In the previous two posts, I've talked about the five categories into which we've divided the various Accordance tools. It's a simple and understandable system which has worked well, but we now have so many tools available—and so many more on the way—that we needed to start looking for a way to further subdivide them.
We decided that in the next version of Accordance, we'll add submenus to each of the pop-up menus, so that like tools within each category could be grouped together. For example, under Reference Tools, we could distinguish Commentaries, Study Bible Notes, Translator's Notes, Critical Apparatuses, etc. Having such sub-categories should greatly reduce the length of the pop-up menus, while still giving users the quick access to which they've become accustomed.
Of course, these kinds of distinctions go beyond the tool's structure to its genre and content, and once we start divvying things up along those lines, we begin to run into the same ambiguities which I mentioned in Wednesday's post. What if someone doesn't want all his commentaries in a submenu? What if he doesn't have any critical apparatuses—do we clutter the menu with an empty category? What if we classify a module under one sub-category and the user thinks of it as belonging to another?
Then it occurred to us that all of these potential problems could be solved simply by letting the user decide how to subdivide each group of tools. Just as you can create a folder of Bookmarks in a web browser to group related sites, version 7.0 of Accordance will let you add your own subgroupings of tools and arrange them however you like. If you want to put all your commentaries into a single folder, or divide modern commentaries from classic commentaries, or distinguish critical commentaries from devotional commentaries, you'll be able to do it.
This, and other upcoming enhancements which we're not ready to talk about just yet, will make managing a growing list of modules much easier.
# posted by David Lang @ 9:02 AM
