Have subLayouts for floating windows

[Y][Y]

steve clark said:

if you like this suggestion, please vote on it in Users Voice: Floating Windows layouts

thanks!

had to remove a vote a well supported idea to fit this in...but you've now got my vote.

I like this idea a lot, hence me putting three of my votes towards it, but in the mean time there is a decent work around.  If you left click on one of your open tabs you can open that tab in a floating window and drag and drop resources into just like you can on the main page.  It's a bit more time consuming, but better than nothing.

steve clark said:

It would be fantastic if we were able to have custom Layouts for floating windows.
Which would not interfere with our main window layout.

I've just increased this to three votes on Logos Uservoice, because since the
Notes improvement doesn't need more votes as it is way out in front, this would
be the next most helpful new feature as far as I'm concerned.

There are many times when I'm working when I want to have my
floating window of multiple dictionary tabs open, and at other times my window
of lexicons etc, and at other times journals, Perseus classics, favourite
dictionaries, commentaries, Notes and Clippings, and so on.  But I rarely want them all available at the
same time. 

Yet, if I'm working on something and have some commentaries
and Notes open, and I want to look up some dictionaries or journals, my only
option at the minute is to either (i) open the specific resources from scratch
each time I need them, closing them when I don't, in order to keep a minimal
number of resources open at one time, or (ii) keep many windows open at the
same time, in order to make the workflow much better.

The program allows me to use different 'layouts', but to be
honest, I don't want to be changing layouts in the middle of a study, losing
positions in the Bible, Notes, Guides, lexicons, etc that I have already open.  Different layouts are only helpful for me if I'm
starting different types of study from scratch, e.g. sermon, devotions,
research, etc.  But I just can't
change layouts in the middle of a job, as I would be reverting to different
resources and/or positions within them. 

Having the option to open or close floating windows would
greatly enhance the workflow, allowing me to effectively change some aspects of
a layout without changing others.  I
could open and work on Bible dictionaries for a while, then close that window
and carry on.  The ability to save
floating windows (including their position on the desktop), instead of the
current option of saving a complete layout, would be a great enhancement. It'd be great to see this move up the ranking, especially now that some desired features have recently been implemented.

Jerry M said:

Hi John, I agree this is a needed suggestion. A work-around was noted some time ago which goes like this.  You create a folder called floating windows in the Favorites tool.  Then create subfolders within it, each containing the resources you would want to open in a floating window.  Then right click on the subfolder when needed and select open all in a floating window.  The down side of this is that you then have to rearrange the resources in the floating window the way you want them, but that really doesn't take that long.

Hi Gerry, I understand the workaround.  Thanks for reminding me of it. [:)]

But a problem with that is that as each resource is clicked in the favourites and loaded into its floating window, the software seems to use up memory for each resource.  Instead, if I keep floating windows up with a lot of tabs in some of them, on startup it only seems to load the active tab regardless of how many tabs are in a window.  Keeping them open most of the time would therefore reduce the demand on PC system resources compared to the workaround.  

Also, there are issues with where the resources open.  Some are not logical, such as a floating window with PBs only on it, yet each PB opened finds the window and tab with Perseus Greek resources of all things, and opens there every time - strange.  This is one reason that I try to keep as many resources open as possible and not close and reopen them regularly - so I'm a little reluctant to try that workaround.

DMB said:

Steve's initial (?) suggestion still is one of the big missing pieces of Logos. The peculiarity of Logos is its large library and the need to periodically bring in a group of books; not just one.

The work-around, as Jerry mentioned, sort of does this but the resouces aren't linked and are in tabbed sequence; not a layout.

My work-around, which is even WORSE (logically) is to use Libronix and Logos4/5 together, one being the main platform and the other, the itinerant series of layouts being brought in and out.

Wow, that is a great workaround.  I can imagine some of the issues, though...

Alexander said:

Did you know you could save a template and then drag it to the task bar? So, you could save all the windows you need in an individual lay out then simply send them to a floating panel once they load.

Hi Alexander, yes, I'm aware of that tip - thanks.  The problem is that if I have a layout that includes, say, Bible dictionaries, and open that, it may not have lexicons etc that were in my previous layout.  As well, I will have reverted to the different Bible passage on the saved layout, and have to remember all the other changes that I had made since saving that layout.  It just doesn't work for me, changing layouts in the middle of work.  It sort of works when I move from devotional to sermon preparation, to research, at the start of a day, but not otherwise.  I end up having a lot of windows and tabs ready to work on all the time, which can be slow on older computers such as my laptop. 

Being able to bring up a window of selected tabs at will, without disturbing the rest of the layout, would be a great feature. 

If we could select which windows were associated with a particular layout that is saved, so that we could save multiple windows or just one window, would be a great help in workflow.