Why do you prefer Logos 4 over 3?

Did you see this thread? http://community.logos.com/forums/t/6771.aspx

As one of those who had some "interesting comments" I want to take this opportunity to say how much I like the program itself (my problem has alway been how the product was launched). I saw the potental frm the very start, but I have to admit that the first serveral weeks the pay off does not come because I was learning a new way of doing things. I can't say those first few weeks were less productive, but the were certainly not more productive than with L3. However, in time I have noticed that I get more done in less time and enjoy it more in the process.

I thought a while about what exactly has made a difference and I think the single biggest factor is layouts. In L4 I seem to be able to create workspaces that help me accomplish my task better. Yes I used workspaces in L3, but they always seems a little like a square peg in a round hole. With some work I have created some layouts that just seem to fit--consequently I work better and enjoy it more.

RobinSchumacher said:

Keith - thanks for your comments. I do like the layouts, although as of yet, I haven't found they make a big impact on how I use the product, but perhaps over time I'll find the benefits you've described.

Am I wrong in saying that some functionality seems missing? Things like Bible speed search, bibliography generation, and other such things?  Is there a list of functionality that's been permanently removed?

Did you read the missing features list?  (there's a link below in my signature).  Bibliography is a planned feature (for 2nd quarter 2010), as is Personal Book Builder support.

Bible speed search is definitely not there as it was in v3.  There's been some debate on the forum about whether the regular bible search is a good enough replacement. 

The fastest way to do a bible search right now is:  Hit Alt+D to move the cursor to the command box, enter your search words, then hit Ctrl+Enter to do a bible search for those words in your Top Bibles.  Depending on your computer this could be fast or slow.

Regarding "selecting a word in the interlinear and being able to copy the English - not Greek - spelling of the word out" -- that's the first time I've heard someone comment on that.  How did you do that in v3? Did you have to reorder the lines so the english was on top? I do know that a Ctrl+C copy will copy all the lines of the interlinear in v4, but the right-click menu copy won't.

RobinSchumacher said:

Keith - thanks for your comments. I do like the layouts, although as of yet, I haven't found they make a big impact on how I use the product, but perhaps over time I'll find the benefits you've described

Be sure to watch some of the user created videos of layouts. They give so great ideas.

I much prefer the new layouts and screen usage of Logos4. Interestingly, when using my Samsung NC10 netbook, I always use Logos4 despite it being a bit sluggish. Why? Because I find the resources much easier to read, on the small screen, using Logos4. Over the weekend, as an experiment, I used the netbook to do a major amount of research and, other than needing to be a bit more patient, I found Logos4 on it to be very acceptable.

If I had needed to access any of my PBBs I would, of course, have fired up Logos3 on it as well. Once they (and the other missing features) are supported by Logos4 I anticipate that my Logos3 usage will diminish dramatically...

Andy

RobinSchumacher said:

I wonder how Logos determines what functionality to remove? Polls, surveys, something else? I know that removing functionality is a tricky process and I always struggled with it at a couple of the companies I worked at.

[edit]Percentage of users utilizing the feature. Features used by over 10% of the people were included in the initial release. Under 10% in future releases.

Philip Spitzer said:

Percentage of users utilizing the feature. Features used by over 10% of the people were included in the initial release. Under 10% in future releases.

You mean all the whining and complaining we are seeing is from only 10% of the user base? Cool!

[;)]

TerryPoperszky said:

Philip Spitzer said:

Percentage of users utilizing the feature. Features used by over 10% of the people were included in the initial release. Under 10% in future releases.

You mean all the whining and complaining we are seeing is from only 10% of the user base? Cool!

Those who use the forums are only a fraction of the user base. I think I heard somewhere that Logos has 700,000 users. could be wrong there, but at any rate we just passed 10,000 people registered for the forums. I have a friend who I gave a set of eBible resources to. He didn't even know about passage guides and exegetical guides in L3! I know of pastors who own logos and never use it. It truly does break my heart :-)

Yes, we are the vocal minority :-)

Damian McGrath said:

It ought come as no surprise that many of the so called power users turned off such reporting - they are the loud ones and their use of such tools was not taken into account.

We have been given no figure regarding how many users allowed reporting on their Libronix installs. Thus we have no idea what percentage used various tools.

The first thing I always did was turn the reporting off when I installed L3 and those who know how to do this tend to be power users. So the statistics Logos got from L3 were misleading in some ways. I would also guess that those same people who knew how to turn off reporting were also the type of customers who purchase more books.

Damian McGrath said:

It ought come as no surprise that many of the so called power users turned off such reporting - they are the loud ones and their use of such tools was not taken into account.

Philip, What exactly do you think usage stats are?  They are a record of the features you use.

I must need another cup of coffee then. 

Ok that was creepy enough to become my new desktop background for awhile.

Todd Phillips said:

I expected the forum to downsize it like it does uploaded images.  Imagine my surprise.

I love to learn more about my relationship with God, Logos 4 and 3 help me to see more clearly and quickly what the scriptures are talking about and I can not express my joy in finding them, but I also love to teach other believers about the advantages of using software to more quickly find out what the scriptures have to say on any subject.

This is why I prefer Logos 4 over Libronix 3!  I have show 100's and 100's of believers how to use free bible study programs like e-sword and the Word, but as you most likely know both of them have limited resources when it comes to books with copyrights.

And when you start looking into programs that contain books with copyrights, Libronix 3 was the best, but it had two main draw backs in my mind. 

The first might sound silly, but to most of the people that I had introduced to study software, Libronix 3 looked so different that they didn't want to even try it.  It did not bother me how it looked, but it sure looked strange compared to other bible study programs.  Logos 4 has changed that, it "looks" more like other bible study programs and I have already seen more positive reactions from believers when they see the new program.

The second problem with getting others to use libronix 3 was, the learning curve.  To really get the most out of the system took a while, to shorten my learning curve I bought Logos Camp I and Camp II plus every manual I could find, plus all the resources on the Logos site.  I spent 100's of dollars to learn how to use the system.  It was money well spent, but most people do not want to spend either that much time or money on how to use a program.

With Logos 4, the learning curve is much better, and although it does things differently from Libronix 3, it gets the job done with out spending as much time and money learning how to use the system.  this is really a big plus for me, since I enjoy getting people into the scriptures!

Of course there is still a big cost factor in getting all the resources, but buying at the right time really helps in that area and for most folks a up grade in libraries right now is a great way to improve their libraries, without spending as much as normal.

On the negative side, Logos blew the launch by not informing us concerning things that were going to be missing, some early lists of what was in each package were wrong and who had any idea how big the downloads were going to be those first few days???  And who had any idea how long the indexing was going to take, and exactly what was going on when.

These things have all come along way, and so has the information on how to use the program.

I must admit that the first month was horrible for me, but now I have great hopes that a good program wiil become a great program, that I will be able to share with other.

Loving Logos 4 and waiting for the rest of it!!!

In Christ,

Jim

Joe Miller said:

And this is your punishment for not sharing your usage stats with Logos.... bad boy.. bad bad boy!

from the private beta forum: http://community.logos.com/forums/p/2706/20980.aspx#20980

Bob Pritchett said:

We've been clear about our intention to
offer equivalent (really, improved) versions of the "missing" LDLS 3
features; they just take time to code. But nobody will have anything
taken from them if we release 4 without those features and add them
(for free) in the coming months. Statistics show that almost none of
the features mentioned on these forums as "missing" are used by more
than 10% of our users. (A different 10% for each feature, of course.)
If you're affected, and it's important to you, you can simply defer
upgrading to 4 until the feature is implemented. There isn't much
difference between our releasing now -- for the 90% who don't use the
feature -- and you not upgrading for three months, and us holding the
product for three months and then you buying it the day we release it.
Either way the feature doesn't arrive for three months. The only
difference is psychological.

Todd Phillips said:

I expected the forum to downsize it like it does uploaded images.  Imagine my surprise.

It will if you reduce the Max Width in the Insert Media box. Default is 550, but I just reduced it to 300 for this image. Works for images inserted from URL as well as uploaded from your computer.

RobinSchumacher said:

All - thanks again for the many thoughtful replies. I played more with some of the layouts last night and watched some of the videos you've recommended and have come up with a good framework I think. The only thing I find is that my scrolling through my main Bible is sluggish if I have too many other tabs linked in sync with it, so I'm experimenting with what I can turn on/off to make things more snappy.

One question: is there a way to have some of the tools like Bible explorer and such open by default in a floating window vs. dock to the side of the core window? I created some toolbar options by dragging the tools onto the bar, but the only way I can get them open in a floating window is by right-mousing on the icon and selecting the floating window option.

Robin, this thread has a tip that might help your sluggish performance problems: http://community.logos.com/forums/p/5627/44200.aspx

I don't think there is a way to make "floating window" the default way to open a tool. It would be a good suggestion to add to the Suggestions forum, though, if you'd like them to add it in a future version.