Announcing...Android Suite 4.0.3 Beta Release!

The Android development team is excited to announce the availability of the redesigned v4 Android beta apps!

If you have not yet signed up for the beta (or if you have not yet switched to downloading the betas via the Google Play store), we encourage you to do so! Instructions are here: http://community.logos.com/forums/t/59519.aspx

After using the redesigned v4 beta apps, we would particularly appreciate your feedback in this survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/11IyCSpZJ_VK4lR7Rw6zNpme81W-Bd5B4NH26bUCPQt8/viewform

Special note: With a redesign like this, it’s especially likely to have some rough spots. We appreciate your patience and feedback!

If you discover any issues, please create a new post and include the following info:

Description – How were you using the app when the problem occurred.
App Info – Which app you are using. (Bible, Biblia, Faithlife Study Bible, Vyrso)
Device Info – (Nexus 7, Motorola Triumph, Droid Bionic, Kindle Fire (1st gen))
Android Version – (2.3, 3.x, 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3)

Versions in this release:

Biblia 4.0.3 (Build 127)
Bible 4.0.3 (Build 155)
Faithlife Study Bible 4.0.3 (Build 129)
Verbum 4.0.3 (Build 92)
Vyrso 4.0.3 (Build 144)

New!

New v4 app design!

Sliding Navigation Drawer with app features
App features open in the main content area, rather than a side panel

New Home Page

Jump to a passage
View today's readings
Create daily devotionals, lectionaries, or Bible reading plans
Read blogs and special offers from Logos
View updated and downloading resources

New Reading View

Passage Guides, Note Documents, and Reading Plan Documents can be opened side-by-side with resources in split-screen mode
Passage Guide and Text Comparison can be panel-linked with resources
New per-panel action bars for quick access to study tools
Support for limited vertical resource scrolling via a two finger scroll
Verse map shows recent passages

New Document Support

View and create new Reading Plan (Bible, Biblia, & Verbum) and Notes Documents
View all notes/highlights in a particular document
Create notes not tied to a resource or passage
Support for creating notes with text shared from other Android apps

New Favorites & History Support

Create new guide and document favorites
View favorites for guides, documents, and searches created on the desktop
Access history items for guides and documents
New dual pane layout for the history list on tablets

Additional data type support

Author data types
Volume data types

Improved

Increased the size of the info button for library items

Fixed

Force close when viewing Mobile Education video content in the media viewer

Known Issues

Home Page content is subject to change
Home Page news items are unavailable offline
Home Page news items cannot be expanded
Guides do not open to the active reference
Some working indicators are missing
Changing the color scheme results in returning to the home page
Proper fonts are not always used for the word info dialog
Long resource titles in the panel header are not always displayed correctly
Additional theming, artwork, and iconography is needed
Many new Spanish strings are not yet available

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Comments

Dale Eads

Got the Google+ notification and went straight to the Play Store but no update yet!!!! Aaaahhhhh!! I'm not going to be able to go to sleep until it updates now!

Henry Gonzalez

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/535462#Comment_535462

Same here

Drew Hannay

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/535462#Comment_535462

Got the Google+ notification and went straight to the Play Store but no update yet!!!! Aaaahhhhh!! I'm not going to be able to go to sleep until it updates now!

It should be very soon! We've already posted the update to Google Play, it just takes a few minutes for it to become available sometimes.

Larry D. Sherraden

David, I just read your postings about the 4 0.3 release. I cannot find the hyperlink to download the beta. Am I missing something?

Dale Eads

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/535466#Comment_535466

It's at the bottom of the page of the first link of this post.

David Schwegler (Faithlife)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/535466#Comment_535466

David, I just read your postings about the 4 0.3 release. I cannot find the hyperlink to download the beta. Am I missing something?

Hi Larry,

If you have the Google Play store on your device, we strongly encourage you to get automatic updates by signing up for our beta program through the Google Plus community group. The instructions to do so are listed here: http://community.logos.com/forums/t/59519.aspx. If you don't have Google Play, the direct download links are at the bottom of that page (and are kept up to date).

Thanks!

LaRosa Johnson

Got it downloaded on my phone (Galaxy Nexus), Nexus 7 (2013) and Nexus 10 tablets. Will spend some time playing around tomorrow.

Immediate observation is that it's very nice! Great job guys! [Y]

mike

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/535470#Comment_535470

on my tablet, it is very difficult to change the book when I have half-half screen for the bottom screen..

it doesn't always open the library whenever I wanted to open a different book..

I don't have a problem with the top-half, but the bottom half ALWAYS gives me problem whenever I want to change my book to something else..

Also, may we request that the library fonts be made smaller, so we actually SEE WHAT BOOK we're looking at .. I don't want to memorize the book by the cover all the time..its irritating ( I know we can hit the i mark)

Chris Martin

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/535470#Comment_535470

For those not seeing the update, trying going to the Logos Bible app page directly in the Google Play Market (assuming you have signed up for the beta releases). I wasn't seeing an update notification in the "My Apps" section of the market, but after going to the specific page for the app it did indeed show an update.

First impressions were really positive. I love the new app drawer, and it feels quite a bit more responsive overall.

Two-finger scrolling is also much appreciated. I wish there was a way to say that scrolling is my preferred method of navigating text in the settings somewhere so I could just use one finger and give up the paging option.

Looking good though. Thanks!

Randy W. Sims

Awesome! Awesome! AWESOME! This is lightyears ahead of the old UI. LOVE the sliding drawer. Nearly everything looks and feels better, cleaner, more polished. I've only played with it about 30 mins (way past bedtime), but I'm really loving it.

The only negative is that I don't really like the Choose Location dialog when selecting Search, Passage Guide, Share, etc. 1) It's not as elegant as everything else appears to be. 2) It also obscures the text where it would be nicer to see the text as you're choosing. 3) And it does not allow for selection of a range (I can only post a verse at a time to Facebook?) A dialog that let you choose the verse to operate on by showing the text a verse at a time, adjusted by a slider might be one idea. Something that looks like the top part of the Settings panel, except that the slider changes the selected verse instead of the font size. Maybe a second slider to change the range??? Just an idea. Not an easy problem to come up with ideas for.

But that's just one tiny nit in what otherwise is looking awesome.

Lynden O. Williams

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/535466#Comment_535466

Like the new interface. Clean, no learning curve. Is the passage guide supposed to follow the prioritized list in the Library? Mine choses which commentary it wants to list to the top. It does not pull up the Word Biblical Commentary, which is in my top five.

Graham Criddle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/535484#Comment_535484

Hi Lynden

Is the passage guide supposed to follow the prioritized list in the Library? Mine choses which commentary it wants to list to the top. It does not pull up the Word Biblical Commentary, which is in my top five.

This has been a long standing issue with the PG on iOS and it looks as though it persists into the Android platform as well.

It's interesting to note that the order in which commentaries are returned is the same on both Android and iOS suggesting there is some internal ordering going on - it is not just random

Graham

Graham Criddle

Some really great leaps forward

Appreciated, Graham [Y][:)]

Lynden O. Williams

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/535488#Comment_535488

Lots of reading plans on the home screen, that I never signed up for. Telling them not now.

Dan

Hello,

I'm really pleased with the 4.0.3 beta. I especially like the new navigation and overall feel. It now feels like a proper Android app. It feels more natural now whereas before it was awkward at best. I now imagine myself using it more and more.

Great job!

Thanks,

Dan

Ken Guenther

Very impressive. Thanks for all your work. Everything seems to work well on the Bible app on my Nexus 7 (2012). I really like the sliding Navigation Drawer and the action bars in each panel. I found that it took more than a couple of minutes to open my note files (NT and OT commentaries) the first time, but for subsequent openings of those documents, they appeared much more quickly. One drawback though to having the sliding Navigation Drawer when viewing a notes file is that it is really easy to inadvertently delete a note when trying to open the drawer. Fortunately the app has an undo button.

Kevin A. Purcell

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/535499#Comment_535499

I'm getting an error saying that my offline resources can't be read after the update. I delete them and am downloading again.

Kevin A. Purcell

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/535515#Comment_535515

Also is there a problem opening the nav panel from the presentations screen? I can't but it may be me. Using an HTC One.

GREAT update!

Dale Eads

I'm seeing a big gap between the title bar and text. Also can we adjust the font size of the title bar so the whole book name appears? If I touch the screen to show the menu the font size adjusts nicely.

One more thing - since swiping up on a verse doesn't do anything any more, is it possible to bring in single finger scrolling or at least a setting that allows for it. Oh, and full screen again. Would like that back.

Galaxy S3 CM 10.1.3

Drew Hannay

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/535475#Comment_535475

Alright folks, I'm going to attempt a massive reply here. [:)]

on my tablet, it is very difficult to change the book when I have half-half screen for the bottom screen..

it doesn't always open the library whenever I wanted to open a different book..

Mike, I'm not quite sure what you mean here. Can you try and clarify? I'd also be interested to know which tablet you're using. The best thing to do might be to start a new thread and follow the instructions at the top of this post.

The only negative is that I don't really like the Choose Location dialog when selecting Search, Passage Guide, Share, etc. 1) It's not as elegant as everything else appears to be. 2) It also obscures the text where it would be nicer to see the text as you're choosing. 3) And it does not allow for selection of a range (I can only post a verse at a time to Facebook?) A dialog that let you choose the verse to operate on by showing the text a verse at a time, adjusted by a slider might be one idea. Something that looks like the top part of the Settings panel, except that the slider changes the selected verse instead of the font size. Maybe a second slider to change the range??? Just an idea. Not an easy problem to come up with ideas for.

I agree that it's not an easy problem to come up with ideas for. We were hoping this method would be better than the tiny arrow buttons from v2. [:)] One downside to your suggestion is that it would probably be significantly slower than just showing the list of references to pick from. However, tou can already select a range of verses by highlighting the desired text and choosing "Share" (or whatever) from the text selection menu.

This has been a long standing issue with the PG on iOS and it looks as though it persists into the Android platform as well.

It's interesting to note that the order in which commentaries are returned is the same on both Android and iOS suggesting there is some internal ordering going on - it is not just random

I don't really know much about this, but I believe the results are ordered on the server, so it would make sense that you're seeing the same behavior in Android and iOS.

Lots of reading plans on the home screen, that I never signed up for. Telling them not now.

Hm. I would expect the contents of the home screen "Today's Readings" to be identical to the v2 "Daily Readings" panel. We didn't change how it worked, we just moved the content. I'm not sure what would have caused it to add your other reading plans to the list.

It now feels like a proper Android app.

[:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]

One drawback though to having the sliding Navigation Drawer when viewing a notes file is that it is really easy to inadvertently delete a note when trying to open the drawer.

Good feedback.

Also is there a problem opening the nav panel from the presentations screen? I can't but it may be me.

Currently the Presentation Settings and the normal app settings open in their own screens and you can't access the nav drawer from them (you have to press "back" to return to the main screen).

I'm seeing a big gap between the title bar and text. Also can we adjust the font size of the title bar so the whole book name appears?

I don't think the size of the gap between the title bar and text has changed, but I could be wrong. I'll look into it. The cut off book titles is one of our "Known Issues"...we're planning on doing some work so that it will display the short or abbreviated resource title if there's not room to show the full title.

Oh, and full screen again. Would like that back.

There was much debate (and quite a bit of research) before we decided to get rid of full screen. The reason we ended up turning it off is because there are actually quite a few bugs with full screen apps in Android. The behavior varied widely between different Android versions, and it almost never did exactly what we wanted it to. We think that by sacrificing those top few pixels to show the status bar, we can bring you a much better overall experience in the app.

Benjamin Ho

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/535536#Comment_535536

Alright folks, I'm going to attempt a massive reply here.

Could we also have a reply with regards to having the option available for ONE-finger scrolling, since this gesture does not do anything now? I would really love to be able to scroll to read.

Dave Knepper

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/535699#Comment_535699

This is coming along great! Loving the new layout!

This issue is showing up on my HTC One but not on my Nexus 7 2012. The books are showing cut off on the right hand side.

David Schwegler (Faithlife)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/535699#Comment_535699

Could we also have a reply with regards to having the option available for ONE-finger scrolling, since this gesture does not do anything now? I would really love to be able to scroll to read.

Hi Benjamin (and others with this question),

The two-finger scrolling we just released was designed as a way to adjust the on-screen text. For example, sometimes a passage you're interested in is split between the bottom of the current page and the top of the next, and this new feature provides a way to bring it fully into view so you can make a note on it, share it, etc. It's not intended as a good continuous vertical "reading" experience, and certainly doesn't work well enough in that scenario for us to advertise it as such in good conscience.

We do plan on adding a continuous vertical scrolling feature in the future, but we can't provide a timeframe at the moment.

Thanks!

David Schwegler (Faithlife)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/535945#Comment_535945

This is coming along great! Loving the new layout!

This issue is showing up on my HTC One but not on my Nexus 7 2012. The books are showing cut off on the right hand side.

Thanks for your support!

We've made a case for your issue, thank you!

Randy W. Sims

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/535536#Comment_535536

The only negative is that I don't really like the Choose Location dialog when selecting Search, Passage Guide, Share, etc. 1) It's not as elegant as everything else appears to be. 2) It also obscures the text where it would be nicer to see the text as you're choosing. 3) And it does not allow for selection of a range (I can only post a verse at a time to Facebook?) A dialog that let you choose the verse to operate on by showing the text a verse at a time, adjusted by a slider might be one idea. Something that looks like the top part of the Settings panel, except that the slider changes the selected verse instead of the font size. Maybe a second slider to change the range??? Just an idea. Not an easy problem to come up with ideas for.

I agree that it's not an easy problem to come up with ideas for. We were hoping this method would be better than the tiny arrow buttons from v2. One downside to your suggestion is that it would probably be significantly slower than just showing the list of references to pick from. However, tou can already select a range of verses by highlighting the desired text and choosing "Share" (or whatever) from the text selection menu.

I completely agree that it is much, much, much better than the previous mechanic. Overall, it's a minor nit and I'm extremely happy with the new UI.

We do plan on adding a continuous vertical scrolling feature in the future, but we can't provide a timeframe at the moment.

While hopefully keeping paging the default. [6] All the best books work that way; not too many scrolls on my bookshelf. [:D] I know there are a lot of different (and strong) opinions on it, and I respect that, but IME navigation while reading works best a chunk at a time: It's fairly easy to get lost with continuous scrolling.

Although the new interface mitigates quite a few of my previous suggestions/desires for gestures, I'm still up for additional gesture support. Especially, Two-finger swipe left/right for chapters. One-finger swipe left/right in the verse comparison tool.

Drew Hannay

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/535951#Comment_535951

Although the new interface mitigates quite a few of my previous suggestions/desires for gestures, I'm still up for additional gesture support.

Randy, when you last posted about adding gesture support, it was very hard to keep the redesign a secret. [:D]

Randy W. Sims

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/535957#Comment_535957

[:D]

Benjamin Ho

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/535951#Comment_535951

While hopefully keeping paging the default. All the best books work that way; not too many scrolls on my bookshelf. I know there are a lot of different (and strong) opinions on it, and I respect that, but IME navigation while reading works best a chunk at a time: It's fairly easy to get lost with continuous scrolling.

I don't own any scrolls but apps on computers and screen devices, e.g. web browsers, etc, work on the principle of scrolling. Vertical scrolling is also how I read resources on the main Logos 5 software. It would be nice to be given options to read by vertical scrolling or by (horizontal) paging, and perhaps also vertical paging (e.g. as in Feedly app and Flipboard app on smartphone).

Drew Hannay

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/535945#Comment_535945

This issue is showing up on my HTC One but not on my Nexus 7 2012. The books are showing cut off on the right hand side.

Dave,

Just finished fixing this. It will be available in the next beta. [:)]

David Schwegler (Faithlife)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/535515#Comment_535515

I'm getting an error saying that my offline resources can't be read after the update. I delete them and am downloading again.

Kevin,

This definitely shouldn't have happened -- did re-downloading them fix it? Can you give any more detail?

Thank you!

Dave Hooton

I was a bit hesitant after the horrible v2 GUI but v4 is much, much better.

Well done Logos!

(Android 4.1.2)

Robert B Harte

I am using the amazon kindle fire hd and I cannot download from the google store. Where can I download this beta?

David Schwegler (Faithlife)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/537201#Comment_537201

I am using the amazon kindle fire hd and I cannot download from the google store. Where can I download this beta?

At the bottom of the beta instructions page are links to directly download the apk's.

Thanks!

Bill Rust

I found out a suggestion of mine had been completed and they said the fix was in the latest Beta. Wow, what an upgrade! So many nice changes that I had to comment on it. I have a Nexus 7 wireless only.

* I like the new menus - much easier to navigate and closer to the desktop version.

* I like the color coded verse look-up. Much easier to find a verse quickly (like when your pastor gives a verse ref. and immediately starts reading).

* I like the 2 finger scroll.

Suggestion: Since I do so much of my use in off-line mode the info feature for a selected word in the Bible could be improved. Currently it only allows you to look up the word in your default Bible. Perhaps a look-up of a user-selectable resource when in off-line mode? I have some good resources like the BDAG, ISBE, or some other lexicon/dictionary/encyclopedia that would be useful. Perhaps the user could select one for NT and another for OT look-ups?

Anyway, terrific work! Can't wait to see it in the main version.

Bill

Rick Ausdahl

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/537204#Comment_537204

Any feel at Logos as to when this might go from Beta to Stable?

Drew Hannay

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/544686#Comment_544686

Any feel at Logos as to when this might go from Beta to Stable?

We're getting very close. The Android app is pretty much ready at this point, but there are a lot of departments coordinating on the Logos Mobile v4 release, so there's still some stuff that needs to get done before the apps can go stable. The iOS apps need to be ready to release at the same time, we need all new marketing materials, tutorial videos...you get the idea. But I think we're close [:)]

Rick Ausdahl

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/544701#Comment_544701

Thanks, Drew. That's great news!

Chaoyu-Bian

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/544701#Comment_544701

Any feel at Logos as to when this might go from Beta to Stable?

We're getting very close. The Android app is pretty much ready at this point, but there are a lot of departments coordinating on the Logos Mobile v4 release, so there's still some stuff that needs to get done before the apps can go stable. The iOS apps need to be ready to release at the same time, we need all new marketing materials, tutorial videos...you get the idea. But I think we're close

That's good news, can't waiting.