Summary of Search Improvements and Syntax in Logos/Verbum 6

In this post I hope to summarize the new search syntax and options for Verbum and Logos 6.

Hopefully this can be helpful as a sort of hub. I'm probably missing things so feel free to complete or correct if it were the case (This is a sort of double post, but given that post is in the General forum, I wanted to repost here in Logos 6, with a more specific title as well, to make it easier to find and reference).

Josh Hunt said:

Where do I learn when to use {} and when to use <>? 

There isn't much documentation available, but let me try to summarize how these differ.

The <> is used to indicate a datatype. An introduction to datatypes is here. A relatively complete list of datatypes is here. When you search for a datatype, you are searching for a "reference". The most common type is the <Bible> datatype, where a search like <Bible John 3:16> will find all "references" to John 3:16, regardless of whether they are in a Bible, a commentary, or even if they are within a larger reference, like John 3:10-20. Datatypes also allow for prioritizing resources, so a single datatype reference can open many different resources to the correct place, and show each person the resource they have highest prioritized.

The {} is used for what I like to call "search extensions" (not an official name, BTW, but the best I've found so far, and I don't think there's an official name yet). Each {searchextension} "extends" the functionality of search. Let me try to explain what I mean.

Each "search extension" can have its own search syntax, and can do something entirely different. They are actually analogous to "search tabs", like the Basic, Bible, Morph, Clause, etc. search tab. For example, when you go to the Morph Search tab, when you type g:logos and then @, you will see a dropdown menu with all the morph options. If you do the same thing on the Basic tab, it won't work the same - no morph dropdowns! And the search syntax between the two tabs changes. Each search tab has different functionality, different search syntax, etc.

Well, the {search extensions} offer all of that power - each one can have an entirely different syntax, drop down options, etc. So, instead of creating a lot of new search tabs - one search tab for searching Milestone, another for Speaker, another for Passage Lists, etc. - Faithlife created a new type of search syntax, the {searchextension}.

The great thing about this is that it allows us to use lots of different {searchextensions} together. So we can do great things like search for {Speaker <Person Jesus>} WITHIN {Section <LiteraryType Quotation, Old Testament>} to find all the instances in which Jesus quotes the Old Testament. 

Josh Hunt said:

What options are available besides <Person Jesus>

<Person Jesus> - Factbook tagging of persons.

<Place Jerusalem> - Factbook tagging of places

<Thing dog> - Factbook tagging of things

<Event The Israelites cross the Red Sea> - Factbook tagging of events

{Section <Event The Israelites cross the Red Sea>} - Returns a different selection of texts... I'm not sure if the difference between these two is by design. 

<Sense knowledge> - Returns words in the BIble that are tagged with a certain "sense". The senses can be found in the Bible Sense Lexicon. NOTE: <Sense = knowledge> returns words that have exactly the sense of "knowledge" (1654 hits in my library), while <Sense knowledge> (without the will return all "child" senses as well (171,636 hits in my library). See the child senses here. 

Josh Hunt said:

What options are available besides speaker?

{Speaker <Person Jesus>} - Texts where Jesus is the speaker. cf. https://community.logos.com/forums/t/92764.aspx 

{Milestone <John 3:16>} - Will find texts where the milestone is John 3:16. This is particularly powerful combined with the WITHIN operator. So, you can search all your commentaries on the Gospel of John, but ONLY in the parts of the commentaries that comment on John 3:16. For example:

[quote]faith WITHIN {Milestone <John 3:16>}

will search your commentaries for the word faith within the sections of the commentaries that deal with John 3:16.

cf. https://community.logos.com/forums/t/92761.aspx

{Label} - Will search within labels. This is quite broad, and can be applied to the Sermon labels, Journal article labels, etc. that Faithlife has applied, or to user made labels as well. cf. https://community.logos.com/forums/t/92700.aspx and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M26fXiGd_Sw

{PassageList} - Searches your library for articles or sections of books that have a high number of hits to the references contained in the Passage List. cf. https://community.logos.com/forums/t/92765.aspx

{Highlight HighlighterName} - Will find texts that have the highlighter applied. This feature has not officially shipped yet, so results may not always be reliable! 

{Section <Culture XXXX>} - Will find the Culture tagging. These tags are listed in the Lexham Cultural Ontology Glossary. 

{Section <LiteraryType XXXX>} - Finds literary type tagging. cf. https://community.logos.com/forums/p/94023/654255.aspx#654255 and https://community.logos.com/forums/p/94264/658635.aspx#658635

Josh Hunt said:

What options are available for <literaryType>

In theory anything that is in the Lexham Glossary of Literary Types can by searched using the {Section <LiteraryType XXXXX>} search extension.

And... finally, for those who want a good intro to search... this has not yet been updated for Logos and Verbum 6, but everything in this Wiki page is still valid - https://wiki.logos.com/Detailed_Search_Help.