While I see good potential for L4 I continue to believe that the blue ribbon and the fact that it is not more customizable is the biggest waste of space in the program. I'm not going to change my preferred Bible. I'm not going to use the lectionary. And I'm not much interested in what others are reading. Let me put tools that I love there, like Bible speed search.
Brad
Brad Fry:While I see good potential for L4 I continue to believe that the blue ribbon and the fact that it is not more customizable is the biggest waste of space in the program.
While I share your opinions about the lectionary and reading plans of others, loading the home up with tools that are replicated on the actual layout page doesn't seem to be the answer to me. Frankly, I find little use for the window that generates a PG and EG, the home page for me is an information update, before I get down to actual work. But with that said, I would hope that changes to the design of the home paged would be prioritized well underneath the implementation of missing features and code optimization.
Just my .02 worth.
Brad Fry: While I see good potential for L4 I continue to believe that the blue ribbon and the fact that it is not more customizable is the biggest waste of space in the program. I'm not going to change my preferred Bible. I'm not going to use the lectionary. And I'm not much interested in what others are reading. Let me put tools that I love there, like Bible speed search.
Hi Brad, I don't like the ribbon either, and I've solved that problem by turning off "Home Page" altogether (choose Customize in the lower left corner and turn off "Show home page at startup"). Like Terry, I don't think of the "Home Page" as the place to hang out all day. I prefer to do all my study from the main Logos window. If I want to see what's new on the blog or whatever, I can always check that once a week or so by clicking on the Home icon to get the home page to come up, and then clicking the Home icon again to make it go away so I can get back to work. I'm not sure I'd spend any time worrying about what a part of the user interface I never need to look at has on it.
You can put tools that you love on the shortcut bar, by opening a Speed Search tab, and then dragging that tab up to the shortcut bar, where it will become an icon you can click on to bring it up quickly any time you want:
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Rosie Perera:You can put tools that you love on the shortcut bar, by opening a Speed Search tab, and then dragging that tab up to the shortcut bar, where it will become an icon you can click on to bring it up quickly any time you want:
Yes, that is true, but it leads to a further drawback as a result of this new screen design.
In L3 (I know, I know....) these "tools" (sorry, Short-cuts) could ALL be visible, and accessible. That is no longer the case, and it matters. Under the present system, most soon become invisible as they are "hidden" under the rest of the non-visible part of the ribbon.
It appears that this feature of a "too short" bar has been designed as "eye candy" for the occassional (newer) non-power users. I used to have almost 50 dedicated Workspaces plus a whole raft of visible Tool Bars.
Presently I have almost 60 shortcuts. "Layouts", Program "coomands", individual resources, shortcuts to other Bible Programs and Word processors etc. Presently, I must scroll across three "sets" to see them all. It is not helpful to say that that is too many--every day someone discovers something else that "could' be added to this bar.
Even when I do that, due to the "identical" icons, all of the almost 20 Layouts are indistinguishable from one another. (Yes, I know, another "perhaps" up-coming feature).
I am probably now "re-doing" Logos' original idea by trying to put some of the Commands and Tools into a permanently visible favorites drawer ie. and then leaving it out on the screen.
I know (so-called) Power Users are regarded as the "Geek Fringe" -("Bob" has already indicated how few of us there are compared to the "great un-washed" etc) AND these types of (restrictive) design decisions back that up.
I have also heard how "valuable" screen space is. Well here is a suggestion: Would one screen wide "Shortcut" bar be too much to ask? (No, I really mean it). The developers have locked themselves and us into a "hole" In L3 people did not "have" to add Tool Bar buttons. BUT if they did, that Tool Bar area automatically expanded. This present design decision is just one more example or less flexibility, less functionality, for the sake of...?
Regards
Steve
Regards, SteveF
You gotta admit the icons for the basic functions like the guides are horribly designed. You don't look at them and go, "Oh, I bet that's for the Exegetical Guide". No you look at them and go, "What in the world is that?" It could be simply solved by putting a P on the passage guide, and E on the exegetical guide and a B on the Bible word study guide. Or maybe a Bible for the passage, an Alpha and Alef on the Exegetical guide and a scrabble like icon on the word study guide.
Dr. Kevin Purcell - Theotek.com
Kevin A. Purcell:the icons for the basic functions like the guides are horribly designed
Yes. And further to that, Kevin, if I bump up the "Program Scaling" as an attempt to make out what the "picture" really is, then there are even fewer that are able to be viewed.
This is very frustrating.
Brad Fry:And I'm not much interested in what others are reading.
While I don't think it's of interest to you in particular, I want to be sure others correctly understand the reading lists. These are not personal lists of what someone is reading, they are intended to point you to the articles others have found useful - so you can check the "most likely" candidates from the often very long list of resources Logos shows as touching on the subject.
Orthodox Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."
SteveF:Presently I have almost 60 shortcuts. "Layouts", Program "coomands", individual resources, shortcuts to other Bible Programs and Word processors etc.
In contrast, I have nine links to other programs as shortcuts. And I'm waiting impatiently for Notes to have the functions that I used drop-down menus for in L3. It has to save me 4 or 5 clicks before I'm inclined to go the short-cut route. However, I am heavily template dependent ... which I also have crammed into notes but had high hopes for actually using templates in L4. [I know - we had the teaser in L3 and I just need to be patient.]
Thanks for everyone's input. I am in no way a "power user". Maybe just barely above the "great unwashed". I just know that I find the blue ribbon pretty worthless as it is. But I do like the rest of the homepage.
For those who are concerned about the icons being unidentifiable, Bob Pritchett said on another thread, "We're going to improve the shortcuts bar and add support first for showing a label and eventually for custom icons." I know that doesn't address SteveF's concern that there isn't room for all his icons. Perhaps having the shortcut bar automatically grow to double height if needed for icons to wrap onto a second line would be a solution?
As someone who does use a lectionary and follows at least a couple of reading plans I'm not unhappy with the ribbon. Although I wouldn't call myself a power user I do at least know my way around the program sufficiently well for me not to feel short changed by the ribbon as it is - but I do agree that perhaps the ribbon could be given more flexibility and functions and that perhaps the ribbon could be 'multi-layered' rather like the ribbon in Microsoft Office. That would I think give us all plenty of scope and suit the needs of most users. I'm always interested to see what other members would like to have on the ribbon - not forgetting that one can always turn it OFF!
But is there a way to turn it off and keep the rest of the home page?
Brad Fry: But is there a way to turn it off and keep the rest of the home page?
No, that would mean sacrificing the "just enter the passage and click go!" launch of a study.
Prov. 15:23
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That's my point. It's not just as simple as turning it off without sacrificing other things in the home page I want. Just a fix that I think Logos needs to see to. Just my 2 cents.