This is the second in a series of posts on Accordance preferences. Yesterday we covered some of the General settings. Today, we’ll cover the rest of them.

GeneralPrefs

In addition to letting you choose how you want Accordance to start up and what information dialogs you want to have displayed, the General settings let you tweak Accordance’s amplify behavior.

When you select a word or verse reference in Accordance, you can then choose to search for that selected text in any Accordance resource. This is the process we call amplifying. For example, let’s say you select the Greek word λόγος in John 1:1, then choose BDAG from the Amplify menu on the Toolbar. A new tab containing BDAG will automatically be opened to the entry on λόγος.

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There’s something else to notice about this search: in addition to searching for the selected word in the Greek Entry field, Accordance has also searched the Scripture field for John 1:1. This makes it easy to click the down Mark button to find where John 1:1 is cited in this long article.

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Doing a search for both the selected word and the verse in which it appears can also help to distinguish among homographs: words that are spelled the same but mean different things.

This two-pronged searching when you amplify is almost always a good thing, especially since Accordance will still find the selected word even if the current verse is not cited. Still, there are some users who just want to search for the selected word without also including the verse reference. Consequently, the General preferences has a checkbox labeled Include reference when amplifying from text to tool. Uncheck that box, and Accordance will only search for the selected word without including the verse reference.

Another Amplify setting you can choose is Require selection for amplifying. If this box is checked, you must drag or double-click to select a word or verse reference before amplifying. If this box is unchecked, you can simply click in a word or verse reference so that the cursor is blinking inside it, and Accordance will regard that as a valid selection. Thus, you could simply click inside the word λόγος in John 1:1 to select it. Many users like this convenience: you can simply click to select something and then amplify. However, others find it too easy to click something and select it without meaning to. If you’re in the latter camp, check this box to make sure you must do more than just click to select something.

The last Amplify option in the General preferences is Confine amplify to the same workspace. If you find yourself opening more than one workspace at a time, you may want to consider this option. Let’s say I have one workspace for New Testament studies, and I amplify a word in the Greek New Testament to look it up in a Greek lexicon. In another workspace, I have the Greek Septuagint text, and I decide to amplify one of those words to look it up in that same Greek lexicon. Because I already have a copy of that lexicon open in the New Testament workspace, Accordance will look up my Septuagint word there, in my NT Studies Workspace.

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If, however, I have Confine amplify to the same workspace checked, Accordance will open a second copy of my lexicon in the same workspace as my Septuagint text. That way, each workspace will have its own copy of my lexicon that will only be used when I amplify from a word in that workspace.

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The last section of the General settings offers two more general options. When drag and drop text editing was first introduced, some long-time Mac users found it disconcerting, so we allow you to disable it. Also, the default behavior of the Accordance Slide Show mode is to advance to the next slide when the mouse is clicked. If you don’t want mouse clicks to advance slides, you can specify that they be ignored.

That’s it for the General preferences. Next we’ll look at the Appearance settings.