Some Minor Issues (and a couple ideas)

[Joshua Luna]

Hello,

I am looking to streamline my Bibleworks some and have a couple questions that others may be able to answer.

(1) Searching. When I double click a word it pops up a new window with the search. Likewise if I right click and search on lemma it opens a new window as well. I would prefer that in both cases it is appended to the commandline.

(2) Writing Hebrew/Greek. In BW5 and before I could write in Hebrew & Greek in the Editor window using the Bibleworks Keyboard. For some reason, in version 7, whenever I type with the BW Keyboard my data ends up on the commandline (even when I click, sometimes repeatedly, in the editor window).

(3) Hyperlinks. When I link to an RTF created in BW I would prefer it opened up in BW or, in the least, a new BW Editor window. Right now it opens in Word. (A side note: hyperlinks took a few moments to figure out; after I browsed to a file I wanted to link to BW wouldn't clear out the previous entry data and so my links wouldn't work. Ugh! So lesson to others, clear your lines out first.)

(4) Screen Layout. While I like the flexibility BW7 offers (currently using 3 column format; search on left, Bibles in the middle, editor/word analysis on the right) I do miss having the editor and Word Analysis separated. Is there a way to move the Word Analysis/Resource Summary tabs to being below the Bible panel and the user notes/editor on the right?

- - - - -

(5) Idea: Various Note Types. BW7 allows you to modify tabs on the status bar (Tools > Options > Option Flags > Main Window Status Bar Configuration), notably Verse Notes and Chapter Notes. It would be quite neat if BW allowed you to create different verse note types (categories) and either have unique tabs for such or tabs on the status bar. Why? I am finding that I break up my notes into 4 sections: Textual Notes, Translation Notes, Study Notes, and References. Yes, I can manually break up each file with some dashes and 'titles'. I know Tabor's TEB and the NET Bible make a distinction in note types and from seeing some people's screenshots they do seem to break them up manually as well.

Which leads me to...

(6) Idea: Taxonomy aka categories, tagging, labels&filters, etc. I have been beating this idea around for a while and while BW's current system is nice (user verse notes; a separate editor tab where you can file documents in whatever folder structure for organization that fits your fancy; a file searching tool to find your content) as a Web 2.0 geek I am wondering if there is a better way of doing this. I think Taxonomy may a longterm solution for data management.

In a nutshell you are tagging your content with relevant terms to the content. For example, lets say I am reading Walter Kaiser's, "The Messiah in the Old Testament" and I want to make a reference note directing my attention to his discussion of Isaiah 9:6. How this would work in practice would be

(a) create a new document and place whatever content I want in it. In this case as it is a reminder to reference a resource I would simply put something akin to:

*Kaiser, Walter (p.154, "The Messiah in the Old Testament")

(b) The next step would be to place some tags on the file in a "Taxonomy" pane. For this example I would use tags like:

*Reference note
*Kaiser
*The Messiah in the Old Testament
*Prophecy, Messianic
*Messiah, Divinity, Hebrew Bible
*Isaiah 9:6

Why do this?

The power comes with filtering options. You course browse your "tags" just like you would browse files; where the real power comes in is filters. e.g. I want to filter all my taxonomy tags that related to Isaiah 9:6. The results may look something like:

*Hegg, Tim (p.10, Messiah in the Tanakh)
*Kaiser, Walter (p.154, The Messiah in the Old Testament)
*Van Groningen, Gerard (p. 777, Messianic Revelation in the Old Testament)
*Joshua's notes // el gibbor
*Joshua's notes // Lxx in Isaiah 9:6
*Joshua's notes // Messianic prophecies not quoted in the New Testament

For those of us who read a lot of books and want to keep track of who said what, on what topic, and where this would be great. Going deeper, you could use AND/OR/NOT filters to weed through and filter your searches. e.g.

word studies
AND
covenant

Could produce all my documents where I have analysed the use of words that have covenantal overtones and the like.

Of course the user would have to provide the tags (and be given the option to disable them altogether). But I am finding I need a better way to keep track of my notes. I am currently looking at NeoMem and EverNote and similar note taking/catagorizing software. Of course I would like to keep my notes "in house" because the BW editor is nice, but more importantly it is tied nicely to each passage in the Bible.

So, cannot I do the same basic thing with Bibleworks? Yes... but at the cost of time. e.g. Lets say I am reading Kaiser's book mentioned above and enter all my notes digitaly into a file. Now instead of entering the data once and adding "tags" to the data I need to do the reverse: create files on those topics and paste the content in them.

Currently I am looking at going with a compromise: make my document with notes from my books, create a folder specifically for "Book Notes" and have a file for each book. I will then list my notes with my own "tags" and *hope* using the "find in files" tools in BW/Windows/3rd party will be robust enough to find what I am looking for. This should work fine for looking for something very specific and less common ... of course filtering won't work to narrow down notes (AND/OR/NOT) and the issue that you will be searching all the notes in a file may lead to wide of a net. I could save my notes as individual text files... egads!

Basically I am looking for a good way to catalogue data culled from reading material that I want quick access to in the future for use in homiletic and academic study. It is great to re-read books at times, but sometimes you just want a reference on a topic you foggily remember (or want to survey all the material you have tagged for a specific topic). BW is my main tool and to incorporate this sort of functionality into BW's would be very cool... although BW is already very cool

Btw, I found the suggestion for an outlining tool to be a very good one. A general outlining tool (like Word uses) as well as an Exegetical Guide/Checklist would be pretty spiffy!

[Greg Ward]

1) Double-click usually initiates an action (In the Browse window that would be to initate a search for the chosen word.) If you want to append it to the command line, highlight in word in Browse window, copy (Ctrl-C), F2 or ESC for cursor focus to command line, paste (Ctrl-V), F6 for cursor focus back to Browse window.

If Double-Click word in Browse meant "Append to command line", then to do a word seach, you would have to enter the search code (. / etc) on the command line, double click in browse to append it to command line, go back to command line and hit enter to intiate the search.---IMHO I prefer it the way it is.

You can have a search use the same browse window rather than open a new browse window each time. (Option Flags, Browse Window.., Enable Automatic Secondary Browse Window)

2) No idea on this one. When you mean you can't type in editor, do you mean the Verse Notes/Chapter Notes? Can you type in English? Can you type in the editor if you open a new editor window? Do you have Verse Notes locked (Option Flags, Notes Options, Make read only)? Please explain your configuration and actions that you take more specifically.

3) You could save the .rtf files you want to link to and open in BW7 as .bww files. A *.bww file is a rich text format (used by BW editor, MS WordPad, etc.). Or if BW is the only application that you use to make *.rtf files, you could change the Windows default application to open *.rtf extension files in File Explorer/Tools/Options/File Types.

4) See Screen Layouts Thread. http://www.bibleworks.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=50
I like to be able to see if I have created a note for the passage at hand. The only way I've found for auto loading of user notes is the main analysis window. So I use that for auto displaying my notes and use secondary word analysis and resource summary windows.

5) The NET notes were originally (back in BW5 or 6) all the same kind of version text notes, just some start with "tn" and some start with "sn." These are not the same as user notes.
Are suggesting totally different, nameable, notes sets, selectable by tab?

6) Is this like database fields?

[Joshua Luna]

You can have a search use the same browse window rather than open a new browse window each time. (Option Flags, Browse Window.., Enable Automatic Secondary Browse Window)

Thanks!

That is what I was looking for. Previous versions had this behavior (double clicking a word appended it, with ".", to the commandline search bar and automatically searched the term). I can see why people like the new feature but, for me, I like the feel of the old behavior + tabs on the command line box.

2) No idea on this one. When you mean you can't type in editor, do you mean the Verse Notes/Chapter Notes? Can you type in English? Can you type in the editor if you open a new editor window? Do you have Verse Notes locked (Option Flags, Notes Options, Make read only)? Please explain your configuration and actions that you take more specifically.

By Editor I mean both the "User Notes" and "Editor" tabs on the Analysis Window. I can type using the keyboard but I cannot use the Bibleworks GUI Keyboard as I could in previous versions. I CAN use the GUI keyboard to write to the commandline, however.

3) You could save the .rtf files you want to link to and open in BW7 as .bww files. A *.bww file is a rich text format (used by BW editor, MS WordPad, etc.). Or if BW is the only application that you use to make *.rtf files, you could change the Windows default application to open *.rtf extension files in File Explorer/Tools/Options/File Types.

I will fiddle with this, thanks for the tips.

4) See Screen Layouts Thread. http://www.bibleworks.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=50
I like to be able to see if I have created a note for the passage at hand. The only way I've found for auto loading of user notes is the main analysis window. So I use that for auto displaying my notes and use secondary word analysis and resource summary windows.

How would I open second Word Analysis window?

I did find the "open new Resource Summary" button and option under the dropdown thanks to your help, though I have dual displays so I have desktop space to spare

5) The NET notes were originally (back in BW5 or 6) all the same kind of version text notes, just some start with "tn" and some start with "sn." These are not the same as user notes.
Are suggesting totally different, nameable, notes sets, selectable by tab?

Yes, I am suggestion totally different, namable note sets selectable by tab. Currently my setup looks like this on the Analysis Window tabs

| Word Analysis | Resource Summary | User Notes | Editor |

Allowing us to (a) create our own "sets" and (b) name them could allow something like this:

| Word Analysis | Resource Summary | Translation Notes | Literary Notes | Exegetical Notes | Editor |

Or even an approach like the NET Bible (which I only used as an example) where you have Study Notes and Translation Notes.

6) Is this like database fields?

Same idea

[Greg Ward]

A new (or secondary) Word Analysis window can be opened using the button on the browse window header under the command line. It is the "Browse Window Options" button that has a green check mark/box over an open yellow book. (see Chapter 12 of the online Help)

One note is that a secondary Word Analysis window does not include the TSK pane in it.

[Greg Ward]

You can still append a selected browse window word to the command line by right clicking and selecting "Append to Command Line"--two clicks with a little motion in between them. Still faster than highlight, copy, paste!

[jim.dvorak]

The Evernote idea is fantastic.

[Dale A. Brueggemann]

(5) Idea: Various Note Types.... (6) Idea: Taxonomy....

Sounds like you need the power of Nota Bene Lingua along with its Ibidem and Orbis note-taking and -search functions. You could get a trial version here.