Function 11: Resource Notes Revisited

Within the past few months I have been able to own and work with Logos 4. This particular function, resource notes, is much different in Logos, so much so that I decided to have a short post to talk about it. With Logos, Notes to me become very complicated and if not done just right, will result in someone losing their notes or haveing the note misplaced. however it may seem at first that a person will lose some functionality and if this is the case you may like Logos' notes, however for me, I would prefer to have the generic overarching notes that BW brings to the table, it is simple to the point and easy to use and keep up with.

Video of a Training Seminar

Function 11: Resource Notes

Although in the realm of tools this one is minor, to me it is major, I do a lot of work and I take notes on most of it, those notes I insert into my BibleWorks resource notes. It is easy to you and easy to understand how it works.
When you first go over to the Analysis Window, one of the tabs is specifically set up for notes. This is easy to get to and gets you to your notes very fast.
Once there you will notice two boxes you can check or uncheck on the top of the tab. One just says autoload and this is if you want your notes to load automatically, or if you would prefer to have to load your notes, or very certain notes only when you want to use them. If you choose to not autoload your notes it may help with the load up speed of the overall program. The other box is if you want chapter notes. If you check this then your notes will be on the chapter level. If you uncheck this box your notes will be taken on a verse by verse basis.
Another option with the notes page is to tell BibleWorks where to find them. If you do not tell it where to find them then it will simply store and load all your notes from the NOTES in your program files. To change this you click on the button that has four yellow squares connected by lines with three on one side and one on the right side, all connected. This will give you the option to choose a folder or create a new folder for your notes.
The last thing that you really need to know is about how to search your notes. You can do this by clicking on the Binoculars icon to search your immediate notes, to search in all your notes in the folder or directory, you can do this by clicking on the binoculars above the folder icon.
you can see even by this very simple look at the notes that they can be very helpful. I actually use them quite a bit, I have Bibleworks get my notes out of the dropbox which syncs up all my computers so that I can get to my notes on all my computers which have my Bibleworks installed on them.

Function 10: The Bibleworks Editor

Function 10: The Bibleworks Editor
The Bibleworks editor is just that, an editor, it comes with all the functions of a Rich Text editor with plenty of options for formatting and filing. This makes the editor a very valuable tool, however in our adventures here, most of us know how to use a RT Editor we know how to adjust fonts and text size. For sake of space and for my sanity in writing, I will not be going through all the more known features instead I will be focusing in on some the features that are unique to BW.
To open the editor, you can, click on the tab which is located in the analysis window. You can also open it to be a floating window, you can do this through the main file button locate on the top left side or by clicking the fourth button over on the main toolbar. Unlike other RT editors this one also saves straight to the BW directory in the ini file or the my documents, however, it is important that you know where it is saved and change it to where you would prefer. You can do this by clicking on the button that has four yellow squares three in line vertically and one horizontal from the middle, all connected by a lines. By clicking this you will be able to tell BW where you would prefer it to save and search for your files.
Some of the unique functions of the editor obviously come with the Bible, with the editor you can insert chunks of scripture with relative ease. However, with BW and with the use of original language there may arise a problem, and that is, which font do I use and should it be Unicode or not. I will save the Unicode vs. non-Unicode for a different blog, however the problem does not exist with the editor because BW equips the editor (and the notes window) with a very simple button so that you can highlight and chance the text either to Unicode or not in Hebrew or Greek fonts. The Unicode button has either the Hebrew Aleph (for Hebrew fonts) or the Greek Alpha (for Greek fonts) with a small yellow dot above the letters, if there is no yellow dot it means that it will change it to a non-Unicode font.
The Bible insertion tool for the text editor is found among the normal tools on the tool bar running across the top. It is a very useful and easy to use tool found in the editor and is unique to BW (I think, I have never seen it anywhere else). The first thing that can be noticed is two text boxes to type in or put in by another means the text you want inserted and the version you want inserted. On the right hand side of these boxes is a button that looks mildly like an open book with an arrow pointing up, this if simply pressed will insert the text in the box, if you click on the dropdown it will also give you the option of “fetching the current” this is the text which is in the current browse window and search version. Next to this is the same looking button but instead of an arrow you have a question mark. This, if clicked, will open a window which will allow you to choose the version you would like your text to be displayed in, if not already the search version. In this you can also choose multiple version to display. The next button over will insert the text into your document but in the form of a chart.
Another unique thing that you can do with this RT editor is create filters to filter your text through. What it does, is it takes text in your editor and applies a filter. If you click on right click on empty space and to edit->filter setup you can then adjust which kind of text you want to filter and what you want to come out of the filter. To be honest I do not at the present see many uses for this, but there are some, especially if you have a lot of small adjustments to make in very similar fashion, this would speed that process up or even if you wanted to change a lot of English lettering into Greek or Hebrew, but it will not toggle between Unicode and non-Unicode.

Ninth Function: Resource Summary Tab

Moving now into more the in depth look at the each individual window of BibleWorks . Last time (a few months ago) we looked at the Word Analysis Window, now we look into the Resource Summary Tab.
The resource summary contains three specific types of information. One is lexical entries, these show the word the cursor is over (in the browse window) and displays the lexical form of the word and the first sentence from the entry. If this is clicked then a window will open with the full lexical entry. If the verse (not simply the word) is referenced this will also be displayed in the resource window if this is clicked it will open a window (the OT and the NT will open two separate windows, however once these windows are open each additional click will simply update the said window so that you don’t accidentally open a ton of windows.) and Finally the last bit of information that is discussed is the grammar, if the word that your cursor was over would be in the Aorist tense then you would have displayed the aorist sections of the grammars or anywhere that the Aorist is discussed.
The Resource Summary window when the tab is clicked will show five other tabs at the top of the window, (Summary, Lexicon, Grammar, References, Options) if you click on the options you will have the option to click on the reference display (where it shows the references to the said verse in the resource summary) and the topical (where it displays the discussion on the topics of the verses. )
The summary is the main one that has all the display information talked about above.
The other three display the resources with check boxes on the side of each of them. The check box is so that you can choose which resources you want to include, by default BW8 will display all that you have loaded and unlocked, however, if there is one in particular that you do not like you can uncheck the box to have it not be displayed in the resource summary tab.
NOTE: This tab is also where many other books are displayed with the user –created databases which will be discussed later.

Eighth Function: Word Analysis

In the Analysis window on BW, there are tabs located on the top, the very first tab is labeled “Analysis”. This tab displays the word analysis box. The function of this is quite simple. Once you scroll over a text with your mouse, the analysis window reveals things about the word or text, it’s that simple. If it is a Greek or Hebrew text it shows the morphology of the word which you are scrolling and the lexical entry for that word.
When looking at or Hebrew text it also gives you the strong numbers, they give you the corrected numbers. The Lockman editions which use their own Strong’s numbering.
There are several other features in this tab that can be accessed when you right click.
You can copy the text to the clipboard or also to the editor, the editor function copies straight to the editor, whether it is selected or just the complete text.
You can also change the function of the update. Kept with the default settings, the content of the analysis tab will change as you mouse over the text. However, if you would like to move your mouse to the tab window without changing the content you can press the shift key, however, with the right click option you can reverse that to make it to where you only change the analysis tab when you hold down the shift key.
You can also show or hide the header to the analysis, editor, and notes tab this is done the same way.
There are also several functions and options for how you display the strong’s numbers. I will not truly cover these because I do not use the strong’s numbers.
The right click is also where you can change the Lexicon which is used which can be used. This is nice when you need to use a different lexicon especially if you have purchased a better one than the default such as BDAG or HALOT.
The second to last option here is the statistics for the lemma usage.
And the final option is enable the Frequency Filter which I don’t fully understand at this point and my system for some reason will not let me open it.
Overall this is a good tab to work with. I prefer to keep mine with the basic where it changes constantly and only stick when I hold down the shift key. I don’t have any purchased lexicons otherwise I would have made that the display. This tab isn’t as versatile as some but the use of it is imperative with Bibleworks.

Seventh Function: Analysis Window

We have now gone through two of the three windows that we use in BW. The last window is called the Analysis Window. The analysis window is where many functions are displayed. Actually many of the results from the books and notes are all displayed in this area. We have an area where the content of books are displayed according to what verse is being displayed by the browse window or where your mouse has passed over. I will not talk extensively on the analysis window, actually I will barely have a post here, the reason for this is because each of these functions will receive its own personal post in the coming days or weeks. However, I will talk a little on how to use the general functions of the window.
The window is formed with several tabs over the top and a window displaying the content of the tab below. There are several functions on the tabs including context, resource, notes, browse…etc. simply by clicking on the various tabs to display the appropriate content. Now one of the things that I did not learn until later on is that when one is looking at something in the browse window and wants to look at that particular content in the analysis window it is best to hold down the shift button as you move the mouse over to the window. Next post will begin to cover the tabs starting with the word analysis tab.

Sixth Function: ELM

We have finished (at this point) with the browse window with the exception of one major function. I have saved this function for a blog all on its own because of its usefulness and importance. The function which I am talking about is called ELM or External Links Manager. The reason that this is considered part of the browse window is because the button for it is located directly above the browse window. The button looks much like a general link button with an white oval with a section missing from the top, this particular button also has a question mark on it.
The ELM takes links from various websites and other programs and uses them alongside of Bibleworks. This can be very effective especially if you have multiple programs that you are running and would like to use. A very good example might be the use of Logos and BW. With this if you wanted to lookup a word or lemma within a lexicon that is located in Logos, but not in BW you can do it with this module of BW. By doing this when you right click on a word one of the many options will be to look this up within the particular word in Logos when clicked, Logos will pop up and immediately go to the search for the word which you chose. This is usually done with something called a lemma. A Lemma is a lexical or dictionary form of a word.
To set this up can be more of an advanced thing, that even I am not the most comfortable with. I used the example in the help file to see how to set it up with a website for a word search, however, I am not truly sure of how to use it with Logos at this point. However, there are something that I do know when it comes to setup.
When first setting up you need a link (especially for websites) anytime you are going to lookup a word the web address will normally have the word included. Now the NULL setting is simply to tell BW what it needs to supply, if it doesn’t need to supply anything keep it at NULL if it does then change it to what needs to be supplied. Once changed you can move on. Let us say you need to supply a word or as we might say, the “lemma” then we would chose that. Once it is chosen we must change the link so that where it would normally supply the word we then place and this is the key word so that BW knows this is the location to supply the writing.
Overall, in spite of the complex set up, I think this is very useful for websites as well as other programs through BW and not beside it as it were, this will help others and me to use other programs while at the same time keeping BW at the forefront of my machine.

Fifth Function: Browse Window cont.

It has been quite some time since I have done this (almost two weeks) so I guess it would be wise for me to finally continue on with the browse window. We left off with the dropdown options at the head of the browse window. Continuing on I will move on to the actual text section of the browse window. This is where you find the actual text that you are looking at, there are two separate ways to view the text, you can do it in single version mode which will allow you to look at one single version of the text such as NIV, ESV…etc. This is nice to look at a complete text without any break, which is helpful when trying to look at the context of a particular verse. This can also be done in the Analysis window, but we will get to that later. You can toggle back and forth with this by placing your curser in the browse window and typing “b” the version that it will display in the single version will be the same as your primary search version. This can also be accomplished by clicking on the button that looks slightly like two footprints that is located on the top of the browse window.

On this window you can also change your scroll mode. This can be done by hitting control + Shift + the up arrow key. There are three choices, you can just keep it on default, or you can make it where your arrow keys move it from one verse to another. The other option of this is to synch it up, that is make it to where if you move up in down with the verses that it moves in that direction in all browse windows that are open. Again I would say that this later option is very helpful if you have multiple monitors. And with that, multiple browse windows open. Now, with me, I usually have one browse window up with the multiple version up and then I have another with the context browse function open.

While reading the help file the next thing it mentions is the options that are available when you right click on a word or phrase in the browse window. Now there a lot of options available to you with this, as I have said many times with other options is that the bulk majority of these options will be talked about in other blogs. However one that I will talk about shortly is the options that deal with the clipboard. If you select a phrase or word or whatever you can right click and copy this, but the copy button gives several options from copying it to the clipboard to placing it on the CL, after you copy once, it will give you option to repeat last copy command.

The two last features that can be talked about is the Greek Alias Files and the ELM or the External Links Manager. The Greek Alias file is basically a file that contains various spellings of the same word, it is possible to change these or add a version but I (me) would be hesitant to do this for fear of messing it up. This doesn’t mean it is a bad feature actually it is a good one and is a great that BBW has given us the ability to do this. The next feature the ELM is something that will be talked about in our next blog.

Fourth Function: Browse Window

This post, much like the previous two, I will be talking about browse window. There are plenty of things that can be accomplished through the browse window some of which may be covered at a later time, in a later post.

The browse window is the second window that is seen in BW, looking from left to right. It is the Middle window. Out of all the windows it is probably the most important yet at the same time, the least functional. The window's main function is that of the text, which makes it the most important, because it is displaying the actual text. In the Search window you can select what you would like to be displayed, they are displayed in this window. Usually this is done by showing one verse of the text in multiple versions.

If you go to the top of the browse window and right click in some of the "empty" space, you will find there are some other things that you can do, from adding extra buttons (which if you need them can be helpful), to taking away everything of the heading.

On the top of the browse window there are several functions to choose from. There is the outline selection, or the "Outline List Box." This box when clicked has a drop down list. The list is a very limited outline of the entire Bible, the outline comes from Metzger. There are different outlines that you can use if you click on the box to the very right of the outline you can see a drop down list of various outlines to use. If you are feeling up to it and want to add things to the existing drop down or just edit it to say what you want, you can do that to, by simply clicking on that drop down list, selecting configure, which will open a small box and from there you can click edit and make the changes in the outline that you want.

Directly below the outline window to the left, you will find the "browse window options button." It looks like a bad picture of an open book in yellow and then a box that has been checked. If you click on this box you get a slew of choices of things you can do. You can turn on or off the Strong's numbers, for those that use them. You can also toggle your analysis window, basically this means getting rid of your analysis window and enlarging your browse window. However, the two features that are included in this that I like the most is the option to create a new analysis and resource summary windows. This is a very nice feature to me because I use multiple monitors when using BW, when this is the case I like to keep the browse window and then the User Notes open and then create an extra analysis and resource window to use on another monitor.

With this drop down you can also select your display versions, and toggle with your highlights whether you want the searched word or text to be highlighted or not, you can also arrange the order in which you wish to see your displayed text. You can also turn on/off your version notes that come with some Bibles such as the NET. all in all, if you have a use for them there are some very important features in this simple drop down list.

The Third Functions: Search Window (Cont'd)

In my last post I started to talk about some of the basic functions of the search window, holding off on the more advanced portions for a later post. At this time I will continue in the same footing and hopefully finish the basic functions of the search window. We stopped last time dealing with the drop down list of the "Command Line Versions" Button, today we move on to the "Common search Utilities" button. This button is right next to the other button and is light green with the word "tools" when you click on it a drop down list appears. Most of the things mentioned on the drop down list will take another post to go through, each. However, it may be helpful if I give a short description of what they do.

The First mentioned is the Graphical Search Engine, and is one of the most useful tools in BW, that is of course, if you know how to use it. To be completely honest, it is this tool almost specifically that I hope to become better at using as I go through this blogging process. The second is the Word List Manager - This option opens the Word List Manager. The third is the Verse List Manager - This option opens the Verse List Manager. The fourth is the Open Popup Verse Copy Window - This option opens the Popup Copy Window. This pop up window feature is exactly like it sounds, it opens a pop up window that allows you to insert a verse you would like to copy to the clipboard. The fifth is the Find Related Words (KWIC) - This option opens the Key Word in Context (KWIC) tool. As of right now, I can honestly say this is one of my favorite tools in BW, but I will have to save its function for a later time. The sixth is the Find Related Verses (RVT) - This option opens the Related Verses Tool (RVT). The seventh is the Find Related Phrases (PMT) - This option opens the Phrase Matching Tool (PMT). And finally is Command Line Examples - This option displays a table of Command Line examples. This last one is very helpful, it is hard to remember all the different CL searches.

The last of the light green buttons, "the copy button." this button really is self explanatory, even on the drop down list you can see the various ways to copy, whether it be to Microsoft word or whether you want to copy the text or not.

Next I come to another one of my favorite tools, the tabs that are on top of the CL. The tabs allow you to keep track of multiple text and searches. you can do this simply by selecting them, however, if you right click on them, you get more options. You can freeze them so that they always come up to the same place, or you can save them, this is very helpful especially when you are working with multiple text or searches but you don't want to lose the results.

Second Function: Search Window

Following literally down the line of help contents there are several overview sections, a section on the main menu, and the button bar. Most of these are fairly generic and don't truly get us into the functionality of the software. After this we get to the first of three points in the content section, the three go through the three windows and in many ways are just to give you a general introduction as to what the parts of each window do. The first of these is the search window, which is what I will be talking about today. Now again I emphasize that this is just a general summary of the basic functions of the search window and as we continue on we will discover more of the specific functions that this window in particular can do. We need to keep this in mind, because the primary function of BW is to act a a search engine.

When we first look at the search window we immediately see something that is familiar to us, well at least to me, the command line. Below this is the results verse list box, this is what shows the results of a command line (abbreviated CL) search. Looking at the CL we see an arrow box to the right side of it, if we click this arrow we get a drop down of every successful search ever done in the CL, as I press it down I am depressed to find that even though I have had this program for some time, I have done a minimal amount of CL searches.

Directly below the CL there are three light green boxes. The first should have five darker green boxes and a three letter abbreviation of a particular version are text (i.e. NIV, ESV...etc.). If you click on this you get a drop down list of several different functions that you can do with the command line. These functions include setting the text that you wish to search, setting the display versions that will display the particular text. Choosing the search limits. Editing a search and display favorites and finally synchronizing the results list. If you change the search limits depending on how you change them the one or many of the five green boxes may turn yellow.

§ First box: This is yellow if you have any search limits set.

§ Second box: This is yellow if you have any cross version search options set.

§ Third box: This is yellow if accent-sensitive searching is on for the current search version or if "smart apostrophes" is turned on for English versions.

§ Fourth box: This is yellow if you are using a Hebrew version and Hebrew vowel-sensitive searching is on.

§ Fifth box: This is yellow if Command Line checkbox filter searching is on.

To be honest, I do not yet know what each of these are, but hopefully as I move along I will discover more about how to effectively use them.

Looking again to the green CK verson button, we see the three letter abbreviation. If we run a search with one version and then change to a different version, we could see two versions displayed at the same time seperated b a backslash. the one that comes first is the newest one, so that if we did a new search it would be in that version.

To change the search version you again click it to drop down and then click on change search version, from there a new box will appear with all the versions contained in BW sep-erated by language.

The default mode of search only searches the current search version, however it is possible to search all the display versions or simply all the display version of the same language (i.e. Greek, Hebrew, English), this feature is new to me not knowing I could do this. When I changed it over the second light turned orange which is an indication that I have changed it from the default. When I performed the search a small box popped up showing the cross version results, what is displayed in the search window is the main one but can be changed simply by selecting a different version from the box. a good way to search multiple versions at once, certainly a helpful tool. If you select the "Search and Display all same language versions" it will search not simply your displayed versions but all versions of that language, so for instance you remember a certain wording of a text but cannot remember which one, you would click on this one and BW would search for that wording in all versions that are English, it also changes the display window so that you can see all these different versions there. and finally the "Search and Prune all same language versions" works almost exactly like the last one, but if a version has no hits it is pruned from the list.

The next on the list that drops down is the options to choose display versions. This is simple as just like the search versions, a box appears with all BW versions displayed, you can choose multiple and I usually have at least two English, a Greek and Hebrew version displayed at all times on mine. After this is the choosing of the search limits, if you open this a box will appear with several options so that for instance you could decide to search only one book, or only the New Testament, therefore limiting your searches. There are more options with this, but we will cover them when we get to point 50 of the content section which deals with setup options.

After this we see on the drop down list a section for "edit search and display favorites." this allows you to pick favorites that that you can quickly return to them when needed, this will also be covered in more detail in the setup options.

And finally, last but not least comes the drop down on "synchronize results list" this is for a change in the searches, like we said earlier, if you do a search and then change your search version it will be displayed by one version/original version. When this occurs you can use this tool to pull all the search results to the most current search version.

and That is all for me today. I will try to go through The common Search Utilities Button in the near future.

First Function: Design

When you first open the BibleWorks help file you see the immensity of the project at hand. Even the list of new things, things which were not in BW 7 is quite large. The content page shows 62 different things that are indexed and within each of those points there can be several things to which you can do. That being said it should also be noted that several of these 62, are not items or functions at all, at least one is a Bibliography, another a welcome and an overview. Actually you don't truly get to the functionality until you reach point 8 with the "main menu," however, even this truly goes with some of the previous ones that were overviews. With this in light I will here do a quick look at the functionality of overview and design of Bibleworks 8 (from here on it will be abbreviated as BW 8). The earliest form of BW that I have used is BW 3, and it had a certain structure to it with the text box on the top left side and your lexical aid on the bottom left side with this on the right was much of your search functions and summaries. They kept their general layout till BW 6, in BW 7 they introduced a new layout which is carried over to BW 8. The layout, in my own opinion, is genius in its simplicity. It splits the screen into three sections. On the Left side is where you would typically start with the search screen. There is a command line (from here on abbreviated CL), and underneath is where it displays your search results. in the Middle is your browse window which shows the particular verse and versions which you are looking at. In the right hand side of the screen is your analysis window it is here that (at least in BW 8) you have several options including a summary of your resources (commentaries, grammars), a browse feature(allows you to read the full text of a single version of text), User created notes and editor to write, word analysis (lexical aid), stats, x-refs (will discuss later), and version info. On the top running across the screen is a series of shortcut button to more quickly get to key functions of the program. I find this layout to be better than their previous one and have adjusted to it rather quickly. The layout seems to follow the natural pattern and direction that I move in the first place.I find the Analysis window to have the most functionality with its various tabs. However, I don't want to slight the search window, BW is, in its purest form a powerful search engine that is versatile in its searches. Many of these we will be getting into later.

My Purpose

I have never truly had a blog before, however, I have also never needed one before. To be completely honest I do not need one at the present moment, but I feel it may help me to keep with and to achieve my goals by being able to keep track of my progress. My first task that I would like to achieve is to discover the full functionality of Bibleworks. Bibleworks is a Bible Software. Allow me to rephrase that it is THE Bible Software. Like any truly great software it is filled with so many functions that it can be difficult to understand how to use them all. This is then the reason for this blog, I am planning (at least right now) to work may through all the major functions of Bibleworks. It is my hope that by doing this I will be able to better use this incredible program and with this better use I will be able to do better exegetical work and as an end result better and more Biblical Sermons. This project will also help me to learn more about the Bible as well, learning more about Biblical backgrounds as well as particular books of the Bible and Manuscripts. Anyway with that I will now start the work on the actual project and not simply write about what I would like to do, So with that leave this post to work on the future of this blog.