What is more useful in Libronix 3.0g ? (especially compared to Logos 4.5a)

If you know what you are doing, the flexibility for key-linking and pop-ups in Libronix is at least cool.  But it is all the old personal books that keep it installed on my current computer.

Libronix is also faster on older computers, at least for some simple things.

One feature  Libronix had, and  was touted at one time by Logos itself,  was the ability to search in locked resources  if you had them downloaded. This was useful if one had a paper copy of the book and wanted to do a search for something; much easier than trying to find something in multiple volumes if you didn't know exactly where it was. You could then readily go to the hard copy to read. I guess this wasn't too advantageous for Logos, but it did give one the incentive to get the digital resource if you needed to do copy and paste.

Robert

I've been able to come up with a list of quite a number of features that existed in L3 that still haven't been implemented in L4 and where there isn't a satisfactory equivalent in L4 which is as easy as it was to do in L3:

• Fuzzy Search (comes with Power Tools Addin) (Bob says they're planning to bring this back; see here)
• Custom Serial Resources Associations (comes with Power Tools Addin) (see here)
• Vocab and Word Lists (this was on the old "missing features" list which seems to have disappeared from http://logos.com/4/missingfeatures)
• Sermon File (this was on the "missing features" list)
• Video Resources (this was on the "missing features" list)
• Illustrations section in Passage Guide (this was on the "missing features" list)
• Back and Forward History (David Paul was at one time a great advocate for this missing feature: see here and here)
• Ability to copy book description and other text from About This Resource (cannot copy from Info panel in Logos 4.5; see here)
• Ability to open multiple prioritized resources when double-clicking a word (see here)
• Ctrl-Shift > or < keyboard shortcut to increase or decrease resource font size (see here)
• Open to a designated layout (not merely last layout you closed with) (see here)
• In L3, Tools > Resources and Collections enabled us to see what collections each resource was part of (this has been requested in L4; not on UserVoice as far as I can tell, and can't find thread on forum)
• Greek Word Occurrence (I'm not sure I understand how to get this feature to work in L3, but people say it was there in a way that hasn't been replicated as easily yet in L4; see here and here)
• Ability to know name of current Layout to save changes to it (could do so with loaded workspaces in Logos 3) (see here)
• Greek Read Aloud feature had speed control in Libronix (see here)
• Aligned hits in context for Basic Search results (see here and here)

" rel="nofollow">Keep Smiling 4 Jesus said:

Thanks; noticed 16 items in list; albeit appears Logos 4.5a may have one:

Rosie Perera said:

Illustrations section in Passage Guide (this was on the "missing features" list)

Ah yes, it appears Logos slipped this one in when I wasn't looking. I was just looking at an old archived version of the "missing features" list from the Internet Archive.

" rel="nofollow">Keep Smiling 4 Jesus said:

Rosie Perera said:

In L3, Tools > Resources and Collections enabled us to see what collections each resource was part of (this has been requested in L4; not on UserVoice as far as I can tell, and can't find thread on forum)

Wonder about Logos User Voice => Ability to filter the library by collections ?

Yes, I'd found that, but somehow thought it wasn't relevant, since it was more about filtering the library. But on second read it is the closest UserVoice request to what L3 used to provide, and it would be even more powerful.

Wow, thanks Rosie. L3 sure has a lot of functionality; after 6 years I'm still learning (from your list)!

I'm taking advantage of Bob's gracious extension of L3 resources, for the Peshitta in L3 today (hopefully but that Peshitta's pretty sneaky; it's going to be a rough day).

Everyone has their own style of working, but my 'three' biggies are

- Being able to 'arrow' through the left-side TOC quickly, opening and closing sections when I'm looking for something. Similarly for the search panel (L4 has some arrow-ing functionality in the search panel but it's touch and go on my PC anyway).

- Being able to 'copy' without worrying about where I am. This was an old Windows standard that I quickly latched onto. Quite often all I want is a short section from the search, which L3 happily provides; no muss, no fuss.

- And most headache'y to me anyway is the pop-a-top 'surprise me just one more time and you're out of here' resource opening in L4. I operate with four big resource windows, along with two L3 installations, and several other Bible software panels, and L3's resource opening is still nice and courteous. This wouldn't be so 'bad' in L4 except it's not consistent on using the right-click open (in-tab, new tab, float window) which would fix this decently.

Well, actually, my 'pet-peeve' I solved by just opening 50-60 resources all at the same time! What a work around! But if I'm using L4's search, you can't right-click the resource name ... instead you have to just grit your teeth and watch the crash-in-motion, fix it (again) and keep going.

I agree on your frustration. The L4 developers tried to solve the problem by doing what appears to be a match on the book type (e.g. monograph). Unfortunately, if you use Perseus much, their theory doesn't work well. I really don't know why they don't just be consistent about their resource right-click usage. But luckily that's an L4 peeve (no biggie for me).

I will say the forcing of the resource index display is VERY nice in L3. Quite often I'm in a Qumran or Ugarit resource and want to see a specific index, which L3 lets you choose. I DO like that!!

Much of the plus's and minus's are simply one's work flow. Saying 'get used to it' makes sense if you don't do too much.

Well, it's 8:30-ish in Beavertown; I think they have their Monday morning meeting about what to delay about now. Keeping my fingers crossed that Peshitta's not going to get the 2-month-to-fix-it delay.

Rosie Perera said:

I've been able to come up with a list of quite a number of features that existed in L3 that still haven't been implemented in L4 and where there isn't a satisfactory equivalent in L4 which is as easy as it was to do in L3:

 

• Fuzzy Search (comes with Power Tools Addin) (Bob says they're planning to bring this back; see here)
• Custom Serial Resources Associations (comes with Power Tools Addin) (see here)
• Vocab and Word Lists (this was on the old "missing features" list which seems to have disappeared from http://logos.com/4/missingfeatures)
• Sermon File (this was on the "missing features" list)
• Video Resources (this was on the "missing features" list)
• Illustrations section in Passage Guide (this was on the "missing features" list)
• Back and Forward History (David Paul was at one time a great advocate for this missing feature: see here and here)
• Ability to copy book description and other text from About This Resource (cannot copy from Info panel in Logos 4.5; see here)
• Ability to open multiple prioritized resources when double-clicking a word (see here)
• Ctrl-Shift > or < keyboard shortcut to increase or decrease resource font size (see here)
• Open to a designated layout (not merely last layout you closed with) (see here)
• In L3, Tools > Resources and Collections enabled us to see what collections each resource was part of (this has been requested in L4; not on UserVoice as far as I can tell, and can't find thread on forum)
• Greek Word Occurrence (I'm not sure I understand how to get this feature to work in L3, but people say it was there in a way that hasn't been replicated as easily yet in L4; see here and here)
• Ability to know name of current Layout to save changes to it (could do so with loaded workspaces in Logos 3) (see here)
• Greek Read Aloud feature had speed control in Libronix (see here)
• Aligned hits in context for Basic Search results (see here and here)

 

To Rosie's list, I'd add some usability issues that keep L3 on my desktop.

• On Rosie's list,
  Ability to know name of current Layout to save changes to it (could do so with loaded workspaces in Logos 3) (see here)
  I'd add:  save CURRENT workspace without having to know what it is. While it's true that deleting a favorite workspace even once will train us NEVER to do that again, to facilitate it happening even once is one time too many. And if we aren't careful the current software facilitates it EACH time.
• In Passage Guide, SermonCenctral gets 10 entries each time we hit the web. Current PG gets 5. So each week, I still open L3 at that point in the week's research & use the old PG to browse SermonCentral. It not only saves me time, but the info provided in that section is more useful than the info provided in L4's PG, not to mention being much easier on my hurting wrists & hands. :-)

I learned of yet another:

• Logos 3 can to vowel sensitive Hebrew searching. See this thread.

ROGER JIMENEZ said:

I miss the fastest way to find texts in the Bible (plain text), I mean, the "search while typing," I know that Logos 4 also has it, but is very slow.

Also I miss the weights and measures window.

Without mentioning tools unfinished in L4. Handout for example.

For some, L4 is eval'd like:

MJ. Smith said:

The ability to create timelines and harmonies using XML. This is a biggy to me.

Actually, by the time I came to Logos, never worked.

Rosie Perera said:

Ctrl-Shift > or < keyboard shortcut to increase or decrease resource font size

What's wrong with cmd-+ and cmd--, which work just fine these days (although I presume it's ctrl on PC)? Besides, I don't know what an American keyboard looks like, but Ctrl-Shift > or < would be impossible for me, since the shift would automatically transform any < into a >.

Rosie Perera said:

That doesn't work on Windows at the moment. I don't think it ever did. Ctrl-Plus and Ctrl-Minus work to increase/decrease the size of graphics in Biblical People/Places Things, but that's it. No way (from the keyboard) to increase/decrease the font size.

What? I thought that worked for you long before it worked for us, and it's worked for us a year or so now. So the Wiki commands only work in Biblical...? How come I've never seen a single Windows thread about this? When it didn't work on Mac, there were posts about it virtually every week.

Rosie Perera said:

US keyboards have < as Shift-, (comma) and > as Shift-. (period)

How unintuitive. We have semicolon above comma, and colon above period.

fgh said:

Rosie Perera said:

US keyboards have < as Shift-, (comma) and > as Shift-. (period)

How unintuitive. We have semicolon above comma, and colon above period.

If that's true of MAC US keyboards, that is simply another reason to not use a MAC—definitely a non-standard layout (going back to my old Underwood manual typewriter days).

George Somsel said:

If that's true of MAC US keyboards, that is simply another reason to not use a MAC

Why on earth would Apple use Swedish keyboards in the US? 

And you still haven't learnt the difference between MAC and Mac.

fgh said:

Rosie Perera said:

US keyboards have < as Shift-, (comma) and > as Shift-. (period)

How unintuitive. We have semicolon above comma, and colon above period.

Actually I would find the stacked key with both < and > on it horribly unintuitive. Having them right next to each other makes it easy to remember. The one on the left points left, the one on the right points right. Both on one key? Which ones is the shifted one and which one is unshifted. It seems arbitrary. No thanks. I'll take my US keyboard any day.

Rosie Perera said:

Which ones is the shifted one and which one is unshifted. It seems arbitrary.

Actually, thinking about it, it's not arbitrary. If you use them as angle brackets you start with a plain <, then you type something, and then you finish with a shift-<, which becomes a >. Kind of like clicking at the beginning and shift-clicking at the end to select a text.

Thanks for finally helping me to memorize that! I use them so seldom that I never have.

Lately, I have gone back to the Book of Daniel, due to something someone asked me, I have been using L4 for this re-hash of a study and the part asked was concerning the early chapters of Daniel. 

As I have been sitting here, I kept thinking in the back of my mind of whether or not I had saved the L3 work that I had done. I opened L3 and found that the brief study was still in tack. 

BUT, the thing that got my attention was the fact that when I did a BWS for a particular word – it came up ALL the Aramaic resources AND the Tragums. Such where part of the BWS for L3. I went back to L4 and started to compare the two BWS’s and noticed that to get the targum hits I had to actually go look for them by way of the search feature. Interestingly, I would think that L4 would be able to make the same distinction, but from what I could tell it doesn’t…… 

Funny, ya’ never know what was taken away until ya go lookin’ for it!!..........

Bob, thank you for taking so much time on the L3 to L4 comparison. And of course given our previous encounter, your time was not deserved.

You queried more info on how better to solve the 'pop-a-top, surprise me one more time and you're out here' resource opening in L4. Of course you're well familiar with clicking on a resource name in L3 and it opening to a floating window. It can then be positioned wherever you like (most of the time I simply want something from that resource quickly, closing immediately thereafter). L4, on a resource click will place itself in a tab 'somewhere'. From what I can see, back in early 2010, you tried to at least get the new tab to match earlier tabs by resource type.

My note to provide more consistency in the right click menu would do much to solve this without destroying your interface design. For example when you go to favorites, and do a right click on one of the favorites, you get 3-choice (open, new  tab, new window) which follows the design of your main menuing (e.g. Tools, Search, etc).

But in other multiple areas, it appears your design literally ruled out 'open floating window' in the right-click design. Why, I have no idea. It's so consistent I assumed you didn't like floating windows but then your main menuing allows it, so who knows. In any event, a more consistent right-click would solve much of the pop-a-top behavior. Here's a couple of examples:

Text Comparison Window - Drill Down into a Specific Bible
Here, a right-click over the reference allows a selection choice (good). But then there's no floating window choice. So, it's pop-a-top time.

Search Window - Select a Search Item 
Here similarly you can right-click a search item to 'Link' but then the floating window choice is missing. The pattern is so uniform, I'm guessing the 2-choice was the earlier design and the 3-choice a later design.

 How important is this to users, I've no idea. Everytime it happens to me, I always wonder if the Logos staff uses Logos (not meant offensively). But several staff members have said the Logos staff are heavy users, so maybe it's just 'multiple-windows' users (or just me!!).

In any event L3 is my primary go-to, so no need to waste code here.  I'd assume, anyway.

If you are considering a return to HTML for some areas, please could I urge you once again as I have previously to also consider a return to HTML Notes,then those who want more advanced notes (including color/tables) will be catered for with little or no impact on those who dont want all the bells and whistles, the plus side is any html formatting would work on either mac/pc/mobile as its cross-platform and industry standard, and the frustration on notes from power-users will go away..

I also add my vote/assent to this: that HTML is the way to go - as Dominic says it's cross-platform and industry standard - surely the way to go, rather than be limited by the decisions and subject to the whim of a large corporation (MS)

Also those of us who need 'proper notes' might at long long long last be able to create tables in notes! Notes aren't really notes without tables (in my opinion still one of the MAJOR failings of Logos 4).

Very sad and frustrated to hear again that Bob is still anti-good-note-taking capability - surely a key feature of a program "designed" for study (of anything especially the Bible). I've never heard of any good manual on study that doesn't have at least one chapter on note taking.

James