Context & Word Tab Request

[Soxfan23]

The Context and Word tabs are good ideas, and I am glad to see them introduced into BW8. However, there is a problem I believe that almost makes them useless to more advanced students working in the original languages.

Whenever a search is performed in a morphological version (e.g. WTM or BNM), the lists in the Context and Word tabs only contain the specific forms of a particular noun/verb/particle/etc. In other words, they do not tell you every time the root word occurs, it only tells you the number of times different forms of that word occurs. So for the Hebrew word "house" (bet), if I set a search and limit it to the Pentateuch, the context and word tabs will tell me how many times it occurs in the singular, plural, construct, etc, but it will not simply tell me how many times it occurs, which is honestly the only thing I care about.

This makes the features essentially useless for me. I can see how an introductory student who uses the English text can benefit from this somewhat, but for deep exegesis it might as well have never been included. The purpose of it is to make it easier to highlight themes, see what words occur together, etc, but we are not given the true answers because it doesn't tell us the roots of the words that occur, but only the different forms of the root. I vote they change this, b/c it could be very useful and powerful.

Anybody else with me on this?

[Michael Hanel]

Anybody else with me on this?

Agreed. I mentioned this in beta-testing, but I'm not sure if it's yet on the "to-do" list. A helpful suggestion to them is always nice to let them know it's something you think would enhance the program.

[Ben Spackman]

I confess that this is one of the reasons I haven't made much use of this feature yet, and would like to see it work on the lemma level.

The other, related, is that I didn't see an immediate application. Not to say there isn't one, I just haven't seen it yet.

[Soxfan23]

Agreed. I mentioned this in beta-testing, but I'm not sure if it's yet on the "to-do" list. A helpful suggestion to them is always nice to let them know it's something you think would enhance the program.

Michael, what's the best way to do this? I just figured that they check the forums and when other people agree with one person's requests, they take it into consideration. Having both you and Ben agree to this should get their attention, IMO.

[Michael Hanel]

Michael, what's the best way to do this? I just figured that they check the forums and when other people agree with one person's requests, they take it into consideration. Having both you and Ben agree to this should get their attention, IMO.

The sticky on this discussion forum has the proper links to follow.

Please use the following links to use if you need a response from the BibleWorks staff:
* Customer Support: Click here
* Ideas/Suggestions: Click here

If you want to provide a link to the discussion here in your email, that might show that people are talking about it. Like I said, I know the programmers know about it, it's just a matter of what level of importance they give it on the to-do list. And, of course, remember politeness in your request.

[Adamsen]

The Context and Word tabs are good ideas, and I am glad to see them introduced into BW8. However, there is a problem I believe that almost makes them useless to more advanced students working in the original languages.
...
Anybody else with me on this?

I have not used this tab for the very same reason and would second this feature request. Thank you for bringing your suggestion to the attention of the good BW-folks.

Dr. Georg S. Adamsen

[MBushell]

"...there is a problem I believe that almost makes them useless to more advanced students working in the original languages."

Comments like this are neither helpful, nor true. You will get more work out of people if you don't trash their work first.

Mike

[MBushell]

Check the latest executable. It adds a context menu option to the context tab lists to turn the morph codes on and off. It will be off by default. Let us know if there are problems resulting from the change.

Mike

[Adelphos]

Comments like this are neither helpful, nor true. You will get more work out of people if you don't trash their work first.

Amen. I guess I must not be advanced because I find the tab features immensly useful.

In the new update when I do a search in a morph version the status bar blanks out, i.e., no text is displayed in the status bar.

EDIT: It doesn't have to be a morph version. The status bar blanks out on any search.

[MBushell]

In the new update when I do a search in a morph version the status bar blanks out, i.e., no text is displayed in the status bar.

EDIT: It doesn't have to be a morph version. The status bar blanks out on any search.

I've had reports similar to this a couple of times but have never been able to reproduce it. If it is reproducible, exit the program after it occurs and send me your INI file and context (SWC) file. That way I can reproduce your setup.
Thanks,
Mike