Interface....inital impressions

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

Yes.  I clicked the little help icon in the upper right and it opens what seems to be 4.0 specific content.

Then I suppose you can add that to the list of things I'm missing in my installation. I am a DVD installer working off a download on this computer until the DVD arrives and I'm missing all information in the help section and interlinear never pops up in the ESV translation.

When the mouse hovers over a resource in the "passage guide" it gives a preview of the passage I am working on. A very nice feature.

Chris,

I meant it as a metaphor for what was being done, not literally what was happening.

Al

As always, I'm happy to share my ideas with you. First off, I was overwhelmed at the opening homepage. It was like looking at a newspaper and trying to figure out what all was there. It took me awhile to get it to go away, but now I can't figure out how to get it back.

• I've gone to the layouts tab, clicked the down arrow, and see what's been there in the past, but it doesn't seem to be of any use. I double click on a previous layout (e.g. the homepage) and nothing happens (well, it just did -- the program crashed). But, I've not seen any benefit of seeing what had been there if I can't do anything with it.
• I would like a new layout (I like my opening pretty clean) with a couple of Bibles on the right and the lectionary on the left. But, I can't get the lectionary to open -- don't find a link to it anywhere on the tools menu and help doesn't (help). Somehow I found a way to get a lectionary at the top of my homepage, don't remember it being there initially, but once I closed the homepage, I don't have access to the lectionary and it's a tool I use continually.  
• I've opened two Bibles -- the NRSV and The Msg. I said to make them free float, but after that, there doesn't seem to be a way to anchor them again -- the float feature doesn't toggle. And at the same time, there doesn't seem to be a way either to put the two Bible windows on the same screen except by using the Alt+Tab button -- then one gets promoted and then the other until they're one above the other on the right side of my screen. Unfortunately, once they're there and floating on top -- when I click on the Tools menu, the windows disappear. Thus, with these two floating windows viewable, I can't use the tool bar and keep the windows on top.
• I miss quick access to some of my favorite resources that I've had on my tool bar since the early days of Series X. There doesn't seem to be anyway of adding to the toolbar. With widescreen monitors and displays that support a lot of data, it seems a terrible waste of real estate to not be able to add "helps" to the tool bar (maybe I can get a quick link back to my lectionary). The "Shortcuts" only works if you know how the program has coded the feature I'm looking for. Again, I'm looking for the UM Lectionary, but that's not listed. I searched for lectionary and alphabetically, the Catholic came up first which is fine, but finding the UM version took a little patience.

If you haven't guessed by now, one of my biggest issues with the UI is that there's so much missing. There's no print feature that I've found, and no export. I haven't even found a way (surely there is) to just view Bible text and not all the superfluous "stuff" such as headers that the printers put in there paper versions.

And, while we're sharing -- Let me note that the search feature certainly isn't any quicker.

• My system has been indexed (twice from what I could tell), and I just searched for "John the Baptist" in all passages in all Bibles. It took 83.36 seconds to find 454 results in 50 verses. I then switched back to Logos 3 and did the same search. In about 45 seconds, the search found 627 occurrences. I'm not sure how to reconcile 454 with 627. 
•  I did the same search in both versions, searching just the New Testament. Logos 3 found the same 627 resources in 18 seconds. Logos 4, found its same 454 resources in 89.96 seconds. So, it took longer to search a smaller selection of books. I'm quite puzzled by the fact that the new and improved version, not constrained by MSIE took twice as long for one one search. and nearly six times as long for the second search. Seems we've gone the wrong direction.

 Anyway, those are a few of my frustrations -- but, it's early in the cycle, and as I said, I'll stick with you.

Now, let me cheer you on -- THANK YOU!! for cleaning up the export to WordPerfect. There was very little extraneous formatting there, and that helped tremendously.

Blessings -- Dale

It would seem to me that Bible searching hasn't been properly optimised yet.  I had a similar slow search to Dale on "John the Bapist", but by contrast, could search my entire library in 10.51 secs and find 13,171 results in 9,019 articles!  I suspect Bible search will speed up substantially at some point, given this comparison!

Dale... my homepage appears/disappears by clicking the "Home" icon in the top left hand corner.