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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GaoLu

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.

Mattillo

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.

DMB

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.

Allen Browne

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.

James McAdams

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.

Mike Tourangeau

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.

I just tried it and it doesn't seem that different (?). Bible mapper looks promising......maybe I will just look into that for now.

Fr Devin Roza

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.

Mark Barnes

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.

Mattillo

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?

Jan Krohn

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.)

Allen Browne

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 ...

Sean Boisen

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.