to what we have here.

MICHAEL PARRY-THOMAS said:

 I love the new interface,

I agree I love the direct the UI is going. everything seems to be very easy to find. I'll guarantee you'll get the "everything is too different" crowd but it's well worth it. are you planning on putting everything under the files,tools, guides options are do you have more ribbons planned for later betas? I love the floating windows concept. This is going to be great on dual monitors!

I went to bed four hours ago, and had installed V4 a few hours before that. The program needs to come with a *WARNING*
"Indexing may take a *LONG* time. Go to bed, sleep late, take the family to breakfast, and go to a theme park while you leave the computer running, this may be done sometime tomorrow" ;-)

Right now, my computer has been indexing for about six or seven hours (nearly 3000 resources), so in a Bible search, it still can't find "John the Baptist"

I'm sure it'll run much sweeter once the indexing is complete, but for now, it's a very slow process.

Is it, just perhaps, possible to install a rudimentary "index" file created at Logos that would already index the contents of (oh, let's say) Scholar's Gold, and a few of the other major boxed sets? It's just a thought, and may not solve the problem as that list would still have to be compared with the contents of the individual libraries out there.

Blessings, Dale

Dell Vostro 1500

Win XP/Pro SP3, MSIE 8

Intel Core 2 Duo, T7300 @ 2 GHz, 777 MHz, 2 GB RAM

NVidia GEForce 8300M GS 

Comment:

I ran a passage guide and it had the option of mixing in "word by word" and things normally reserved for the exegetical guide...now THAT'S COOL....

I'm liking this more and more. [:D]

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I was a little underwhelmed myself; I guess I was expecting
something else. It seemed slow and, for me, it seems a little counter
intuitive. Where are the toolbars, Workspaces, etc., measure and weights. I
know if I keep looking I’ll find them??? But that will have to be next week,
Sunday preparation you know.[*-)]

God Bless
George T.

I hope so! As it is, it is not very usful.

The GUI does have a nice look. Me, I've always had a leaning toward less esthetics and more available options, like my preference for Office 2003 over 2007. Hopefully the lack of manipulation of the program settings is due to it being the first beta.

Would still like a nice print function.

Can't wait to see the Sermon File Add-in in V4.

I love the Copy Bible Verse function now! Logos heard our requests and delivered there!

Looking forward to setting workspace options.

Overall for look, very nice! Just waiting on the functionality of V3 plus improvements prior to final opinion. But do look forward to the experience of playing with the V4 system during the beta process!

So is there a way to save a layout? Played with it, but did not see the option to save.

While there is a definite learning curve...I find the current UI very user friendly and easy to learn/figure out. Knowing this is Beta I realize there are features lacking that will make its way to the released product.

I do hope that the Help feature is being worked on vehemently, however, so as to help those willing to hit the F1 key to learn the hows of the product.

Any chance of implementing Ctrl + and ctrl - for enlarging the font sizes within the resources? Changing the default font size does not help since it depends which monitor I am using and also the size of the panel/window that I am reading from.

Thanks.

I finally discovered that. Thank you. My error was in looking for the entire phrase or sentence instead of looking at word by word. I tried selecting a longer phrase thinking it might center on that phrase, but it didn't. It would be good, for example, to highlight "kingdom of God" and see the Greek equivalent.
Now that I expanded the ESV to full screen to see what it did to the interlinear I am now trying to figure out how to change that window size to see it side by side with another window. I haven't succeeded yet.

Al,

The comparison is only because both Word and Logos have made some large interface changes. The new Logos interface in no way resembles the Office2007 interface.

That said, I do love the Office 2007 ribbon, and thus far I rather like the new Logos UI.

I use Word 2007 and have even tried out the 2010 TR.  I loved the new office ribbon with only a few minor annoyances that will be fixed in 2010.  I am really struggling to like Logos 4.0.  When I opened 3.0 the first time I immediately saw that this was going to be incredibly useful and easy to get. Then I poked around and also realized how incredibly powerful it was and immediately not only loved it but replaced what I was using at the time (e-Sword and QuickVerse).  MY first reaction to 4.0 was twofold.  First I went, 'Whoa!! What is this?"  Then I remembered reading that someone said it was like a newspaper interface and I saw that.  I like the idea of putting some of your stuff in front of you.  But then my second glance made me say, "How in the world do I study the Bible with this thing?"  I see it now but it is not  going to be as easy.  My third concern is performance.  Why is it so dang slow?  I thought 3.0 was a little slow but now it seems like a Ferrari to this moped.  I truly hope that is just a beta problem.  My last concern at this point is this: contrast please. Where do I turn up the contrast.  Everything seems really washed out. It hurts my eyes.

I hope my appreciation changes as the speed picks up and I get used to it.  BTW I am not someone who is that resistant to change.  Frankly I like a little change to keep things interesting.  I'm the guy who buys a new laptop every year just so I can have something new to play with.

I'm beginning to see the blessing that the command bar can become! Very cool feature, not sure if the few things that appeared to mess up were my learning error or a glitch. I will continue playing to see if I can replicate issues, but the command bar has some great features - if you have not checked it out, try it!

My initial impression was it looked good, but getting things done was a little confusing - I figured that 2:30am was not the best time to learn how this V4 works.

Today things have gone much better.  There are some things I really appreciate:

1.  The way the way the interlinear view works.

2.  The information pop ups for resources.

3.  The overall way resources are handled.

4.  I have been able to find ways to do most of what I normally do in my study patterns.

There are a few issues that are significant to me:

1.  Things are very slow.  It makes me look at the books on my shelf and wonder If I should pick them up[:O]

2.  The text is not easy to read on small screens.  Using it on my 11.6" laptop is really difficult.  Adjusting the text size doesn't help much.

For example the text on this forum displays great even though it is smaller then how I have things set up on V4.  It is as if the text is out of focus (even with my glasses on!)

3.  This could be something I am missing, but I can't find a way to copy and paste the results from searches.  This is a big deal to me as it is a major part of my note making routine.  I like how the search works, but not being able to read the verses and copy and past the ones I wan't in my notes is a real pain.  I'm hoping I am missing something obvious.

Well back to trying things out . . . 

I have a nicely functioning help on my Win 7 machine. On the Windows XP Machine - no help appears