How to 'show-off' your Logos 4 library!

Mark Barnes
Mark Barnes Member Posts: 15,432 ✭✭✭
edited November 2024 in English Forum

If you want to allow others to see what resources you have in Logos, you can now do so. It's a feature I've added to my Logos 4 Bibliographic Report. The report gives you a URL that you can share with friends so that they can see your library. The page is pretty rather than functional, but I'll consider adding additional functionality if there's demand. This is what mine looks like:

For those not familiar with my bibliographic report, you simply upload a large file from your Logos installation, and my website does the rest.

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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Comments

  • Roger Feenstra
    Roger Feenstra Member Posts: 459 ✭✭

    Very nice.  Thank you, Mark.

    image

    Elder/Pastor, Hope Now Bible Church, Fresno CA

  • Theophilus
    Theophilus Member Posts: 79 ✭✭

    Wow! How many storeys tall did you say that bookshelf is again? [;)]

    Seriously, Wow! This is really cool! I love it! [H]

    [Y] for functionality, please!

  • Mark Barnes
    Mark Barnes Member Posts: 15,432 ✭✭✭

    Wow! How many storeys tall did you say that bookshelf is again? Wink

    At a width of 1280 pixels my 'bookcase' was 445 shelves high. If the average shelf is 10 inches high, that's about 371 feet, or about the same height as St. Paul's Cathedral in London!

    image

    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!

  • Ron Corbett
    Ron Corbett Member Posts: 860 ✭✭✭

    At a width of 1280 pixels my 'bookcase' was 445 shelves high. If the average shelf is 10 inches high, that's about 371 feet, or about the same height as St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    You call that showin' off?  [H]

    Thanks again Mark.

  • NetworkGeek
    NetworkGeek Member Posts: 3,813 ✭✭✭

    How do you figure out how many shelves your library is? You didn't count them all did you?

  • Theophilus
    Theophilus Member Posts: 79 ✭✭


    ... that's about 371 feet, or about the same height as St. Paul's Cathedral in London!

    Cool! Looks like adding functionality will have to include a ladder that long (the type with wheels that you slide along your bookcase) to enable one to reach the books on the highest shelf! (Not to mention others who may have an even bigger library ... )

  • Sharon
    Sharon Member Posts: 191 ✭✭

    Hi Mark!

    Thanks!  I love this!  I'm pretty visual, so this will actually help me in a very practical way.

    Unfortunately my computer, my new computer has been in critical care in the hospital recently (again).  It just came home and I have to reload everything (again).  I'm going to try and reload Logos tonight during the night.  Then, hopefully, tomorrow I can do your way cool report!

    What fun!  Thanks, again!

     

    wordcenterministries.org

  • Donovan R. Palmer
    Donovan R. Palmer Member, MVP Posts: 2,928

    This is cool. I was really hoping L4 would have a visual bookshelf feature similar to what you have done here and similar to programmes like Delicious Library.

  • Rosie Perera
    Rosie Perera Member Posts: 26,194 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Cool! I love it! Even if it's not that functional, it's pretty to look at!

    If you felt like improving it, here are some suggestions (the last two are minor bug fixes):

    1) Hidden resources still show up on my shelves and I'd prefer not to see them.

    2) Can't control the sort order that shows up on the link you generated for me to share with others (http://www.4-14.org.uk/?mylogosbooks=329b13a8ae35ba623f500c1b314c2128), and don't know if there is a way to generate a new link that has them sorted by Author instead of Title. (I can show them to myself in that order, but it's not a shareable URL.)

    3) There are some funky characters that show up instead of smart quotes and em-dashes and such, in the popups that come up when you hover over a cover image:

    image

    4) Also noticeable in the above image: when the Author is blank, the opening comma and space should be omitted.

    Long-term (in the "dream on" category): I'd love to be able to drag and group and rearrange at will; collapse and drag entire series together and organize my visual shelves much the way I might my physical shelves. Not necessarily in some absolute "computer order"; but all my commentaries together, and then by series within that section, and in canonical order within each series; then in another section all my journals sorted by issue number; then in another section all my church history books by author; etc.

  • Alan Charles Gielczyk
    Alan Charles Gielczyk Member Posts: 776 ✭✭

    Mark,

    Thanks for this, it is great. I do have one problem, at least with my library. About halfway through all my books stop being "on" the shelves and appear between the shelves. I don't know how you all get your bookshelf to appear in your post so I can't show you unless someone clues me in on how to do that.

  • Rosie Perera
    Rosie Perera Member Posts: 26,194 ✭✭✭✭✭


    I don't know how you all get your bookshelf to appear in your post so I can't show you unless someone clues me in on how to do that.


    I use SnagIt, a full-featured screen capture utility made by TechSmith. Jing is a simpler freebie one from the same company.

  • Aaron Knotts
    Aaron Knotts Member Posts: 208 ✭✭

    thanks Mark!  This is outstanding....a brilliant way to get an overview of my library and perhaps read something I had missed.

    MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015), 2.5 GHz Intel Core i7

    16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, AMD Radeon R9 M370X 2048 MB

     

     

  • Paul Golder
    Paul Golder Member Posts: 1,698 ✭✭✭

    Thanks Mark, very nice work. [Y]

    Now if only Logos would supply artwork for all the titles... [^o)]

    "As any translator will attest, a literal translation is no translation at all."

  • J. Morris
    J. Morris Member Posts: 569 ✭✭

    Amazing...

  • Alex Scott
    Alex Scott Member Posts: 718 ✭✭

    I don't know if you've found this out but no one has mentioned it that I can see - if you click on a book, it will open it.

    Longtime Logos user (more than $30,000 in purchases) - now a second class user because I won't pay them more every month or year.

  • Rosie Perera
    Rosie Perera Member Posts: 26,194 ✭✭✭✭✭


    I don't know if you've found this out but no one has mentioned it that I can see - if you click on a book, it will open it.


    Yes, that was the first thing I tried. Pretty nifty! [:)]

  • Roger Feenstra
    Roger Feenstra Member Posts: 459 ✭✭


    I don't know how you all get your bookshelf to appear in your post so I can't show you unless someone clues me in on how to do that.


     

    I use SnagIt, a full-featured screen capture utility made by TechSmith. Jing is a simpler freebie one from the same company.

    Windows 7 has a nice little snipping tool built right in.  

    Elder/Pastor, Hope Now Bible Church, Fresno CA

  • Roger Feenstra
    Roger Feenstra Member Posts: 459 ✭✭

    I don't know if you've found this out but no one has mentioned it that I can see - if you click on a book, it will open it.

    What a great feature.  I love it!

    Elder/Pastor, Hope Now Bible Church, Fresno CA

  • Roger Feenstra
    Roger Feenstra Member Posts: 459 ✭✭

    about the same height as St. Paul's Cathedral in London!

    Love that place!

    Elder/Pastor, Hope Now Bible Church, Fresno CA

  • Aaron Knotts
    Aaron Knotts Member Posts: 208 ✭✭

    I don't know if you've found this out but no one has mentioned it that I can see - if you click on a book, it will open it.

    Does it open in L4 for you?   Mine insists on trying to open using the Libronix Max Lucado software I have installed (which it then can't find the resources in)

    MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015), 2.5 GHz Intel Core i7

    16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, AMD Radeon R9 M370X 2048 MB

     

     

  • Rosie Perera
    Rosie Perera Member Posts: 26,194 ✭✭✭✭✭


    Does it open in L4 for you?   Mine insists on trying to open using the Libronix Max Lucado software I have installed (which it then can't find the resources in)


    Someone else just asked this same question earlier today on another thread in another context. That is a common problem people have been having after reinstalling Libronix (Logos 3) after having already installed Logos 4. In that case, Logos 3 hijacks the libronixdls hyperlink protocol back again. I'm not sure if that's why you're seeing this problem since it sounds like you had Libronix Max Lucado installed earlier before you installed L4. But the fix should work regardless. To fix it, see the instructions here: http://wiki.logos.com/Hyperlinks#Problem.3a_Libronix_DLS_executes_the_protocol_instead_of_Logos_4

  • Amy Leung
    Amy Leung Member Posts: 406 ✭✭


    I don't know if you've found this out but no one has mentioned it that I can see - if you click on a book, it will open it.


    Actually, this works in the iPhone too (tapping on the book cover will open the book in the Logos app) and I find it very cool.  [H]

    A big thanks to Mark and Dave for what you have done! 

  • Aaron Knotts
    Aaron Knotts Member Posts: 208 ✭✭

    Someone else just asked this same question earlier today on another thread in another context. That is a common problem people have been having after reinstalling Libronix (Logos 3) after having already installed Logos 4. In that case, Logos 3 hijacks the libronixdls hyperlink protocol back again. I'm not sure if that's why you're seeing this problem since it sounds like you had Libronix Max Lucado installed earlier before you installed L4. But the fix should work regardless. To fix it, see the instructions here: http://wiki.logos.com/Hyperlinks#Problem.3a_Libronix_DLS_executes_the_protocol_instead_of_Logos_4

    Thanks Rosie,

    gave it a shot, but to no avail. I'm tempted to uninstall L3 again, but reluctant as I had a hard time adding new purchase of older resources. 

     

    I had L3, then installed L4 - ran out of space to index so I uninstalled L3. Purchased the Lucado Lifeworks but it wouldn't install so used the installer from L3. Now when L3 opens it is very much the Lucado variant of it.

    MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015), 2.5 GHz Intel Core i7

    16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, AMD Radeon R9 M370X 2048 MB

     

     

  • Rosie Perera
    Rosie Perera Member Posts: 26,194 ✭✭✭✭✭


    Someone else just asked this same question earlier today on another thread in another context. That is a common problem people have been having after reinstalling Libronix (Logos 3) after having already installed Logos 4. In that case, Logos 3 hijacks the libronixdls hyperlink protocol back again. I'm not sure if that's why you're seeing this problem since it sounds like you had Libronix Max Lucado installed earlier before you installed L4. But the fix should work regardless. To fix it, see the instructions here: http://wiki.logos.com/Hyperlinks#Problem.3a_Libronix_DLS_executes_the_protocol_instead_of_Logos_4

    Thanks Rosie,

    gave it a shot, but to no avail. I'm tempted to uninstall L3 again, but reluctant as I had a hard time adding new purchase of older resources. 

    I had L3, then installed L4 - ran out of space to index so I uninstalled L3. Purchased the Lucado Lifeworks but it wouldn't install so used the installer from L3. Now when L3 opens it is very much the Lucado variant of it.


    It's probably something we can help you solve without you having to uninstall L3. In the Registry Editor, scroll all the way up to the top/root of your registry, click My Computer, then Ctrl+F search for libronixdls with just Keys checked. Then when you find the first hit, click on the hollow triangles to expand every sub-entry under the libronixdls key, and see if it looks like this:

    image

    If not, do you know how to do a screen capture of just that portion and post it here?

    Ditto for the status bar the the bottom that shows the full path to that key:

    image

    Finally, check the data in the key over on the right hand panel:

    image

    Be nitpicky about getting the punctuation and spacing right. Quotes around the full path (especially if it has any spaces in it" followed by a space and then quotes around the %1. No extra spaces in there besides the one between the (quoted) program name and the quoted parameter. Make sure that is all right and pointing to the right path to Logos4.exe on your particular computer.

    Now press F3 to find the next occurrence of libronixdls and do the same as above. Do it for each and every occurrence until you hit the end of the registry and don't find anymore.

    Note: I've expressed my frustration to Logos that people are having to do this manual fix so frequently, and have asked them to put a check in Logos 4 to make sure the libronixdls protocol is set to point correctly to Logos 4 upon startup.

    UPDATE: It is a good idea to keep L3 around for installing older products as you mentioned. You don't need to install the data files for them, just unlock and sync licenses, and then you can use them in L4. Best to get this registry thing fixed properly now and not uninstall L3 only to have to reinstall it again if you need it in the future if you buy another Libronix-based book. It will just mess up the libronixdls protocol again.

  • Aaron Knotts
    Aaron Knotts Member Posts: 208 ✭✭

    Rosie,

    you are a blessing thank you.

    I hope you indeed did go to bed a little while ago - I had read your comment to another late night poster.

    Your post gave me the syntax needed to resolve the issue - I added a space between "....Logos4.exe" %1, but it needed the quote marks around "%1" also.

    It seems to be fixed! Thank you [{]

    MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015), 2.5 GHz Intel Core i7

    16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, AMD Radeon R9 M370X 2048 MB

     

     

  • Amy Leung
    Amy Leung Member Posts: 406 ✭✭


    Mark,

    Thanks for this, it is great. I do have one problem, at least with my library. About halfway through all my books stop being "on" the shelves and appear between the shelves. I don't know how you all get your bookshelf to appear in your post so I can't show you unless someone clues me in on how to do that.


    Alan, I think I know where your problem is.  [:)]  The book height varies with the "font size" while the shelf height is constant.  So if you're using IE, then type alt-v (to invoke "View" from the menu) -> Zoom -> 100%, the books and shelves should align right to the bottom of the page.  At least this seems to be the case for my library.

     

  • PL
    PL Member Posts: 2,162 ✭✭✭

    Mark, this is truly wonderful, and is better than the rotating book cover "slide show" on the home page in the latest beta!  There's something about seeing a shelf of books in front of you that encourages you to calm your spirit, sit down, pick out a book, and start reading and listening to someone who has gone before you.  Thanks for this, and I hope this will become part of Logos 4 itself very soon!

    In addition to Rosie's list of small fix requests, may I add one more: For books that don't have a visual cover, could you shrink the font size of the Title and Author so that it will fit inside the "book" as much as possible?

    Thanks again, Mark, for all your contributions to the Logos community and the Bible software users community!

    Peter

  • Lynden O. Williams
    Lynden O. Williams MVP Posts: 9,020


    If you want to allow others to see what resources you have in Logos, you can now do so. It's a feature I've added to my Logos 4 Bibliographic Report. The report gives you a URL that you can share with friends so that they can see your library. The page is pretty rather than functional, but I'll consider adding additional functionality if there's demand. This is what mine looks like:

    Mark how do you save this work of art? For offline viewing that is?

    Mission: To serve God as He desires.

  • Aaron Knotts
    Aaron Knotts Member Posts: 208 ✭✭

    Mark how do you save this work of art? For offline viewing that is?

    I wanted to do the same thing. Not sure if what I have done is the best way (others please offer better solutions).

    Having opened the link in IE, I chose File -> Save As and saved the page using the "Save as type" Webpage, complete (*.htm, *.,html). This created a folder full of the images and a webpage file. Having then double clicked it, it opened again in IE and I bookmarked it for quick access.

    Perhaps not the best solution but hopefully helpful until something better is suggested. 

    MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015), 2.5 GHz Intel Core i7

    16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, AMD Radeon R9 M370X 2048 MB

     

     

  • Alan Charles Gielczyk
    Alan Charles Gielczyk Member Posts: 776 ✭✭

    Thanks, I am using firefox and this option did not help. I have found I can view it in Safari without trouble though.

  • Rosie Perera
    Rosie Perera Member Posts: 26,194 ✭✭✭✭✭


    Mark how do you save this work of art? For offline viewing that is?

    I wanted to do the same thing. Not sure if what I have done is the best way (others please offer better solutions).

    Having opened the link in IE, I chose File -> Save As and saved the page using the "Save as type" Webpage, complete (*.htm, *.,html). This created a folder full of the images and a webpage file. Having then double clicked it, it opened again in IE and I bookmarked it for quick access.

    Perhaps not the best solution but hopefully helpful until something better is suggested. 


    You can do a screen capture. Ctrl+PrintScreen copies the image of the entire screen to the clipboard. You can then paste it to your favorite drawing program (MS Paint which comes with Windows will do) and crop out the parts you don't want -- menus, taskbar icons, and the like.

    Or if you want to get fancy, SnagIt is a very good commercial screen capture utility that can capture a rectangle on the screen or an entire window or even a scrolling window (web page) -- the entire thing scrolls automatically and gets captured into an image file (e.g., jpg or png). SnagIt is also handy for doing markup -- adding circles and arrows and text boxes and highlighting, etc. It's what many of us use for making instructions for how to do things in Logos. See this post, for example; I used SnagIt for that image: http://community.logos.com/forums/p/15287/116637.aspx#116637

  • Anthony U
    Anthony U Member Posts: 226 ✭✭

    I copied and pasted the path, but my computer says that the path does not exist - and ideas?  I'm probably doing something wrong.  I also searched for any files ending in .db or .p4f. 

    This looks like an awesome thing to do so I hope you can help!  Thanks.

    Anthony Uvenio

    www.ReformedRookie.com

  • Mark Barnes
    Mark Barnes Member Posts: 15,432 ✭✭✭

    Thanks, I am using firefox and this option did not help. I have found I can view it in Safari without trouble though.

    Yes, the shelf doesn't view correctly in Firefox. It seems this is due to a bug in Firefox that causes tiling problem after several thousand pixels. If you notice, once the bug is triggered, when you scroll slowly back up shelves which previously aligned properly no longer do so. You have to go right back to the top of the document to 'reset' it.  I'll experiment with different sizes of shelf graphic to see if I can work around this - but not this week as I'm about to go to New Word Alive.

    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!

  • Mark Barnes
    Mark Barnes Member Posts: 15,432 ✭✭✭

    Anthony U said:

    I copied and pasted the path, but my computer says that the path does not exist - and ideas?  I'm probably doing something wrong.  I also searched for any files ending in .db or .p4f. 

    Are you Mac or PC?

    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!

  • Anthony U
    Anthony U Member Posts: 226 ✭✭

    PC!  I'm going to church now - its 8:15 NY time.  I'll be back though - thanks.

    Anthony Uvenio

    www.ReformedRookie.com

  • Gary Butner, Th.D.
    Gary Butner, Th.D. Member Posts: 483 ✭✭

    How many resources do you have? How many show per shelf?

  • Anthony U
    Anthony U Member Posts: 226 ✭✭

    Mark-

    I found what I needed.  I right-clicked on the desktop L4 icon, copied the target link, copied it into your link, and presto, I have my bookshelf!!  Thanks for this, and all the great videos you produce - keep up the good work - guys like me count on it.  Thanks again.

    Anthony

    Anthony Uvenio

    www.ReformedRookie.com

  • nicky crane
    nicky crane Member Posts: 1,374 ✭✭✭

    forgive what may be a silly question, but can I use this bookshelf for my own personal use in Logos4?

  • Peter Banks
    Peter Banks Member Posts: 39 ✭✭

     I find this view dangerous. I feel very tempted to pride over how many books I have accumulated.

    Then I remember to whom  much is given much is required.

    pab [:S]

  • Mark Barnes
    Mark Barnes Member Posts: 15,432 ✭✭✭

    How many resources do you have? How many show per shelf?

    The number of resources per shelf depends on the width of your browser. At 1280 pixels it will be around nine books per shelf. At 1920 pixels it's around fourteen. There will be a lot of shelves as currently the page will display all your resources.

    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!

  • Mark Barnes
    Mark Barnes Member Posts: 15,432 ✭✭✭

    forgive what may be a silly question, but can I use this bookshelf for my own personal use in Logos4?

    You could create a bookmark in Logos to your webpage, but you'd probably find it too slow to be of real value, I'm afraid. You could  save the page to your hard disk and then link to that file, which would be much quicker, but it would probably still only be worthwhile if you have only a few hundred resources.

    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!

  • Ward Walker
    Ward Walker Member Posts: 1,217 ✭✭✭

    Mark,

      Very cool; I love that it resizes the bookshelves as I give the window more room.  The hyperlinks to launch Logos to that resource are "da bomb." [;)]

      Hopefully Logos will adopt your rendering; if so, it would be nice to:

    • Integrate in the reading plan visual flags on books when I fall behind...and
    • Reverse the scroll bar's "frequent visits" logic by tarnishing the image of books that I haven't cracked with accumulations of digital "dust" to perhaps spur my curiosity to grab a volume I perhaps have never opened/searched through before.
  • Jonathan West
    Jonathan West Member Posts: 296 ✭✭

    If Logos ever adopt a "bookshelf paradigm" as an alternative Library index - it would have to have drag and drop ordering so you could move books where you want them! Even configurable ordering (e.g. type then author then title or some other combination like that) would be very unlikely to provide a sufficiently flexible ordering mechanism to suit even "most people", I suspect!

    www.emmanuelecc.org

  • Rosie Perera
    Rosie Perera Member Posts: 26,194 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I've added this as a suggestion on the Logos UserVoice pages. Go vote for it! If you've already used up your 10 votes, change one of your other votes if you think this deserves a higher priority. Also realize there's no point in wasting your votes on features they've already said they have started or are planning to do.

    http://logos.uservoice.com/forums/42823-logos-bible-software-4/suggestions/642271-a-visual-bookshelf-feature-like-mark-barnes-s-cool

  • David Gullick
    David Gullick Member Posts: 289 ✭✭

    I get this after uploading the file   "Your library has 0 resources".    help?

    Logos Platinum

    Windows 7 - 64 Bit
    Lenovo laptop E520 i7-2640M, 2.8GHz 8G Ram, 2G Graphics

    Australia

  • Mark Barnes
    Mark Barnes Member Posts: 15,432 ✭✭✭

    I get this after uploading the file   "Your library has 0 resources".    help?

    Unfortunately your file didn't upload properly. Could you delete it and try again?

    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!

  • David Gullick
    David Gullick Member Posts: 289 ✭✭

    Unfortunately your file didn't upload properly. Could you delete it and try again?

     

    If by delete and try again you mean following this "You have already uploaded your library catalogue. If you would like to
    delete it and start over, please click
    here
    ", I have tried several times.

     

    Logos Platinum

    Windows 7 - 64 Bit
    Lenovo laptop E520 i7-2640M, 2.8GHz 8G Ram, 2G Graphics

    Australia

  • Mark Barnes
    Mark Barnes Member Posts: 15,432 ✭✭✭

    The file is definitely not uploading properly. I'm not able to tell whether you've uploaded the wrong file (most likely) or there's been a problem with the upload (also possible). The file you are uploading should be between 3.5Mb and 100Mb depending on how many resources you have. It will be the largest file in that folder. I suspect you've been uploading catalog.dcm or catalog.fld or catalog.idx or something, rather than catalog.db

    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!

  • Doug
    Doug Member Posts: 323 ✭✭

    Very cool!  I would love to have something like this built into L4.  This would make a great library interface for choosing a book.