Full User documents search results PLEASE!

I cannot begin to describe how limiting it is NOT to be able to have user documents search results displayed like that of any resource. What a great difference it would make if only that could be changed!

An example: clippings. I am doing a major project, involving a lot of research and reading. The beauty of doing as much of this through Logos resources is precisely to be able to document and classify information that can afterward be retrieved and organized.

Some information is Bible passage specific and for such as these, annotations seem the right choice (especially when comments are in order). However, it is not practical to document all the relevant quotations one finds on each of the very many aspects of a complex topic. This is where clippings with tags come in. But then what? How will I retrieve this information later on? I can search my tags but all I get is indication of how many hits there are. Clicking on the result opens the file to the first hit. Then I am on my own. Using the find box not only exclude complex searches but does not differentiate between tags and the main text. Any incidental mention of the same term which is a tag for different entries will be "found" by this method. This becomes unmanageable as the collection grows substantially.

This is not only true of clippings. Tags are very handy if we can run searches on them across all personal documents with a full display of the results not just the number of hits. Power searches would maximize the potential of user documents.

I have already pointed this out before but so far I have not had any response from Logos...

http://logos.uservoice.com/forums/42823-logos-bible-software-6/suggestions/6782764-display-full-user-documents-search-results-in-the

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Francis

I am following up on my own post out of astonishment that no one seems to echo what I have expressed above. Nor is there support for it on uservoice. I am left to wonder why that is so? I am the only one to think that this is very important? Just in case what I wrote above is not sufficiently clear, I thought I should give it one more go with more explicit illustrations:

This is how results are displayed when searching resources:

I can (1) preview the results so as to sort quickly between relevant results and those I am not interested in; (2) click on any one result and be led THERE precisely at that page right away. If there are several hits in one resource, each hit has its own preview displayed and a link to go to the corresponding page.

Here is how My documents search results display:

All we get is a list of the files in which the search parameters are found with a number of hits. There are no listings of individual hits, no previews, no links to go straight to any of them. When I click say "Ministry Notes" it opens up the file at the location of one hit. But otherwise, it is not a filtered list of the 5 hits that I see but all my entries. I have no way to tell where are the other hits. If I use CTL-F it only allows to search for one word without any operator. So, this method still does not allow one to find the other hits and only permit very basic searches (one cannot search for anything else than text. Forget data types for instance).

In the next example, I want to show that this renders tagging nearly useless although it is SUCH A PROMISING feature:

It can be seen from this entry, that I used several tags: Moses and John 1:14. I can search for tags (the idea for using them in the first place!):

As you can see, I get two results in "Article Notes". When I click on it, it leads me to the first entry. I try to find the other by using CTL-F and typing in "Moses" and I get this:

CTL-F of course, cannot tell the difference between Moses as a tag or as mere text in the annotation's content, so I get everything.

Now, in the examples I have just provided, the number of hits is limited. One could manage. But of course, this is only true because I only searched one term Moses. If I was looking for more than one tag, it would be much more complicated (in fact, not feasible).

Tags, like labels, are a very useful idea. But like so many other features of Logos, it does not come with full functionality.

This links to previous discussions: can academics and professionals rely on Logos as a tool? I am doing a major project and tagging promises to be an important way for me to categorize my findings for later retrieval, organization and use. But if comes the time, the functionality is not fully enabled, I may find myself confounded, having invested several years of research and meticulous documenting that proves to be unusable in the end.

I chose my words specifically here: I am not asking for a new feature. I am pointing out that Logos has already featured user document searches and tagging as part of the product (for quite a while now) but has yet to provide the means to take advantage of them except in the most rudimentary way.

I hope that this post will receive more attention.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/676684#Comment_676684

I hope that this post will receive more attention.

It certainly deserves more attention and I would direct people to vote for the idea on UserVoice! It has been raised several times since Logos 4 was released but Faithlife want some justification by way of an overwhelming vote for any user idea.

toughski

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/676687#Comment_676687

Faithlife want some justification by way of an overwhelming vote for any user idea

I vote with my wallet. Faithlife received very little in the last few years, as their feature development path diverges from mine.

Michael McLane

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/676734#Comment_676734

I placed my votes. This has been frustrating for me as well.

I also noticed that "fuzzy search" is nearly the highest rated user voice desire. Yet, there is virtually no response from Faithlife ever since version 4 came out when it was axed from the previous version. I don't understand that. The feature was there and was then taken away and Faithlife seems determined to not give this one valuable feature, that most seem to want back, to its customers. Bob, do you want to know what I want to see in Logos 7? Honor your word when you posted in User Voice back in 2011 and bring back a feature that used to be there. My goodness, it has been over five years.

So, back to the OP; I continue to be flummoxed at Faithlife's seeming lack of desire or ability to make the one defining feature that is at the core of all their literature, is on nearly every product page, and that is its boasting of Logos' ability, to search. The product's one primary and over-arching feature is anything but user friendly for returning truly relevant results that are not overwhelming in their number (unless your a power user). They are inconsistent at times in the original languages. And then there is the subject of this post, and this isn't the first one to address searching user documents.

Please forgive my rant at the moment. I have been particularly sensitive to the issues of search lately as I am having to invest some learning lately to more powerfully utilize search in Logos. So, I am finding that there is a huge learning curve to do any kind of power searching. And, really, I have more important things to do. With that said, I am thankful to many of the users here who have pointed me to user created resources to help me learn (not a manual, because there isn't one, ouch, sorry, another grain of sand in my shell).

Blessings to all.

Doc B

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/676684#Comment_676684

no one seems to echo what I have expressed above. Nor is there support for it on uservoice

I voted for it.

FWIW.

(I say 'FWIW', since as noted above, some features can be very popular on UV and Logos refuses to act on them, and others that have few votes get implemented. I have benefited from this, as one of my suggestions with only (like) 44 votes was implemented, so this isn't always a bad thing. But I don't put a lot of faith in UV any more.)

Doc B

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/676737#Comment_676737

the one defining feature that is at the core of all their literature, is on nearly every product page, and that is its boasting of Logos' ability, to search

I would spin this as two, not one core features: (1) the ability to search, as you say, and (2) content in which to do the searching, without which awesome search features are a bit moot. In other words, Logos' other core feature is the sheer volume of books (resources).

Given that, the other core feature which has been very slow in coming about, and still is, is reading plan tools. To own several thousand books and not be able to set up user-defined reading plans is frustrating.

Faithlife has made progress on this, but it has been slow.

David McClow

Completely agree!!!!! Very Frustrating! I have to export to Word to make it searchable.

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/679573#Comment_679573

Completely agree!!!!! Very Frustrating! I have to export to Word to make it searchable.

Welcome [:D]

Export to Word docx can be compiled as a Personal Book, which is searchable (Your Books):

Keep Smiling [:)]