Excerpt Tool

Does anyone know a way to randomly generate excerpts for a selected collection, tag, etc. I really like the excerpts on the Home Page and realized it would be great to be able to generate excerpts for a desired set of resources. GIven that many resources I would never read in their entirety, getting random snippets when I want for the resources I want (not just those used on the Home Page) would be a great way to garner more benefit from my library.

If there is no way to do this, I think it would be a great tool to add to Logos 5: An "Excerpt Tool" that does exactly this.

Any ideas?

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Comments

Graham Criddle

Hi Christopher

I think the FSD tool is what you want.

The wiki article at http://wiki.logos.com/Logos_5_Commands describes it as:

Facilitate Serendipitous Discovery

FSD opens a random resource to a random location. Optionally can specify collection.

Facilitate Serendipitous Discovery
Facilitate Serendipitous Discovery in {Collection}
FSD
FSD in {Collection}

So if you create a collection of the resources you want included you should be ready to go

Graham

Bradley Grainger (Logos)

Does anyone know a way to randomly generate excerpts for a selected collection, tag, etc. I really like the excerpts on the Home Page and realized it would be great to be able to generate excerpts for a desired set of resources.

The excerpts on the home page are actually selected by a human editor (not just randomly generated).

There is a "random" feature in the software, though. First create a collection of the resources you'd like random excerpts from. Then enter "facilitate serendipitous discovery in [collection name]" in the command box. (You may wish to drag this command to the shortcuts bar so you don't have to type it out again.)

Now when you click that button, a random resource will be opened to a random location and you can start reading.

Bradley Grainger (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/505081#Comment_505081

Facilitate Serendipitous Discovery

BTW, the name comes from this blog post: http://blog.logos.com/2006/02/facilitate_serendipitous_disco/

Graham Criddle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/505084#Comment_505084

Facilitate Serendipitous Discovery

BTW, the name comes from this blog post: http://blog.logos.com/2006/02/facilitate_serendipitous_disco/

Thanks Bradley[:)]

Christopher Davis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/505082#Comment_505082

Thanks, Everyone. I didn't know about the FSD command! This is great.

I'd like to throw out the suggestion that an FSD tool with a UI be added to the tool menu at some time. It could generate a list of X random reading points from the resources in the selected collection, show a bit of the first bit of the reading, and have a "More" to allow you to jump to the one you are interested in reading more of. It would take the FSD command a little further and put it more "front and center".

But until then, the FSD command does what I want. Very cool!

Christopher Davis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/505084#Comment_505084

Loving the command so far. I see that I can do "fsd in {collection}" and "fsd in mytag:{tag}", but not "fed in series:{series name}". Is this correct or am I maybe doing something wrong?

Jack Caviness

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/505082#Comment_505082

There is a "random" feature in the software, though. First create a collection of the resources you'd like random excerpts from. Then enter "facilitate serendipitous discovery in [collection name]" in the command box. (You may wish to drag this command to the shortcuts bar so you don't have to type it out again.)

Thanks for that tip. Have used FSD previously, but did not realize it could be limited to a single collection.

Bradley Grainger (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/505167#Comment_505167

Loving the command so far. I see that I can do "fsd in {collection}" and "fsd in mytag:{tag}", but not "fed in series:{series name}". Is this correct or am I maybe doing something wrong?

I don't think the "in series:{series name}" syntax is supported right now. You'd have to create a collection based on that series and run "FSD in {collection}" as a workaround.