What are your Favorite (favourite:) demo features?

When you are showing Logos to someone, perhaps for the first time, you don't want to overwhelm them. But what are the first (and in your mind the most important) features in the program that will be most helpful [think:people in ministry]? What are your Go-To features when you are bragging (in a humble sort of way) about Logos?

I have:

1] sent them links to Logos sites, WIKI links and User video links to help them to see the benefits

2] I have also had them sit down with me and watch me take them through a few searches, etc

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Comments

Virgil Buttram

Demonstrate Logos as a superior e-reader.

1. Show the pop-ups for endnotes/footnotes and the cross-linking between resources in the library.

2. Show the multi-pane layout, link sets, etc. for Bible study with one or more sets of study notes and one or more English translations (DIY parallel)

3. Relate that these features do not require a package of any kind, but simply the free base engine and individual resources, all of which are comparably priced to competing ebook vendors' versions of the same.

Hook, line, and sinker.

Bruce Dunning

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/735007#Comment_735007

The Logos 6 videos are a concise and impressive way to quickly show the features. I also like showing the power of working in the original languages even if you don't know them.

Mark Barnes

Personally, I do a real-life study - often using a passage or topic of their choosing. For lay people I start with the PG to show how you can quickly get to anything you need. I use the reverse interlinear to look up Factbook entries on people or places, and to show them the BWS. I'd also want to shown then the topic guide to dig deeper into s topic in that passage, and some of the Visual Copy tools at the end. I'd always try and make sure my demoing of those tools was to answer a useful question raised by the text or the audience. That really helps to show its value.

For or pastors or students, I'd probably start with the Exegetical guide rather than the Pastage Guide, and spend more time on lexicons/BWS. I'd also be more likely to show the clippings tool to this group. But that all depends on how much time you've got. What I've described is what I would do if I had an hour or two.

James Taylor

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/735036#Comment_735036

I'd also be more likely to show the clippings tool to this group

I rarely if ever use this tool. What do you think it's best uses are?

Ron Corbett

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/735385#Comment_735385

Hi James,

If you click on the "Logos Tutorial Videos" link at the bottom of Mark's post, it will take you to a page where you can click on CLIPPINGS to see a helpful video.

SineNomine

When you are showing Logos to someone, perhaps for the first time, you don't want to overwhelm them. But what are the first (and in your mind the most important) features in the program that will be most helpful [think:people in ministry]? What are your Go-To features when you are bragging (in a humble sort of way) about Logos?

Passage Guide and Clippings, without question. Research made easy.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/735385#Comment_735385

I rarely if ever use this tool. What do you think it's best uses are?

I tend to use notes, clippings and highlighting for different things:

Notes if I need to remember a specific response to what I've read.
Highlights if I just need to indicate that something is useful or important.
Clippings if I want to group together extracts from resources on a particular theme.

Originally in L4, clippings had two big advantages over highlighting. (1) You could search in clippings, and you didn't use to be able to search in highlighting. and (2) You could show the content of all your clippings in one view (in L6 you can now do this in "Quotes" view of Notes).

Those advantages have mostly gone. Searching is now actually better in highlighting than it is in Clippings, though I prefer the way clippings look to the way the quotes view of notes looks. But several advantages remain:

You can edit the content of clippings, which I find useful sometimes (e.g. to remove a small section and replace it with an ellipsis, or add a small amount of text within square brackets).
You can add notes to clippings.
You can open multiple clippings documents, and easily add different clippings to those different documents. Although that's achievable with highlighting, it's not so easy to set up, and therefore not so good to demonstrate to someone who hasn't used the software before.
Clippings remain even if you lose access to the resource. That won't be useful often, but might be a big advantage for a Logos Cloud customer who's anticipating they might go to a lower level after they've finished graduate studies, for example.

SineNomine

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/735596#Comment_735596

In addition to Mark's list of reasons to use clippings (vs. highlighting), here are a couple reasons to use clippings that I give to non-Logos/Verbum users:

A. By default, Clippings sync across multiple devices, unlike Word documents.

B. Clippings maintain the full bibliographic information of the original document and include a link to the point in the document from which the clipping originated.

Ron Corbett

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/735597#Comment_735597

Virgil: [Y] [Y]

SineNomine: great

For me, I usually consider CLIPPINGS alongside of NOTES as far as feature comparison goes. And the one benefit that Clippings has over Notes is the tagging. Everything else can be done in Notes (I think). I almost always use Notes because you can compartmentalize everything into collapsible topics/ headings. In Clippings, what you have is one l-o-n-g list of "index cards" - not as easy to isolate specific information. It is just a matter of preference, but I suppose the neatness of Clippings might make it an attractive feature to a prospective Logos buyer.

Rosie Perera

In addition to some of the above, Bible Word Study is quite easy to show off and is impressive without being too overwhelming.

Most of the people I show it to are interested in research that doesn't involve biblical languages, though. So just the simple power of searching across an entire library usually blows them away.

James Taylor

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/735596#Comment_735596

if I want to group together extracts from resources on a particular theme.

I have used them for this as well, but not as much anymore (probably should try to give this practice more consistency)

Thanks for the suggestions.

As far as the demo features, my favorite to show off to people is probably a layout with passage guide, exegetical guide, word study report, and some bible's linked together with commentaries, as well as the information tool, text comparison (f7 popup), and using the right/left arrow keys to jump to the same milestone in the next commentaries/dictionaries etc., visual filters always leave a good impression too :-), I also often build one of their sermon manuscripts or grab a public domain book from CCEL etc. and build a personal book in front of them. And I usually do a few of the more complex searches too.

Pete De Bonte

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/735036#Comment_735036

For lay people I start with the PG

To completely new lay users, I'm imagining reactions to the Guides could range between:

Wow, that's a wealth of information!
Wow, that looks overwhelming. Can it digest some of that for me? Where do I start?

Actually, I wonder if people feeling the latter would be willing to admit it. I'd guess that response could be even more likely if you are demoing it with a substantial library.
But regardless, do you find that first time lay users respond well to the Guides in particular?

For or pastors or students, I'd probably start with the Exegetical guide rather than the Passage Guide,

I can imagine that people seeking sermon prep or research sources might lean more toward the "wealth of information" response than others. Do you find more positive responses in that camp?

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/735682#Comment_735682

Actually, I wonder if people feeling the latter would be willing to admit it. I'd guess that response could be even more likely if you are demoing it with a substantial library.
But regardless, do you find that first time lay users respond well to the Guides in particular?

My experience is much more with students and pastors. I think if I demoed my huge library to lay people who were looking for devotional study, it might put them off. But the Go box on the home page might work for them, at least initially.

But I've never found pastors or students get overwhelmed. Instead, I find they appreciate the one-stop access to most of what they need. Many people worry that with a big library they won't find what they're looking for. The Guides counter that fear, in my experience.

David A Egolf

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/735628#Comment_735628

I show people how to set up a directory on Favorites populated with the results of various types of searches. I usually create a Favorites directory in preparation for teaching a course so that all of the relevant resources have been identified in advance. Then to show how Favorites keeps track of lots of things, I show how notes and clippings files can be added. Finally, I show how layouts can be saved and also copied to the Favorites directory so the study sessions can be saved and resumed.

For tablets, I show how to run split screen with links between Bibles and commentaries, perform Bible word studies, create note files, and take notes. (I find it much easier to manage notes placement on tablets than on the PC desktop version.)

Pete De Bonte

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/735628#Comment_735628

the simple power of searching across an entire library usually blows them away.

Searching is what won me over, particularly Bible search. I know of no other software that provides search results across multiple translations so succinctly as the Logos Bible search in Grid mode. Based on that alone, I was willing to invest some money when I'd been happy with free Bible software for many years.

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

Thankful for visual filter highlighting so can "see" range of Greek verbal expression in resources with Logos Greek Morphological tagging:

Screen shot has nominative case, verbal aspects, and prepositions without chapter and verse numbers. Highlighting helps study of who's doing what with Greek verbal nuances. Parallel layout shows each language in its own context with color coding; word order in Greek may be different than English (or Spanish).

Logos wiki has => https://wiki.logos.com/Extended_Tips_for_Highlighting_and_Visual_Filters#Examples_of_visual_filters

Keep Smiling [:)]

Pete De Bonte

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/735596#Comment_735596

⒋ Clippings remain even if you lose access to the resource. That won't be useful often, but might be a big advantage for a Logos Cloud customer…

This doesn't work, at least not any more. I tested it with some frontmatter from a Logos Cloud resource last month. I did not continue Cloud after the free month, and today the Clipping file was empty.

Still, thanks Mark, for introducing me to Clippings : )

Sam Henderson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/741960#Comment_741960

When I used Logos 4 as a student in seminary classes the thing that invariably drew interest and the comment "What's that you're using?" from students in the rows behind me was the Biblical Places thing where I would right click on a place name in the text and the map window would appear, zooming in, airplane-style to the location in question then displaying alternative maps and images as thumbnails along the bottom with a fair bit of visually dramatic flair. Sadly the current atlas isn't anywhere near as visually arresting.

The thing that impressed some lecturers was the way Logos displays its reference texts in ways very much like the look and feel of their hardcover equivalents - so much unlike a more speedy but less visually appealing competitor's product at the time. The question I didn't enjoy answering was the question - "How much does that cost?"