Faceted Browsing in Notes

We shipped an update to Notes that adds faceted browsing. It allows you to browse by the following facets:

Created [date]
Modified [date]
Anchor [aka Attachment Point]
Data Type
Bible Book
Resource

There's much more planned, but I wanted to call attention to this new feature in Notes. It should give you sense of where we plan to go with our next generation notes system.

Check it out, and let us know how you'd like to see us improve it.

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Comments

Randy W. Sims

Cool. I finally got around to take a look this morning. I thought it was broke at first since it came up empty and stayed that way while I started creating notes & highlights. While the right side does refresh, the facets do not yet refresh until clicking on something or closing & reopening. That makes it a bit more difficult to test & experiment with.

I think it'll get much more interesting when we see Tags and Labels added and see how easy/difficult it will be to browse large numbers of facets.

I'd like to see Highlights mixed in (As a facet: select one or more of Notes, Highlights, other?). In fact, I'm kinda wondering what it would look like if everything that can be Tagged or Labeled were grouped in one faceted browser. Selecting Notes, we'd have a Note Browser. Selecting Highlights, Label Quote, we'd have a Quote Browser, etc. It could almost replace Clippings & Passage lists, but clunky. Everything browser may be too much and we can kinda use search to collate various items with same labels. Ok, just rambling, unfiltered, talking out loud. I would think Highlights fit in here though.

PetahChristian

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/920047#Comment_920047

I would think Highlights fit in here though.

[Y]

In my mind, the only difference between a note and a highlight (which get stored in the same notes document), is that the highlight doesn't happen to have a comment.

I hope we'll be able to browse/filter on highlights, as well as different color note icons (e.g. magenta note icons for M.Ed course notes, green for Hebrew vocabulary notes).

Phil Gons (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/920047#Comment_920047

I thought it was broke at first since it came up empty and stayed that way while I started creating notes & highlights. While the right side does refresh, the facets do not yet refresh until clicking on something or closing & reopening. That makes it a bit more difficult to test & experiment with.

Thanks. Those are both know issues. We'll have the facets autoexpanded (but remember if you close them) and make sure the sidebar updates when you add a new note without having to refresh it manually.

I think it'll get much more interesting when we see Tags and Labels added and see how easy/difficult it will be to browse large numbers of facets.

Tags should be coming in the next month or so. Labels will come later.

I'd like to see Highlights mixed in (As a facet: select one or more of Notes, Highlights, other?). . . . I would think Highlights fit in here though.

Highlights should be coming soon.

I'm kinda wondering what it would look like if everything that can be Tagged or Labeled were grouped in one faceted browser. Selecting Notes, we'd have a Note Browser. Selecting Highlights, Label Quote, we'd have a Quote Browser, etc. It could almost replace Clippings & Passage lists, but clunky. Everything browser may be too much and we can kinda use search to collate various items with same labels. Ok, just rambling, unfiltered, talking out loud.

You're on to something. We're actually planning to incorporate Clippings and Community Notes (in addition to Notes and Highlights) in the version 1 release, and we're also considering Passage Lists, Bibliographies, Favorites, and Word Lists—probably after the initial release.

Phil Gons (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/920052#Comment_920052

In my mind, the only difference between a note and a highlight (which get stored in the same notes document), is that the highlight doesn't happen to have a comment.

Highlights can have notes. If you take a highlight and open the notes document, you can add a note to the highlight.

The only real difference between a note and a highlight is how you took it, or which part came first.

I hope we'll be able to browse/filter on highlights, as well as different color note icons (e.g. magenta note icons for M.Ed course notes, green for Hebrew vocabulary notes).

We're planning to let you facet on all sorts of note and highlight metadata like highlighting style, etc.

Myke Harbuck

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/920070#Comment_920070

We're planning to let you facet on all sorts of note and highlight metadata like highlighting style, etc.

Any chance this wonderful new tool would include the ability to mass change notes, highlighting, etc? I have tons of notes that I’d like to change the highlight color / palette on, or move to a different document, changing tagging, etc.

And while I would never hold you to this answer as a commitment, about how long do u think it would take before this new notes structure makes its way into the desktop? 3 months? 6 months? A year? 2?

Phil Gons (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/920072#Comment_920072

Any chance this wonderful new tool would include the ability to mass change notes, highlighting, etc? I have tons of notes that I’d like to change the highlight color / palette on, or move to a different document, changing tagging, etc.

We are planning to support some bulk operations. We haven't spec'd that all out yet, so I can't guarantee we'll support everything you need. As we get closer to that work, we'll reach out and get input from our users to make sure we accommodate the most desired scenarios.

And while I would never hold you to this answer as a commitment, about how long do u think it would take before this new notes structure makes its way into the desktop? 3 months? 6 months? A year? 2?

We're just getting started implementing the shared component for the new notes system in desktop. You should see it in a beta in the next couple of months. It'll be in beta for multiple releases as we work through issues and finish out the planned features. It won't ship to the stable channel until it's ready on mobile as well. We're sketching out a timeline. I'd be surprised if we can ship the first release in much less than six months.

PetahChristian

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/920070#Comment_920070

We're planning to let you facet on all sorts of note and highlight metadata like highlighting style, etc.

Thanks, Phil. Looking forward to no longer needing to to look up search syntax for highlighting! [<:o)]

Randy W. Sims

I'm really sold on faceted browsing throughout. Extremely exciting stuff! I like the new notes system too but I'm still trying to get a good picture of how it all fits. Notes and highlights, individually, seem to be free floating now, not tied to a document, right? I can see Note/Highlight documents being imported in, but what about sharing? Are we going to see a new type of Note document that contains references to individual notes to collate them for sharing? Or better, a generic old style MSO Binder type of document that contains references to a collection of notes, highlights, etc? Can we filter a bunch of items in the browser and then drag them to a binder for sharing?

Faceted browsing makes tagging and labeling much more significant. Getting those right will be very important. Autocomplete for tags and labels that complete based on previous tags and labels created by the same user would help us to be more consistent when creating new ones. Maybe even flagging and suggesting synonymous words we've used so we aren't using different words for the same concept, which is much easier the older I get. Maybe the generated facets could even include a See Also from one tag or label to another if it detects a synonym? Or something smart?

Phil Gons (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/920082#Comment_920082

Thanks, Phil. Looking forward to no longer needing to to look up search syntax for highlighting!

I hear you! I still occasionally have to look the syntax up, too.

Phil Gons (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/920094#Comment_920094

Your thinking is right in line with ours.

Notes and highlights, individually, seem to be free floating now, not tied to a document, right? I can see Note/Highlight documents being imported in . . .

Yes, every note and highlight is part of the one notes database. However, we are planning to have notebooks. Notebooks are collections of notes. When we migrate your existing notes documents into the new notes system, we'll create a notebook for each note document. You'll be able to delete the notebooks if you don't want them (while still keeping their notes).

what about sharing? Are we going to see a new type of Note document that contains references to individual notes to collate them for sharing? Or better, a generic old style MSO Binder type of document that contains references to a collection of notes, highlights, etc? Can we filter a bunch of items in the browser and then drag them to a binder for sharing?

So notebooks are analogous to documents, and they're also the thing you'll be able to share and collaborate on. We're still working out the details, but I'm personally in favor of the container model, where you can share or collaborate on the container and then have access to whatever is in that container over time (like sharing a Google Drive folder), not just a static snapshot of it when it's first shared. We should have these details worked out in the next couple of weeks.

Faceted browsing makes tagging and labeling much more significant. Getting those right will be very important. Autocomplete for tags and labels that complete based on previous tags and labels created by the same user would help us to be more consistent when creating new ones.

Agreed. We're planning to autocomplete tags. We're also considering an additional type of metadata for classifying the type of content or its function. I may share more details on that later to get some feedback.

Maybe even flagging and suggesting synonymous words we've used so we aren't using different words for the same concept, which is much easier the older I get. Maybe the generated facets could even include a See Also from one tag or label to another if it detects a synonym? Or something smart?

We're investigated some smart auto-tagging technologies.

Liam Maguire

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/920111#Comment_920111

Phil,

First off, really appreciate all the hard work you and the team are putting into this! It sounds really exciting.

When we migrate your existing notes documents into the new notes system...

Any idea on a timeline of when this might happen? I recognise you can't exactly say 2nd October 2017 at 6:37pm [;)], but is there any chance of a ball park figure? Weeks? Months? This time next year?

Notes and highlighting are probably my most used features on Logos, so until the new system comes out the web app, sadly, is of little use. :-(

Thanks again, Liam

Phil Gons (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/920115#Comment_920115

Any idea on a timeline of when this might happen? I recognise you can't exactly say 2nd October 2017 at 6:37pm , but is there any chance of a ball park figure? Weeks? Months? This time next year?

See my response to Mike's similar question above. We're working on the timeline right now, so we should have a better sense in the next week or two. The first version of the next generation notes system available on web, desktop, and mobile is probably at least six months away. I hope we can do it sooner, but it's a major undertaking. You'll be seeing it roll out in stages on the web. Desktop will release it in beta in the near future. Mobile work will start in a couple of months.

Liam Maguire

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/920120#Comment_920120

See my response to Mike's similar question above. We're working on the timeline right now, so we should have a better sense in the next week or two. The first version of the next generation notes system available on web, desktop, and mobile is probably at least six months away. I hope we can do it sooner, but it's a major undertaking. You'll be seeing it roll out in stages on the web. Desktop will release it in beta in the near future. Mobile work will start in a couple of months.

Thanks, Phil, that's great. So helpful to know even a rough idea of where things are heading timewise. Keep up the great work!

Randy W. Sims

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/920111#Comment_920111

Thanks, Phil for taking the time and giving a sneak peek. Looks like a huge leap forward!

Francis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/920161#Comment_920161

Phil, my understanding is that part of the implementation will include the migration of existing notes into the new system. Will they merge with notes already taken in the web app?

Alan Palmer (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/920663#Comment_920663

Phil, my understanding is that part of the implementation will include the migration of existing notes into the new system. Will they merge with notes already taken in the web app?

Yes on both counts.

Francis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/920690#Comment_920690

[Y]

Kevin A. Purcell

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/920716#Comment_920716

Thanks! Great improvement , but to beat the drum, until it has notes syncing its all useless. I it's coming. I'm sorry for my impotence.

Simon’s Brother

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/921870#Comment_921870

Thanks! Great improvement , but to beat the drum, until it has notes syncing its all useless. I it's coming. I'm sorry for my impotence.

Totally agree Kevin, I picked up on this a while ago, you are not alone in your thoughts. Fact is any notes created on webapp are in isolation and if there is a server outage user has no way of acessing them so I would not be using the webapp to take any notes that are critical to study or vocation purposes. I believe FL has not been open and upfront enough about this issue and as always all they are interested in doing is overmarketing a product that is not ready and the have pushed it onto a wide user base by opening up the web app acess to a wider user base. Very poor decision making once again from a company who markets without full open disclosure of the risks because they don't think about all the implications and impacts upon users when they get it wrong because they are too busy making promises they fail to keep to often.

Kevin A. Purcell

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/921881#Comment_921881

Thanks! Great improvement , but to beat the drum, until it has notes syncing its all useless. I it's coming. I'm sorry for my impotence.

I believe FL has not been open and upfront enough about this issue and as always all they are interested in doing is overmarketing a product that is not ready and the have pushed it onto a wide user base by opening up the web app acess to a wider user base.

I don't think that they're trying to hide this fact. However, any development on the webapp without fixing this issue is a waste for my usage. I use the notes feature in whatever Bible software I use so much that if it's not a good feature I won't use that Bible software. That's why I will never use the webapp until this gets fixed. If they made the webapp so great that it somehow peered into my brain and knew exactly what I wanted from my library before I even knew it and showed it to me, I still wouldn't use it until the notes I took could sync with the other apps. Hyperbole aside, I really want them to get their notes syncing properly. I understand that it has something to do with the rewriting the notes feature across all platforms, but it's been something they promised months ago.

Simon’s Brother

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/921948#Comment_921948

To clarify I did not mean they were hiding anything but i do not believe they have been open enough about the impact of the Change to note on the webapp.

Thanks! Great improvement , but to beat the drum, until it has notes syncing its all useless. I it's coming. I'm sorry for my impotence.

I believe FL has not been open and upfront enough about this issue and as always all they are interested in doing is overmarketing a product that is not ready and the have pushed it onto a wide user base by opening up the web app acess to a wider user base.

I don't think that they're trying to hide this fact. However, any development on the webapp without fixing this issue is a waste for my usage. I use the notes feature in whatever Bible software I use so much that if it's not a good feature I won't use that Bible software. That's why I will never use the webapp until this gets fixed. If they made the webapp so great that it somehow peered into my brain and knew exactly what I wanted from my library before I even knew it and showed it to me, I still wouldn't use it until the notes I took could sync with the other apps. Hyperbole aside, I really want them to get their notes syncing properly. I understand that it has something to do with the rewriting the notes feature across all platforms, but it's been something they promised months ago.

PetahChristian

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/921948#Comment_921948

I understand that it has something to do with the rewriting the notes feature across all platforms, but it's been something they promised months ago.

I don't think they promised it would be available months ago. According to the most recent timeframe Phil posted, it's still 6+ months away before we should expect to see it across all the platforms.

In the meantime, FL decided to not waste time making the old notes system sync with the new notes system, since that code/effort would be obsolete once our notes get migrated to the new notes system.

Simon’s Brother

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/922078#Comment_922078

In the meantime, FL decided to not waste time making the old notes system sync with the new notes system, since that code/effort would be obsolete once our notes get migrated to the new notes system.

In the meantime FL decided to isolare notes created on the web platform from the rest of the Logos environment. Followed up that decision to opening up the web app to a wider user base but FaiLed in duty of care to customers to be very specific and clear to all those customers of inherent risk in loosing access to these notes if a server goes down and additionally FailLing to recommend users only create non-critical notes on web platform and to create all notes critical notes for which customer cannot afford to loose access for any period of time in the current notes environment.

The issue is not the choice made X but the lack of communication with customers on the risks and recovery plan if there is a problem, It's a case of FL putting risks first and looking after their customer data second,

PetahChristian

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/922081#Comment_922081

The issue is not the choice made X but the lack of communication with customers on the risks and recovery plan if there is a problem, It's a case of FL putting risks first and looking after their customer data second,

Do we know Apple's recovery plan, or Microsoft's recovery plan, or Google's recovery plan? No, those companies don't tend to explain what system(s) they have in place to handle issues that may arise, or even make it obvious that data may be lost in exceptional circumstances.

I'd imagine that FL, like other companies, uses Terms of Service, to cover such things you believe they don't adequately disclose. But I wouldn't know for sure, since I generally don't tend to read them.

I don't think any software company notifies customers of inherent risks in the manner which you expect from FL. Why hold FL to some higher standard that much bigger companies (or bible software competitors) don't do?

Even if web platform notes did presently sync, there are reasons outside FL's control why someone couldn't access them. It would be more likely that someone might lose work (or access) due to a power outage or Internet Service Provider issue.

It's unfortunate that human nature is more prone to find fault with, than to be thankful for what FL does provide... bible software.

Kevin A. Purcell

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/922078#Comment_922078

I don't think they promised it would be available months ago.

More accurately, months ago they promised would one day come. Till it does, ANY feature they add is a waste in my eyes because I won’t use the web app till I can sync my notes with the desktop or mobile apps. Any feature they add is like getting a fancy stereo in a truck without a steering wheel. You can drive it but not safely.

Simon’s Brother

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/922090#Comment_922090

Spoken like a FL devotee with rose coloured glasses painted on permanently.

The issue is not the choice made X but the lack of communication with customers on the risks and recovery plan if there is a problem, It's a case of FL putting risks first and looking after their customer data second,

Do we know Apple's recovery plan, or Microsoft's recovery plan, or Google's recovery plan? No, those companies don't tend to explain what system(s) they have in place to handle issues that may arise, or even make it obvious that data may be lost in exceptional circumstances.

I'd imagine that FL, like other companies, uses Terms of Service, to cover such things you believe they don't adequately disclose. But I wouldn't know for sure, since I generally don't tend to read them.

I don't think any software company notifies customers of inherent risks in the manner which you expect from FL. Why hold FL to some higher standard that much bigger companies (or bible software competitors) don't do?

Even if web platform notes did presently sync, there are reasons outside FL's control why someone couldn't access them. It would be more likely that someone might lose work (or access) due to a power outage or Internet Service Provider issue.

It's unfortunate that human nature is more prone to find fault with, than to be thankful for what FL does provide... bible software.

You need to learn Petah that this is a forum where a variety of customer opinions will be expressed. I am not asking you or anyone else to agree with my opinion because you are entitled to yours as much as I am to mine. Simply because I expressed a counter view to yours you have taken it upon yourself to take your comments to a lower level and tried to explain away my comments as a flaw in human nature. I am sorry but the fact remains whether you like it or not, FL FaiLed to provide adequate commentary to customers whom th invited to join a beta web app program - that's what it is - that they are using as a Sandbox to test out and develop on the fly a new annotations (notes + highlights) methodology and they failed to adequately inform customers who signed up for that program of the limitations and risks involved of any annotations created on that beta platform.

Your red herring about other software companies has nothing to do with what I am talking about. You can stay of your high moral horse all you like a kick those who dare to say FL has done the wrong thing but it will not change the fact that they once again failed to be open and clear with customers

FL charge a high amount of money for their software, that often dies not live up to the hype - you are constantly complaining about bugs in courses took not being fixed, lots of others complain about broken promises on journals, the Atla and missing linking - that is supposedly the reason we pay higher costs for resources. And since we are paying those higher costs it is only fair they are called to account Instead of everyone living in pretend land and proclaiming everything FL does is perfect - not even you do this in reality.