Help with a Topic search please.

What happens if you click on the "Search for ("Simeon", "Symeon") instead?" Link? Here are the options I have...

Did you notice?

Now, when you do this search:

topic: simeon

You get only topics from your bible dictionaries and not all of the "surface text" hits?

THIS:

VS THIS:

Robert Pavich said:

Stephen Thorp said:

Thanks Robert. I didn't know this, so that's very helpful!

Thank YOU for starting this thread...I had no idea this was in place until now either!!

Thanks Logos for listening (but not to me...I didn't see that it would be that vaulable until now...)

Sorry to rain on the party, but they're not listening (or at least they might be listening, but haven't done anything). It's always worked that way. There is no search term "topic", except in one or two very old LLS resources. But whilst the entire library tries to use the search field (and therefore returns zero results) the 'topic' search ignores the search field, which makes it look as though it's doing a topic search.

So bible:Simeon returns a 'topic' search too, as does not-a-search-term:Simeon

Sean said:

Somebody mentioned using topic:someterm in search, but that doesn't seem to behave as i'd expect if it were really searching topics. I'll inquire further.

Then he later said:

BTW, while i'm not sure yet what the search syntax "topic:Gentiles" means, it doesn't do a "topic search" in the L3 sense: that's incorrect information from some earlier posts about topics. If you want to find the (new style) topic, just search for "Gentiles". If there's a topic, you'll see a Topic section in the Passage Guide: otherwise you won't.

My reply that follows that last citation from Sean demonstrates exactly the functionality you're describing above, and is from a month ago.

Sean went on to say:

A better statement on my part would have been "what topic:XXX does isn't very predictable". A few resources have been tagged in such a way that this finds the tags (note this is now a _third_ sense of "topic", different from new-style Logos 4 topics, and different from matching strings!), but most have not. So it's not a reliable way to find topics (in whatever sense one means) in your library.

Mark Barnes said:

A better statement on my part would have been "what topic:XXX does isn't very predictable". A few resources have been tagged in such a way that this finds the tags (note this is now a _third_ sense of "topic", different from new-style Logos 4 topics, and different from matching strings!), but most have not. So it's not a reliable way to find topics (in whatever sense one means) in your library.

thanks for clarifying....much appreciated..

Dave Hooton said:

EDIT: If the topic: field search was able to return true TOPICs then we wouldn't be having this debate. The L3 topic search was topic(simeon), which also returned much better results than topic:simeon but L4 is trying to provide more accurate results than topic(simeon). But I'm not convinced that a Basic Search on a single word is the best way to return TOPICs eg. (simeon AND son) does not return TOPICs.

I just don't think I understand.... [:$]

OK, here's my understanding, pieceing together Sean's posts and the various user requests.

1. Logos 3 did not have a true concept of topics. Confusingly, however, we all thought it did and you could search for topic(searchterm).
2. In Logos 3 searching for topic(searchterm) actually searched the headings of Logos resources, and therefore worked quite well as a topic search, particularly when searching journals or dictionaries.
3. In Logos 4, a true concept of topics has been introduced. Articles in certain resources (such as dictionaries) are especially tagged with topic information. This topic list is controlled by Logos, to ensure consistency between resources. Unfortunately very few resources are currently tagged in this way.
4. In Logos 4 there is no way to specify a topic search. It happens automatically when you do a basic search.
5. Very frustratingly however, the headings tagging that masqueraded as topics in Logos 3 still exists in Logos 4, but you can't (easily) search it. This is what users are complaining about so much.
   • If you look at most dictionary-type resources there is an index of headwords. BUT YOU CAN'T SEARCH IT.
   • Every resource also has a contents pane which records the headings from the outline/table of contents. BUT YOU CAN'T SEARCH IT.
6. So, users are:
   • Glad to hear the Logos 4 will improve topic searching by introducing true topics.
   • Utterly bewildered that we cannot search headwords of dictionaries and the table of contents of resources, which would cover the current deficiencies in true Logos 4 topic data.
7. So, all we want is to be able to restrict a search to just headwords and table of contents headings.

Mark Barnes said:

OK, here's my understanding, pieceing together Sean's posts and the various user requests.

1. Logos 3 did not have a true concept of topics. Confusingly, however, we all thought it did and you could search for topic(searchterm).
2. In Logos 3 searching for topic(searchterm) actually searched the headings of Logos resources, and therefore worked quite well as a topic search, particularly when searching journals or dictionaries.
3. In Logos 4, a true concept of topics has been introduced. Articles in certain resources (such as dictionaries) are especially tagged with topic information. This topic list is controlled by Logos, to ensure consistency between resources. Unfortunately very few resources are currently tagged in this way.
4. In Logos 4 there is no way to specify a topic search. It happens automatically when you do a basic search.
5. Very frustratingly however, the headings tagging that masqueraded as topics in Logos 3 still exists in Logos 4, but you can't (easily) search it. This is what users are complaining about so much.
   • If you look at most dictionary-type resources there is an index of headwords. BUT YOU CAN'T SEARCH IT.
   • Every resource also has a contents pane which records the headings from the outline/table of contents. BUT YOU CAN'T SEARCH IT.
6. So, users are:
   • Glad to hear the Logos 4 will improve topic searching by introducing true topics.
   • Utterly bewildered that we cannot search headwords of dictionaries and the table of contents of resources, which would cover the current deficiencies in true Logos 4 topic data.
7. So, all we want is to be able to restrict a search to just headwords and table of contents headings.

Mark...wow...two things....

1.) You are much smarter than I....

2.) Now I get what you're saying... [:D]

For topic searching I just go back to my old L3 or my new WS9. They both lay out topics far better, IMHO, then L4. Maybe when L4 gets the multitude of books tagged it will improve in this area.

I have the 1915 edition. Do I need to buy a new one to get this feature?

Mark Barnes said:

Yes the modern edition is entirely different to the old one, despite the same name. It's possible topic searching may be added to the old one at some point, but Logos have not indicated one way or the other whether this will happen.

Yes, the ISBE is the new one: the content is also substantially revised in the modern version, and i see no good reason for us to go back to work on the outdated one.

Mark Barnes said:

I could be wrong, but I would see it as relatively low-hanging fruit to give us a headwords keyword. You would make a lot of people VERY happy if we could run headword:grace across our dictionaries or journals.

I agree that this is an important feature for us to offer. There are some technical reasons why the fruit isn't hanging quite a low as you might think, and we've got an lot of feature requests on the development list, but rest assured this one has not gone unheard.

Sean Boisen said:

Mark Barnes said:

I could be wrong, but I would see it as relatively low-hanging fruit to give us a headwords keyword. You would make a lot of people VERY happy if we could run headword:grace across our dictionaries or journals.

I agree that this is an important feature for us to offer. There are some technical reasons why the fruit isn't hanging quite a low as you might think, and we've got an lot of feature requests on the development list, but rest assured this one has not gone unheard.

 

Yahey! Progress [:D] - I shall be first in the queue for the beta when it comes....

Steven,

as one who contributed to the angst, I'm grateful for this thread...up until now...I can tell you that I didn't fully understand the issues involved.

It also reinforced my respect for some sharp Logos users; Dave H and Mark B...both we are fortunate to have here.