I absolutely love Logos 4. I have been a loyal Logos customer since the early, early days. The program is so versatile, and improving all the time.
One thing I have always appreciated is the openness to customer suggestions on the part of Bob Pritchett and others at Logos. With this in mind, I am sending this to numerous Logos forums, hoping that my suggestion in this post will be given careful consideration.
As much as I love Logos, I truly believe one of its current weaknesses is the appearance of the Biblical Places tool. I am a Bible Geography teacher at a school of preaching, and I very much believe in using visuals in the classroom. I am constantly looking for good, clear maps that I can project up on the screen. I would love to do the same with the Biblical Places tool, but, in my judgment, it could use some tweaking for optimum classroom use.
Let me illustrate my suggestion with the screen shots below. I use L4M most of the time, but I believe the same suggestion is needed with regards to the L4 Windows version as well. Besides, my understanding is that the best and only chance to get my suggestion incorporated into the Mac Version may be to convince the powers that be to put it into the Windows version as well.
In all sincerity, I believe this suggestion would be useful in either format, especially for those who wish to project Biblical Places upon the screen without having to create an individual PowerPoint or Keynote presentation every time they want to show a map to their students/hearers.
When the map in Biblical Places first appears, it is framed between the top and bottom ribbons, but the map size is too small for viewing on a projection screen.
Of course, clicking on the Actual Size tab does enlarge the map quite nicely, but then a large percentage of the map is obscured by the top and bottom ribbons, as shown below.
Of course, one can drag the obscured portions of the map into view, but not without obscuring other parts of the map.
I do see the value of being able to gather information about a particular place just by clicking on the resource links in the upper informational panel, but there are times when all the Bible student wants to see is the map--with nothing else cluttering up the screen. The screen shot below depicts the small amount of space actually devoted to seeing the map.
The concept of a button to collapse a panel/ribbon, or to expand it at the user's wish, is by no means unknown to modern software, as the examples below clearly show.
In Preview, the sidebar to the right of the picture above can be reduced in size by dragging it to the right...
or it can be removed altogether simply by clicking on the sidebar button, as shown below
Clicking on the sidebar button then allows the picture to be viewed without any surrounding clutter
This same functionality is available to the user in Google Earth...
If the user wishes to remove the sidebar and focus only on the map, it is as simple as clicking the sidebar button...
The removal of the sidebar grants an uncluttered and fuller view of the big picture.
In fact, Logos 4 is already employing this functionality in other portions of the software, as depicted below:
With just a single click of a button, I can go from the divided view above, to the more focused view below:
Logos 4 even offers more than one way to remove the sidebar from view, as seen below:
Of course, if I need to expand the panel back again, then all I have to do is click the button on the far left, as seen in the picture below.
In my humble opinion, Logos 4 was extremely wise to leave the option in the user''s hand as to whether they want to show the contents pane or the locator pane.
In my judgment, it would be every bit as wise to grant the viewer of Biblical Places the freedom to choose when they want to see the information panes at the top and bottom of the map, and when they just want to see only the map.
I am aware that certain maps can be opened without going through Biblical Places to get to them. However, unless I am mistaken, this cannot be done with all maps, and even if it can be done, it would necessitate hunting all the maps down, thus eliminating the convenience of having the software populate the maps automagically.
If sidebars and side panels can be toggled back and forth for user convenience, then cannot the same thing be done with the top and bottom panels in Biblical Places?
Please and thank you.
P. S. I am not too proud to beg if necessary!
Could not agree more!
B. J. Clarke:I truly believe one of its current weaknesses is the appearance of the Biblical Places tool
Superb presentation. I agree that these enhancement would be valuable.
Enable-and-Submit-Log-Files | Install
BJ,
I'd suggest suggesting this to suggest@logos.com or uservoice (logos.uservoice.com). Since this would require substantial changes to both Windows and Mac, it would have to go through the those channels.
Tom
Mobile Development Team Lead
I think that suggesting to suggest to suggest@logos.com is an excellent suggestion. Then again, voicing your voice to uservoice voices good too...
BTW, I also loved the presentation... it was an excellent present to us, I think I'll present it to those present here. (I'm getting carried away... I hope someone will bring me back...)
I actually sent this suggestion a few months ago to the UserVoice site.
This screen shot above was taken yesterday. As you can see by the number of votes and comments, my suggestion didn't exactly light up the forum.
However, I truly believe that this suggestion is one you have to see to appreciate fully. The UserVoice site restricts your suggestion to 100 text characters. No pictures! It was very hard for me to explain in 100 let alone the value of this suggestion.
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and that is why I posted the idea again, this time with screen shots. I sent the post a couple of days ago to the Suggestions forum, and it has elicited a much greater response than I received with the UserVoice suggestion.
Thanks to you all for your kind words.
Why not just implement a full screen mode rather than making the panels collapsible? ie. hit F8 (or some configurable key combo) to toggle between normal view and full screen.
Personally, I would be all for it, just as long as it gives the opportunity for a full and uncluttered view of the map.
The only reason I suggested "collapsing the panels" is that this method seems to be more and more fashionable, as I have evidenced in the very first post in this thread.
However, I am not wedded to this as the only method. I'll press whatever keys they tell me to push if it will give me a "map view."
Actually the functionality for this is already fully built into the Mac user interface (and therefore the Mac API (Application Programming Interface)), all Logos would have to do is implement this Mac standard.
The functionality is the hide/show the toolbar option. This option (link below with article + screenshots) can — depending on application — remove the left navigation pane, the toolbar, and bars below the window.
http://switchtoamac.com/guides/mac-os-x/finder/hide-the-finder-toolbar.html
If you look at the 'Preview' app and load up a number of images by using the (standard) Mac functionality all the extras can be removed to show just window of image. It can be invoked by standard key combination (which Logos should follow) of [Command] [Option] [T] or by clicking the small button at top right of window.
Done — exactly what you are looking for.
This could also be used in the main Logos application window to gain more screen real-estate by show/hiding the toolbar.
"I want to know all God's thoughts; the rest are just details." - Albert Einstein
Patrick S.:Actually the functionality for this is already fully built into the Mac user interface (and therefore the Mac API (Application Programming Interface)), all Logos would have to do is implement this Mac standard.
It's only available for apps that use the (very limited) standard toolbar. You'll note, for example, that Safari doesn't have such an option (despite the fact that hiding the address/bookmarks bar would be handy) because the bookmarks bar is not a standard toolbar (and collasping the toolbar without the bookmarks bar would be, to say the least, really weird).
In any case, we're considering implementing this at some point after the initial release of 4.0.
David Mitchell Development Lead Faithlife
David Mitchell: You'll note, for example, that Safari doesn't have such an option
Now that is news!!!!
tootle pip
Mike
How to get logs and post them. (now tagging post-apocalyptic fiction as current affairs)
Yes, if you wish to be pedantic about it, you can turn those things off, but not by using the standard mechanisms that Patrick spoke of.
David Mitchell: Patrick S.:Actually the functionality for this is already fully built into the Mac user interface (and therefore the Mac API (Application Programming Interface)), all Logos would have to do is implement this Mac standard. It's only available for apps that use the (very limited) standard toolbar. You'll note, for example, that Safari doesn't have such an option (despite the fact that hiding the address/bookmarks bar would be handy) because the bookmarks bar is not a standard toolbar (and collasping the toolbar without the bookmarks bar would be, to say the least, really weird). In any case, we're considering implementing this at some point after the initial release of 4.0.
Actually my error in one point, sorry about that. The button at top right is convention across (majority of Apple) apps, but key combination [Command] [Option] [T] is not. In Mail for example it moves messages into another mailbox folder.
The amount of 'collapsing' depends on the app, Finder collapses toolbar plus left navigator panel, other Apple apps like Mail, Preview, Pages etc. collapse the toolbar. Safari is a bit unique in that the buttons are inline with address bar, and when you hide the toolbar the address bar goes — which I agree with David — sort of is not going to happen much.
Anyway... good to hear that the team is considering putting the collapse button on windows, and having way to hide various panels in L4M.