Some proposals to fix prioritisation

Mark Barnes said:

t's fair to say that for power users, prioritisation is broken (though I accept it's great for most users).

I beg to disagree! It may be broken for power users but it is still a (expletive thought rejected and repented) nuisances for ordinary users.

You only have to have a few resources prioritised to have a problem knowing just what section you are in and just where, in the scheme of things, you are.

The UI for prioritisation need to be rethought. I get the feeling that we are sorting out the list for the programmers benefit rather than the programmers giving us a workable UI and then dealing with the selections.

Graham Criddle said:

These are some really great suggestions in my opinion

[Y]

[Y]

I've wished for these types of improvements many times - thanks Mark for putting these together.

I must say... I tend to think that a variation of #4 could be easier for non-power users as well, if designed right.

For example, the default prioritization tool would probably be easier to use for non-power users (in the sense that it would be more intuitive) if it presented tabs / filters of the most typical categories that you might want to prioritize, such as Bible, Commentaries, Lexicons, etc. 

Then an advanced mode could open up to all datatypes.

Mark Barnes said:

It's fair to say that for power users, prioritisation is broken 

Terminology --> if it was broken it would be repaired. Prioritisation has become impractical and convoluted in ways that reflect the reasons Faithlife used for turning away from Libronix's Keylinking (Lookup)

• many users think they have to prioritise their entire library
• the list easily becomes too long to manage effectively
• the list method doesn't accommodate increasing Library size & new resources
• Advanced Prioritization is an admission that keylinking is complex
• Advanced Prioritization implementation is complex and a matter of trial-and-error even for advanced users

So let's reflect how it was done in Libronix:

Here we can see the default order of resources and note that you could open more than 1 resource when doing a lookup (keylink).

Note that the list includes Bibles and Commentaries but doesn't indicate that we should prioritise Bibles first, although they can be intermingled

Wow! We could have different link colours. Very useful in resources like lexicons which have multiple links (e.g. TDNT, Strong's, LN, Bible) in each article.

So enhance the list by providing headers with drop-downs showing resources. The headers should reflect broad resource Types rather than datatypes and they can be re-ordered:-

Bibles 

• English
• German
• Greek (NT)
• Greek (OT)
• Hebrew
• etc.

Bible Commentary (incl. Bible Notes)

Encyclopedia (Bible Dictionaries) & Concordances

Lexicons/Dictionaries

• English   ---> MW/Oxford English, etc.
• German
• Latin
• Greek (words)
• Greek (TDNT)
• Greek (Strong's)
• Greek (Louw-Nida)
• Greek (DBL)
• Greek (GK number)
• Hebrew (words)
• Hebrew (TWOT)
• Hebrew (Strong's)
• Hebrew (DBL)
• Hebrew (GK number)
• etc.

Apostolic Fathers    ---> mixture of Monograph/Ancient Manuscript

Lectionary

Calendar Devotional

Characteristics:-

List indicates what resources need to be prioritised (no more guessing/need to know about indexes).

List accommodates resource types used for display purposes, not necessarily lookup e.g. Lectionary, Calendar Devotional. Sermon resources (monographs) could be added.

List would only show headings that are relevant to the user's Library (Libronix shows all datatypes)

Drop-downs will only show resources relevant to their heading (we don't have to drag them out of a filtered/unfiltered Library list)

If not default order then up to six (6) resources would be listed immediately under each heading.

Each heading can be collapsed/uncollapsed.

New resources would be highlighted in the drop-downs.

Traits/attributes of each resource can be displayed  e.g. reverse interlinear, LCV, Referents, Notes.

One disadvantages of the above is that Bibles and Commentaries can't be mixed for users that like a commentary to be shown for bible references. But they could indicate how many bibles are to be used in the Context menu and the rest could be taken from Commentaries.

Mike Binks said:

Mark Barnes said:

t's fair to say that for power users, prioritisation is broken (though I accept it's great for most users).

I beg to disagree! It may be broken for power users but it is still a (expletive thought rejected and repented) nuisances for ordinary users.

You only have to have a few resources prioritised to have a problem knowing just what section you are in and just where, in the scheme of things, you are.

The UI for prioritisation need to be rethought. I get the feeling that we are sorting out the list for the programmers benefit rather than the programmers giving us a workable UI and then dealing with the selections.

[Y] Yes to what he said. {Wow! that is much easier than composing my own response [8-|]}