A one click "Insert Bookmark"

Bookmark “solution” using Styles until they add the real feature.

The advantage of this method is you can search for all your bookmarks and you can visually see the bookmark in the book. The disadvantage is having to search for the bookmark (see shortcut below) and removing them is a pain unless someone knows of an automated way. This method is probably most effective if you want bookmarks in 10+ books and you don’t get back to reading those books routinely.

Here is an option that I found that comes pretty close to an easy bookmark feature. Once it is setup it is pretty easy to use. It probably is no better than the shortcut key bookmarks but I will let you decide….

1. Using the Highlighting Feature create a New Palette (Name it something: Bookmark Reading).
2. Add a New Style to that Palette and add formatting that really stands out (ugly large red letters with a purple box around it and even add the text: “BOOKMARK” to it or something). Name the Style something: Bookmark. There might be other beneficial options like Labels, etc. but I am not a Highlighting expert.
3. Add a Shortcut key to this style. I use “Z.” So a single letter adds this style.
4. You can close the Highlighting tab. You don’t have to have it open to use this feature.
5. Now open a book you are reading.
6. Select a word or chapter title where you want to add the bookmark.
7. Type your shortcut key: “Z”
8. The bookmark style is added to that word. You can see the bookmark clearly with the ugly formatting.
9. Of course you can’t get back to that Bookmark with a shortcut key like the other option but here is how you can do it that is better in some ways.
10. When you want to go to a bookmark, you can search for that style and it will bring it up. There are a couple of ways of doing that.
    1. If you have the book open you can move from one Bookmark to the next by setting to Annotations in the upper right corner and using the arrows. Of course if your book is filled with highlights, notes, etc. then this is not effective.
    2. I like setting up a Basic search of All Text in All Resources and search for: {Highlight Bookmark} where Bookmark is the name of your Style.
    3. I save this search as a shortcut on the top bar.
    4. When I run this search it shows all the places where I have applied this style. If I have it sorted by resource then all the books which contain a Bookmark are listed and I can open and see where the bookmarks are and on what page. You just click on the bookmark location and it opens the resource to the bookmark.

I don’t know that all this works on the mobile app where it is probably most desired so someone else who is more familiar with the mobile app might can help.

If you just reopen the book after closing it, then it will come back to the same place but at least you can see the ugly bookmark.

There are down sides. In order to remove the Bookmark you must select the text in your book and right click and choose Remove Annotations. Someone might know an automated way to remove all of a particular Highlighting from a book, etc.

Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:

We could also allow you to navigate to next and previous favorite. Would that meet your needs?

Yes. When I am reading a resource, I do most of that reading on a mobile device. So, the ability to navigate back to favorited locations and having a record of them would be very desirable. So, you get my vote to implement this adaptation ASAP.

Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:

We already support this on mobile.

Yes. Got it. Thanks!

Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:

We sync your last location across all devices and open to it by default. Are you happy with this behavior? Are there ways we can make it better (e.g., if you're in multiple locations on different devices, should we prompt you and let you choose which last location you want)?

No, I'm not happy with the feature. There are categories of books where I don't want sync behavior - I want the book to open to the last place it was opened on the device. As I said in the Mobile Readers forum a while back, the device *is* a use case. The good news is that it's rare that the "last location" sync'ing feature works. The resources usually open to the last place I had them open on the device.

Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:

We also show your history in the scroll bar with subtle horizontal lines, so you can quickly jump to recent locations within the book. Is that useful? How could it be better?

I disabled that feature shortly after I installed L4. At the time, the feature was incomprehensible. Now it's just not useful - how many horizontal lines do I have to click to find the location I care about? Do you collect telemetry on how often people click a horizontal line to go to a resource location?

Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:

Are bookmarks and favorites different? If so, how?

Yes. Bookmarks are for resuming reading and move as the reading location progresses (though I could see how the sequence of bookmarks created while reading a resource could be useful). Favorites are for returning to locations repeatedly and are fixed. I'll have to re-check the iOS apps (which I use ***a lot***) to see if favorites are resource-specific, as they should be.

My $.02. Thanks for asking the questions.

Donnie

When I use that keyboard shortcut - nothing happens. It retains my old bookmarks. How is this "supposed" to work?

Where does the book that I click on favorites go.  It says add to favorites but when I go to view favorites I can't find the book anywhere.  When I click to make a favorite should is not give me an option of what folder to put the book into?

I just think we need a visual in the resource of the favorite. For example, when I add a section I am reading as a quick link or favorite, there should be a visual on the page of the actual resource to remind us that we added this as a favorite. Just a bookmark visual like kindle does. It's still a Quick Link or a Favorite, but now we have a visual. 

Al Sosa said:

It would be real COOL, if we can have the bookmarks.

I would trade a Factbook icon (waste) for a Bookmark icon (on a books top panel).  History (by book) is session/tab specific.  Main history (panel) is a guessing game (which on my multi-window layout is far-far away).

But early on at Bellingham design HQ, easy to use bookmarks are a normal UI feature in books, and thus verboten.  Way too easy.

MJ. Smith said:

Drats.

I realize I have a bad sense of humor (in the 50s, it was ok).  But yesterday I was reading along a book on oral to written 'doing something' (hard to quite describe), and the author used the word 'masticatory'.  I just assumed that was some sort of new-fangled semantic characteristic.  But no ... basically 'chewing the cud' ... with the instant image of .... Factbook.

Better, your counseling themes!

Beginning note: I have not purchased any of the Logos 10 features but I am working with the Logos 10 engine.

I realize no one has really paid attention to my convoluted method of creating a bookmarks (see above) but let me at least add some screenshots that might help you to see how it looks and actually how it's fairly effective (see below).

If you are familiar with the Notes tool combined with the Highlighting feature then you will understand what I am doing.

My method is a one button “bookmark” (on the desktop I just select the text and hit “Q” which I setup in highlighting) and it does allow you to see clearly where the bookmark is on the page. This method also allows you to see bookmarks easily which are in a particular book. Also it allows you to search for all bookmarks or look at all of them. Again the procedure seems convoluted and it certainly is if you are not familiar with notes and highlighting and the connection between the two. But once you get it set up it is very easy to use and might be worth it. I am not a Notes or highlighting expert so maybe someone could jump in and help make it better.

I know one of the most valuable places that we want to bookmark is on our tablets so I have provided screen shots there as well. I am sort of happy with how it works on the tablet. Adding a bookmark is not a single shortcut key on the tablet but you select the text and then select the bookmark style and if the last style was Bookmark then it is waiting for you. Also on the tablet you can with about three or four steps see all the bookmarks which is fairly easy and mimics what you can do on the laptop version.

Again my method is not a true bookmark but it works. Similar to others who are frustrated I have given up hope on Logos doing anything to provide a bookmark. Let me mention what are the downsides to my method. You do end up with multiple bookmarks in a book since when you set a new bookmark the old bookmark does not go away. I actually sort of see this as an advantage a little bit if you wanted to track your reading. But it is easy to see the last bookmark and it is fairly easy to delete the bookmarks that are in a book after you finish reading it. This is sort of important since depending on how fast you read you might end up with a lot. I would think that there would be an almost automated way of deleting Notes or Highlighting in a book so you could remove all the bookmarks from a book when you got done reading it.  

Note on screenshots. You will see my Highlighting and Notes named: QBookmark. I developed my method long ago so I thought I would set it up from scratch to make sure things have not changed. So I just used "QBookmark" so it did not conflict with my old highlighting style.

I have not explained how to set it all up but let me know if you need help with it. Make sure you connect the highlighting to a Notebook automatically.

Grace,

             -Roy

Android Tablet

iPhone

Desktop

I do something similar with START READING and END READING markers. When you have a link that opens a Logos reading, those start-end markers do not show up (you know, like in a Mobile-Ed Explore section). So I use highlighting. It's ok, but it is also annoying because it clutters your notes with highlights (which you can filter out but still). Maybe it isn't a priority for Faithlife, but to me, having a ribbon-bookmark feature like Kindle is a basic table-steaks kind of feature that they just need to get done. Can't be that hard.

I agree, Logos needs to reinstate the Book Mark option so that with one click a viewer can return to a particular page of a book. The older versions of Logos had this feature and it worked fine, why they removed it is beyond me.

MJ. Smith said:

DMB said:

Along with the crazy tread-marks you're supposed to turn off.

Well, er ... ah... excuse me, ma'am ....I like and use the tread-marks. I dislike the implementation, however, because I cannot clear treadmarks on a resource-by-resource basis.

Bingo. Sept 2009, if I remember right.  Gosh how time flies.  And yes, I use Kindle's tread marks. Well implemented.

ADDED: Today, I was enjoying my new Galilee book (archaeology). Humming along, highlighting key info. But then I wanted to examine the gorgeous maps. Wanting to return, I hit the 'back' button. But it couldn't go back to where I left off highlighting ... popped me to an hour earlier. I think Logos tries so hard to play like a reading app ... but not.  It's early design was its failure.

On my modible devices I dont see any "add to favorites. There is a "favorites" selection but it only has a delete option, not a save option.

On my modible devices I dont see any "add to favorites. There is a "favorites" selection but it only has a delete option, not a save option.