How would you improve our search helps?
In Logos 9, we have Search Helps, which give you very basic instructions on how to type a search:
We also have search templates, which help you fill in the syntax for more complex searches:
I have two questions for you all:
- How often, if ever, do you use Search Helps and Search Templates
- Are there new templates you wish were included?
Thank you! Your responses will help us improve Logos for everyone.
Comments
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Mark Barnes said:
How often, if ever, do you use Search Helps and Search Templates
I used the old cookbook style helps quite frequently as they essentially provided lists of the available options for grammatical roles, semantic roles, and other such niceties that I remember only the main options for. I understand the reason for switching to the more obvious template approach but it doesn't provide the quick reference that I used. I really wish both the cookbook and the templates were available. I do think the word, string, basic colon syntax need to be there for the "first time" users.
Mark Barnes said:Are there new templates you wish were included?
I'd have to go back through the forums to find the posts where I think "ah, that should be template" -- the requests that are more complex than the current templates, but come up over and over again with users other than the OP chiming in that the responses helped them as well. These tend to be of the "where does Jesus talk to the disciples about" or "what are the laws regarding" or "who are the descendants of"
EDIT: I would add a template for each label as remembering their parameters is nigh unto impossible. Plus it would remind people not to waste time building searches for information that Faithlife has already dug out for us.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Mark Barnes said:
How often, if ever, do you use Search Helps and Search Templates
Just answering; I can't recall ever using them. Like MJ, I used the cookbook (and whence my most of my knowledge). Plus, I use the right-click menu, and then adjust the arguments. I rarely ever 'start cold'. If I were improving, I'd look at the right-click > template adjusting (currently one or the other).
While you're considering input, you might consider the interface. I just took a couple screen shots to illustrate (V9-latest) ... imagine someone not that familiar:
and another ...
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I am glad Search is being looked into!!!
I for one, seem to have lots of problems using Logos Search.. I'll admit it's me... but I find Search to be one of the most complicated of all Logos functions... I often go to WordSearch... or Google and search for things...
I have just (about 2 weeks now) started working with search templates ... trying to get search to work for me. But I see from the screen shot you posted... that my screen is different.. like ... I don't have all the templates that you do... which causes me to wonder... do I have to buy some "feature" or something that would give me more templates in Search? I would think Search would be the same for everyone from basic to most advance Logos packages....
xn = Christan man=man -- Acts 11:26 "....and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch".
Barney Fife is my hero! He only uses an abacus with 14 rows!
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xnman said:
I would think Search would be the same for everyone from basic to most advance Logos packages....
No, most of the Bible related searches are not searches of the text of the resource but are on the Faithlife coding and datasets. If you don't have the dataset, you can search it. However, for a basic search I suspect all levels are pretty much the same.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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As a theologian, my use of searches in Logos (as well as my view of them) is somewhat different. I generally don’t use super-complicated Bible searches and question the value of some of them (e.g., find every verse where the 5th character is yod that also contains an interrogative or some such). Sorry, but I don’t see what things like that are trying to accomplish.
I do try to use the Bible Browser frequently. I’m not always sure what is the best category or place to look for what I’m trying to find. For example, if I want to do searches for Bible references to “God the Father,” do I use the entry under senses (it only shows 8 uses) or preaching themes or topics or figurative language or what? I think Bible browser itself needs a detailed help file.
But as a theologian, I’m more often trying to search the 5,000+ non-Bible books in my library. I don’t know how to do much with them besides AND and OR operations. I don’t understand the different categories of headings or milestones or whatever I can use to limit searches. Can I limit a search so that it shows results that come only in the same paragraph or chapter? Can I limit a search to a specific author--not just searching in books by a specific author, but journal articles or dictionary entries or essays in multi-author works? Can I limit a search to just dictionaries and encyclopedias without creating a collection? I’m clueless as to what all I can do with these books in search and fear I’m missing out on a lot. I’d like to see templates that show every field that I can use in different kinds of books with examples.
There needs to be an extensive help file on searching non-Bible books.Maybe there already is and I’m just looking in the wrong place, but I can’t find it.
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xnman said:
But I see from the screen shot you posted... that my screen is different.. like ... I don't have all the templates that you do.
Your screenshot is from a Basic Search whereas Mark's is from a Bible Search
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Thanks Graham. Yep.... one of these days I will learn this search things..... I will... I really will!
And Sean --- Good point! I do want a search that will search through every resource I have to find the information I am looking for.
The following are just examples.....
Maybe something like.... [Author: Thomas B. Warren .... Search: Holy Spirit] ----- then it would search all the resources I have by Thomas B Warren to find anything about the Holy Spirit.
Or .... [ Resource: 1 Chronicles .... Search: two wives ] ----- then it would search every resource that is or has 1 Chronicles references to "two wives" , Dictionaries, monograph, articles, etc. Anything in my library. (I actually did a search about this recently... but I went to WordSearch.... ).
And probably... these can be done now... and I just don't know the hieroglyphics of how to do it.
After me starting to use them and learning how to fully use them....I think Templates inb Search will work great for me. I am seeing hope for me... [8-|]
xn = Christan man=man -- Acts 11:26 "....and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch".
Barney Fife is my hero! He only uses an abacus with 14 rows!
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Sean said:
But as a theologian, I’m more often trying to search the 5,000+ non-Bible books in my library. I don’t know how to do much with them besides AND and OR operations. I don’t understand the different categories of headings or milestones or whatever I can use to limit searches. Can I limit a search so that it shows results that come only in the same paragraph or chapter? Can I limit a search to a specific author--not just searching in books by a specific author, but journal articles or dictionary entries or essays in multi-author works? Can I limit a search to just dictionaries and encyclopedias without creating a collection? I’m clueless as to what all I can do with these books in search and fear I’m missing out on a lot. I’d like to see templates that show every field that I can use in different kinds of books with examples.
Thank you. That's a very helpful articulation of what you're looking for in search, that will help us improve search for the future. I'm going to share it with the team.
A couple of things that may help you immediately:
You can use NEAR or WITHIN X WORDS in place of AND. That may help you approximate for searching within the same paragraph.
You can search just dictionaries and encyopedias through Quick Collections, although it would obviously be more helpful if we could simply add 'Dictionaries' or 'Encylopedias' to the dropdown for you.
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I know you were just giving a couple of examples but thought it might be useful to think about how you can search for these in Logos
xnman said:Maybe something like.... [Author: Thomas B. Warren .... Search: Holy Spirit] ----- then it would search all the resources I have by Thomas B Warren to find anything about the Holy Spirit.
In the post just below yours, Mark provided a link to Quick Collections
We can use these in a Basic Search to limit the scope of books included in the search - in this case you could use something like author:warren, thomas" to select just resources written by him and then do a search for "Holy Spirit".
I don't have resource by him so can't check the exact string required or show a screenshot
Or .... [ Resource: 1 Chronicles .... Search: two wives ] ----- then it would search every resource that is or has 1 Chronicles references to "two wives" , Dictionaries, monograph, articles, etc. Anything in my library. (I actually did a search about this recently... but I went to WordSearch.... ).
Presumably in this case, you would like the mention of 1 Chronicles to be "near" the mention of "two wives"
For this you could use the search string "two wives" NEAR <1 Chron> (with the angle brackets allowing the reference to be given in a variety of ways and for it still to match
Out of interest, what would your Wordsearch-based search look like?
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Mark Barnes said:
I have two questions for you all:
- How often, if ever, do you use Search Helps and Search Templates
- Are there new templates you wish were included?
Thank you! Your responses will help us improve Logos for everyone.
Hi Mark,
I rarely use Logos' Search feature. Prefer to use Google for Bible searches. I've already elaborated on my views and wishes for Logos search to be more natural-language based like Google. I will not repeat that here. You can search my previous posts on the topic of Search on this forum.
Regarding Search Templates, I do find them useful but restrictive, in the sense that I can only select from the dropdown list. For example, if I choose "Person in the Bible", and start typing "Jos"... I am forced to choose one of the items in the dropdown. If I just press Enter, it will default to the first item. I cannot search for Jos*; I can't type in a list of names; I can't select both Josiahs listed in the dropdown. I find it unnecessarily restrictive.
I recently rediscovered the Bible Browser and see the potential of this tool. I doubt that it's very discoverable and have the following suggestions for you to consider:
1. Incorporate the Bible Browser as part of the Bible Search. (At the minimum, provide a link to Bible Browser from the Bible Search page. Or better yet, make Bible Browser as one of the tabs in the Search tool. Or some other way for a deeper integration between the two.)
2. Make the Bible Browser display results in the same view format choices (Grid, Aligned, Analysis) as the Bible Search results. Currently the results pane of the Bible Browser is hard to read compared to the Bible Search's Grid View and Aligned View.
3. Organize the side bar filters of the Bible Browser into a two-level hierarchical structure. Right now those categories seem randomly dumped; they are not alphabetical and not seem to be ordered in any logical groupings. I believe if they can be grouped as categories related to the Bible books, or to the text, or the sentence/speech types, or the people involved, or themes/topics, etc., then that filter list will make more sense and look more organized and discoverable/usable.
4. Allow multi-select on the side filter panel for the Bible Browser (please consider allowing multi-select on all facet side bars, just like most shopping website filter side bars).
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Graham Criddle said:
Your screenshot is from a Basic Search whereas Mark's is from a Bible Search
In the vocab in my head, a basic search INCLUDES a Bible search. because of my definition of basic = [includes] everything, all.
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scooter said:
In the vocab in my head, a basic search INCLUDES a Bible search. because of my definition of basic = [includes] everything, all.
I can easily see that!
My speculation is that it was originally intended to differntiate from the more bible-specific BIble Search (which often good take advantage of additional tagging etc)
But that's not to say that it is the best name!
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scooter said:
because of my definition of basic = [includes] everything, all.
Fascinating, I think of basic = stripped down to essentials, minimal. A great example of the difficulties Logos has in labeling the interface.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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- Search is fundamental to Logos; it should be fun and educational to interact with.
- As of now Bible Browser is the best example in Logos of the above principle.
- The steps necessary to arrive at the desired result should be easy to recall.
- I think others have pointed this out, but the need for bracketing and such should be hidden.
- Boolean operators should be suggested or supplied by search.
- Of course the helps should be optional.
Meanwhile, Jesus kept on growing wiser and more mature, and in favor with God and his fellow man.
International Standard Version. (2011). (Lk 2:52). Yorba Linda, CA: ISV Foundation.
MacBook Pro MacOS Sequoia 15.2 1TB SSD
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Beloved Amodeo said:
- The steps necessary to arrive at the desired result should be easy to recall.
- I think others have pointed this out, but the need for bracketing and such should be hidden.
You've hit the nail on the head on these two points!
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MJ. Smith said:scooter said:
because of my definition of basic = [includes] everything, all.
Fascinating, I think of basic = stripped down to essentials, minimal. A great example of the difficulties Logos has in labeling the interface.
I wonder if MJ would feel the same if had come from WordSearch??? hmmmm.... [8-|]
xn = Christan man=man -- Acts 11:26 "....and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch".
Barney Fife is my hero! He only uses an abacus with 14 rows!
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Graham Criddle said:scooter said:
In the vocab in my head, a basic search INCLUDES a Bible search. because of my definition of basic = [includes] everything, all.
I can easily see that!
My speculation is that it was originally intended to differntiate from the more bible-specific BIble Search (which often good take advantage of additional tagging etc)
What you say makes very good sense!!
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xnman said:
I wonder if MJ would feel the same if had come from WordSearch??? hmmmm....
Hmmm ... I use the same definition of basic across all software and school subjects. And I can see Dr. Barrell yelling at you "in this class you THINK not FEEL" -- Dr. Barrell was head of my department, head of the Rocky Mountain Botanical Institute, and a fine organist.
PS. I did get WordSearch for my Father.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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MJ. Smith said:scooter said:
because of my definition of basic = [includes] everything, all.
Fascinating, I think of basic = stripped down to essentials, minimal. A great example of the difficulties Logos has in labeling the interface.
Oh, yeah; I hear you on this, MJ.
My granddaughter at age 3 did not want to be called 'baby.'
I explained words can have multiple meanings using 'big' and its 3 meanings of tall, fat and muscular. I put her dad, her dad's friend and me in the view-finder to show the different meanings. So, as in he is tall and muscular, but not fat.
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I'd assume Basic vs Bible is from earlier software versions. 'Users' like continuity.
In Libronix, 'Basic' was basic barebones, and 'Bible' was Bibles.
Then you had your Bible Speed Search, which is most akin to 'Find' in Logos.
Finally, you had your 'Advanced Search' (plus BDAG search).
They largely held onto the morph search and visual syntax search, but dumped the graphical query.
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PL said:Beloved Amodeo said:
- The steps necessary to arrive at the desired result should be easy to recall.
- I think others have pointed this out, but the need for bracketing and such should be hidden.
You've hit the nail on the head on these two points!
For 110 % sure.
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Beloved Amodeo said:
- I think others have pointed this out, but the need for bracketing and such should be hidden.
I agree with you - a simpler design without the various brackets is what will work best. However, I personally would hate it because the different types of brackets allow me to quickly see the element of the search argument I am trying to pick out. Unfortunately, personal preference has very low priority in good UI design.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Perhaps you overlooked this...MJ. Smith said:However, I personally would hate it because the different types of brackets allow me to quickly see the element of the search argument I am trying to pick out.
I was thinking of you and people like you who have mastered "the way" when I wrote it.Beloved Amodeo said:- Of course the helps should be optional.
Meanwhile, Jesus kept on growing wiser and more mature, and in favor with God and his fellow man.
International Standard Version. (2011). (Lk 2:52). Yorba Linda, CA: ISV Foundation.
MacBook Pro MacOS Sequoia 15.2 1TB SSD
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I assumed a narrow definition of helps - one that excluded the syntax of the search argument including only the information/tools assisting in building that syntax. Seems to be a familiar theme today - my use of a word not being that of the poster.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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I was purposely vague, but suggestive. My hoped for interpretation was that the interested parties would conclude that the solution was to build another Bible Browser-like GUI to address Basic Search and its peculiar difficulties, leaving the present search options relatively untouched so that those who are comfortable with the present state of search would not experience any loss.MJ. Smith said:I assumed a narrow definition of helps - one that excluded the syntax of the search argument including only the information/tools assisting in building that syntax. Seems to be a familiar theme today - my use of a word not being that of the poster.
Meanwhile, Jesus kept on growing wiser and more mature, and in favor with God and his fellow man.
International Standard Version. (2011). (Lk 2:52). Yorba Linda, CA: ISV Foundation.
MacBook Pro MacOS Sequoia 15.2 1TB SSD
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Beloved Amodeo said:
- Search is fundamental to Logos; it should be fun and educational to interact with.
- As of now Bible Browser is the best example in Logos of the above principle.
- The steps necessary to arrive at the desired result should be easy to recall.
- I think others have pointed this out, but the need for bracketing and such should be hidden.
- Boolean operators should be suggested or supplied by search.
I wonder how we can apply these criteria to Graham's response to the query put forward by xnman.
Graham Criddle said:
I know you were just giving a couple of examples but thought it might be useful to think about how you can search for these in Logos
Presumably in this case, you would like the mention of 1 Chronicles to be "near" the mention of "two wives"xnman said:
Or .... [ Resource: 1 Chronicles .... Search: two wives ] ----- then it would search every resource that is or has 1 Chronicles references to "two wives" , Dictionaries, monograph, articles, etc. Anything in my library. ...
For this you could use the search string "two wives" NEAR <1 Chron> (with the angle brackets allowing the reference to be given in a variety of ways and for it still to match- Graham assumed that the references to 1 Chronicles would have to be close to the mention of "two wives"
- so he understands that proximity is relevant to that solution and he had a search operator in mind (he used the word "near"). Would you have understood that from the original request? Would you have framed the request differently?
- xnman understood that he was searching for a phrase, so he used the expression "two wives".
- the next part is how to express 1 Chronicles. Should your query be:
- "two wives" near 1 Chronicles and let Search figure out the rest without additional bracketing?
- Search may then ask: Did you mean "two wives" NEAR <1 Chronicles> ?
- You then hit Enter and are pleasantly surprised with the results! You learn that near has to be uppercase and that the bible reference has to be bracketed because "1 Chronicles" would look for that exact phrase and you would end up with a couple of results instead of a hundred or so. And current Search would look for 1 AND Chronicles!
- Search could also have suggested "two wives" NEAR <Bible ~1 Chronicles> --> How would you react to that?
- it gives the same results but is more precise in recognizing that 1 Chronicles is a Bible reference.
- the ~ signifies bible references like 1 Chron 4:5 with chapter and/or verse, but it can be omitted.
- Are you satisfied with a hundred results, or is that too much? You might try "two wives" NEAR <1 Chronicles 4:5> as that is the exact reference in the bible and it does narrow the results.
- If your original query had been "two wives" 1 Chronicles would you have been satisfied with "two wives" AND <1 Chronicles> because "Boolean operators should be suggested or supplied..."?
- There is another dimension to this query because you could have searched for "two wives" as follows:
- i.e. search that passage in a collection of your Commentaries.
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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The brackets are truly the biggest barrier.
E.g. I just used the search template "One person asks another person a question." I typed in Jesus and Peter. It generates this search query with the different types of brackets:
{Speaker <Person Jesus>} INTERSECTS {Label Question} INTERSECTS {Addressee <Person Peter>}
Honestly, if the search syntax for this were like the following, it would have been bearable and very learnable and understandable (similar to the filtering syntax used in the Library pane):
speaker:jesus type:question addressee:peter
Why can't it be like this? Why do we have all these different shapes and levels of brackets, all nested in different ways, and why do we have to use INTERSECTS all the time (instead of the more common AND)?
These are some of the reasons why the search engine /syntax is so hard to learn. This syntax is psychologically very intimidating to regular users.
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PL said:
The brackets are truly the biggest barrier.
E.g. I just used the search template "One person asks another person a question." I typed in Jesus and Peter. It generates this search query with the different types of brackets:
{Speaker <Person Jesus>} INTERSECTS {Label Question} INTERSECTS {Addressee <Person Peter>}
Honestly, if the search syntax for this were like the following, it would have been bearable and very learnable and understandable (similar to the filtering syntax used in the Library pane):
speaker:jesus type:question addressee:peter
Why can't it be like this? Why do we have all these different shapes and levels of brackets, all nested in different ways, and why do we have to use INTERSECTS all the time (instead of the more common AND)?
These are some of the reasons why the search engine /syntax is so hard to learn. This syntax is psychologically very intimidating to regular users.
Amen and AMEN!
And Dave... thank you for clearing my post up!
xn = Christan man=man -- Acts 11:26 "....and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch".
Barney Fife is my hero! He only uses an abacus with 14 rows!
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PL said:
The brackets are truly the biggest barrier.
They are a major barrier but after watching requests for help building searches, I personally think there is a bigger issue ... that is that user expectations are impossible to meet. In the example used above, when people want to search on "two wives" as a phrase the search is simple. But often, the user wants to find all the women who are in a multi-wife situation (or men in polygamous relationships). This can be done logically by finding all the husband-wife pairs in Chronicles, sorting by husband, then selecting each case where there is more than one wife name associated with an individual husband, then verifying that the wife names neither (a) are alternative name for the same person nor (b) sequential wives i.e. remarriage after the death of the previous wife. If you stop and consider what is actually required for a search to find two simultaneous wives, it is obvious that no simple single search will provide the answer. However, Logos does provide almost all the required information by the list of relatives on the Factbook page. The "search" consists of reading the Factbook page for the individual; if multiple wives are listed, there is a manual check for consecutive vs. simultaneous. No amount of simplification will mitigate the need to seriously think the search request through.
PL said:speaker:jesus type:question addressee:peter
This is almost possible -- but speaker, type, and addressee all occur in more than one context ... you still need to indicate the context to tie them together or make the independent.
PL said:why do we have to use INTERSECTS all the time (instead of the more common AND)?
AND and INTERSECTS are quite different -- the first is a logical relationship, the two elements simply both need to be present in the text being search (often an article). I got a memorable lesson in this when I complained to Bradley that a search failed. He pointed out that the entire short book was a single article ... the two words were a mere 93 pages apart. The second is a proximity relationship, requesting that the two elements both appear in the same tagged semantic unit. Note that before the INTERSECTS operator was added, we wrote a lot of search arguments including WITHIN 0 WORDS in order to put two restrictions on a single word.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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