An idea for Atlas
I have not used Atlas all that much. I find it clumsy and too rigid.....It works if you are searching a specific journey and you want to see that journey alone, but if you have any questions apart from the line on the screen you are out of luck.
I was just trying to see how far Philippi was from Rome and any info on the route Epaphroditus would have had to take (if Paul was in Rome) it was painful to get a map......
What if...... you can open Atlas and see the biblical world and similar to timeline specify a particular time (1st century) then you overlay major cities, Pauline churches etc. Then overlay the map with roads, shipping routes between churches. There could be estimated travel times to travel from Rome to Philippi etc.
Does anyone else find Atlas clumsy?
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The atlas has huge potential, but is so....something, (far too slow for one thing) that I seldom use it.
I would be really happy to just have a couple dozen really good maps like in the back of my paper Bible. Maybe a few embellishments like search. If at least those worked quickly and well and were accessible, I would use them a lot. Many such maps already exist, but finding them is too much hassle. I end up going to Google and sometimes to the paper maps in the back of my Bible.
I like your ideas.
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I want to like atlas... i really, really do but it always comes up short for me. I like the travel maps but look at this Assyrian exile map. If I pulled this up to a regular home group class it would mean nothing to them. There are no outlines of the countries nor possible paths of how they were exiled. I usually just wind up going to another atlas or map book like Holman as they usually have more in the graphics department. Maybe my expectations are too high i guess.
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I think the problem started out with Libby. She had no maps. Instead, a couple stand-alone apps, one of which is still fun to show in Bible class (going UP to Jerusalem is no easy tasker).
Then Molassas4 was intoduced, which came with limited backend graphics support. So they did a media one-off, which was pretty decent, but very slow. And not amenable to a web browser.
They really should have just bought Bible Mapper, which is very good. Unfortunately the developer was (is?) a cartographer for ESV & Co.
I've been wanting Accordance to move their desktop mapper to iOS, but that seems slow-going. Maybe cartographers are hard to find.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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Mike Tourangeau said:
I have not used Atlas all that much. I find it clumsy and too rigid.....
The atlas/maps really are the biggest letdown/disappointment in Logos.
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Allen Browne said:Mike Tourangeau said:
I have not used Atlas all that much. I find it clumsy and too rigid.....
The atlas/maps really are the biggest letdown/disappointment in Logos.
Have you used the atlas in the web app? It's not the best bible atlas out there, but it is a big step forward from what's in the desktop app currently, and it has a lot of potential.
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I just tried it and it doesn't seem that different (?). Bible mapper looks promising......maybe I will just look into that for now.James McAdams said:Allen Browne said:Mike Tourangeau said:I have not used Atlas all that much. I find it clumsy and too rigid.....
The atlas/maps really are the biggest letdown/disappointment in Logos.
Have you used the atlas in the web app? It's not the best bible atlas out there, but it is a big step forward from what's in the desktop app currently, and it has a lot of potential.
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Mike Tourangeau said:
What if...... you can open Atlas and see the biblical world and similar to timeline specify a particular time (1st century) then you overlay major cities, Pauline churches etc. Then overlay the map with roads, shipping routes between churches. There could be estimated travel times to travel from Rome to Philippi etc.
Does anyone else find Atlas clumsy?
[Y] Yes, this. I've found the current Atlas system of little use, too inflexible, etc.
One single vector map per time period + selectable overlays + zoom to a specific area would be fantastic!
Then, to replicate what the current Atlas does, you could create pre-configured selections of overlays + time-period map. That way you get the best of both worlds... simple for users that just want to just see something like Paul's 2nd Missionary Journey, but almost infinitely flexible as well for the rest of us.
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Mattillo said:
I like the travel maps but look at this Assyrian exile map. If I pulled this up to a regular home group class it would mean nothing to them
There's supposed to be many more detailed maps under the heading "Assyrian Exile", but they haven't been delivered yet. There are thirteen sections to the Atlas tool, but only four (United Kingdom, Return from Exile, Life of Jesus and Early Church) have been delivered.
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
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Mark Barnes said:Mattillo said:
I like the travel maps but look at this Assyrian exile map. If I pulled this up to a regular home group class it would mean nothing to them
There's supposed to be many more detailed maps under the heading "Assyrian Exile", but they haven't been delivered yet. There are thirteen sections to the Atlas tool, but only four (United Kingdom, Return from Exile, Life of Jesus and Early Church) have been delivered.
Thank you Mark. I assume those additions are part of the Map Pack 3 from Logos 6 that still haven't been shipped?
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Mattillo said:
I assume those additions are part of the Map Pack 3 from Logos 6 that still haven't been shipped?
You would assume so, but some of them were once in Map Pack 2. I don't know if that means they've been moved, or whether we've only got part of pack 2.
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
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Allen Browne said:Mike Tourangeau said:
I have not used Atlas all that much. I find it clumsy and too rigid.....
The atlas/maps really are the biggest letdown/disappointment in Logos.
That's one of the reasons why I purchased the Zondervan atlas. https://www.logos.com/product/26727/zondervan-atlas-of-the-bible
(Note that because of all the HD maps, the file size of the resource is literally massive.)
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Jan Krohn said:Allen Browne said:Mike Tourangeau said:
I have not used Atlas all that much. I find it clumsy and too rigid.....
The atlas/maps really are the biggest letdown/disappointment in Logos.
That's one of the reasons why I purchased the Zondervan atlas. https://www.logos.com/product/26727/zondervan-atlas-of-the-bible
(Note that because of all the HD maps, the file size of the resource is literally massive.)
Yes, I purchased it too, and it's a great resource.
But having another good resource doesn't solve the underlying issue of right-clicking a place in the Bible text, and being taken to a resource that's not relevant to that time, or not relevant to that place, or requires a web connection to load, or only loads slowly, or doesn't know anything about the place, or ...
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Mark Barnes said:Mattillo said:
I assume those additions are part of the Map Pack 3 from Logos 6 that still haven't been shipped?
You would assume so, but some of them were once in Map Pack 2. I don't know if that means they've been moved, or whether we've only got part of pack 2.
Another FaiLed FL promise. These were supposed to be delivered with Logos 6.0 and well into Logos 7.0 lifecycle. They continually overpromise whether it be maps, journals, the encyclopedia britanica, the personal book storefront, partially delivered data sets etc. Will they ever deliver on what users paid for in their Logos 6.0 purchase of the Atlas map sets? To say the Atlas took is a disappointment is an understatement.
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I share with people's disappointment but I choose to be optimistic that Faithlife will improve maps in the future.
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Bruce Dunning said:
I share with people's disappointment but I choose to be optimistic that Faithlife will improve maps in the future.
And that is the problem with FL. They are over optimistic about everything instead of stepping back and being honest with themselves about what is really possible, all that matters is the dream they can sell, not whether they will deliver it.
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Bruce Dunning said:
I choose to be optimistic that Faithlife will improve maps in the future.
[Y]
Since map improvements are happening on the web app platform and will be coming to the desktop, as James mentioned, I think it's a certainty that we'll see better maps before or for Logos 8.
I'm simply thankful for all the improvements that FL continues to make.
Thanks to FL for including Carta and a Hebrew audio bible in Logos 9!
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Maybe we will get lucky and they'll see this post and give us the most recent updates on maps. I am hopeful they will deliver on this as well but share in the disappointment that this was planned for L6 and still MIA
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Still hoping for an update from FL [:)]
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For teaching purposes, it would be nice to have an atlas where you could show how a city or region looks today and what it is was like in biblical times.
The atlas has long been an underdeveloped resource.
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Ted Weis said:
For teaching purposes, it would be nice to have an atlas where you could show how a city or region looks today and what it is was like in biblical times.
The atlas has long been an underdeveloped resource.
It really brings things to life. The small set of Biblical maps and plastic overlays from Rose Publishing shows what can be done.
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Ted Weis said:
For teaching purposes, it would be nice to have an atlas where you could show how a city or region looks today and what it is was like in biblical times.
While not an atlas there is the "Before and After: Biblical Sites" interactive
The problem is there are only 11 entries and I don't know if there are any plans to increase this
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Good point Graham. That would be a good update if they do have plans for it. I really hope FL can give us an update on this. They have been responding to the journals outcry but it seems the Atlas tool hasn't reached the boiling point for a reply yet
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Gao Lu said:
The atlas has huge potential, but is so....something, (far too slow for one thing) that I seldom use it.
I would be really happy to just have a couple dozen really good maps like in the back of my paper Bible. Maybe a few embellishments like search. If at least those worked quickly and well and were accessible, I would use them a lot. Many such maps already exist, but finding them is too much hassle. I end up going to Google and sometimes to the paper maps in the back of my Bible.
I like your ideas.
I like these ideas too. If you just want a collection of static maps, the Biblical Places Maps resource is pretty helpful, and the places link back to their Factbook entries.
The most direct way to find maps outside of Atlas is Media Search. For example, Media Search, filtered to maps rather than All Media, for <Place Philippi> returns 18 Atlas maps, several Biblical Places maps, and others from third-party resources.
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PetahChristian said:
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Since map improvements are happening on the web app platform and will be coming to the desktop, as James mentioned, I think it's a certainty that we'll see better maps before or for Logos 8.
I'm simply thankful for all the improvements that FL continues to make.
I share the disappointment of many that it has taken us so long, but we are still committed to delivering all the maps that users have licensed (see https://community.logos.com/forums/p/93217/649689.aspx#649689 for a broad outline of the contents of the three volumes).
We made a strategic decision in the spring of 2017 to switch to a different map technology (vector, rather than raster, based). We've retooled our internal development process around this new approach, and have continued making vector-based Atlas maps. But we haven't yet completed the integration of this approach into the Logos Web App (https://app.logos.com) and the desktop app. Consequently, we have quite a few maps that have been completed internally but remain unshipped (the Web App is currently ahead, and uses the vector-based approach, which makes it noticeably faster).
There are many features we'd like to add to Atlas, and I hope we'll have the opportunity. In the meantime, our current priority remains delivering the rest of the maps we've planned.
In the spirit of Phil's post asking for Logos 8 suggestions, please feel free to offer your suggestions for what would make the Atlas a better tool (or link to other suggestions elsewhere).
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Not to be a party-pooper, Sean, but the Biblical Places panel is slowly disintegrating. The keyboard zoom has been working in reverse for some time. You have to try and use the touchpad's fake mouse scroller instead. Plus, the maps are basically random, sorted by title, instead of time-period. I've never seen Bibles that order their maps by however they were titled. But makes sense at Bellingham HQ.
Then, you have your Factbook, that shows unlabeled thumbnails ... it assumes you have a mouse ... touch screens need not waste their time. Of course, they're randomized too (apparently by database source, then assigned title). And eye-opening by search .... Masada and the Assyrian campagns. Well, ok!
At each improvement, there's a predictable reluctance to allow 'easy to use'.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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Sean Boisen said:
We made a strategic decision in the spring of 2017 to switch to a different map technology (vector, rather than raster, based).
Good decision.
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Sean Boisen said:
In the spirit of Phil's post asking for Logos 8 suggestions, please feel free to offer your suggestions for what would make the Atlas a better tool (or link to other suggestions elsewhere).
What I'd love to see is making the maps more lively w/ filters and overlays. One example would be the Biblical World - United Kingdom. When I pull up the map (see photo) all it shows me is the area w/ cities. Great for some maybe but I think it would be neat if you added a filter to maps like this that add color shades to the 12 tribes so distinguish them and their areas (see examples from the Rose Maps & Charts book or Holman Atlas). When i go to the Divided Kingdom map there is no line or feature on there that shows where the divide is.
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Sean Boisen said:
There are many features we'd like to add to Atlas, and I hope we'll have the opportunity. In the meantime, our current priority remains delivering the rest of the maps we've planned.
In the spirit of Phil's post asking for Logos 8 suggestions, please feel free to offer your suggestions for what would make the Atlas a better tool (or link to other suggestions elsewhere).
I've been [:'(] ever since the original Logos Bible Atlas software started failing to load in Windows. I haven't seen anything as useful as that was, before or after. It allowed me to populate a map with exactly the info I needed to illustrate a point. The 3D feature enabled me to portray the ascent to Jerusalem (from any angle) in a way that no other software has ever approached. I still miss it.
Current software keeps getting closer, but still is a pretty far 2nd.
Grace & Peace,
Bill
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I have this resource, Rose Bible Atlas, in another ebible format and the maps are beautiful.
For the record, the Logos Bible Atlas 2.0 from floppy days has not been improved upon. I loved to be able to get what info I wanted, have it open a Bible Dictionary, rotate a 3-D map, etc. It was a lot of fun to use. Sadly, I can no longer get it to work.
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