When you open a new resource in Accordance, it typically opens as a tab in your workspace. Workspace tabs are a great way to keep all your resources neatly organized, but the one drawback to them is that the frontmost tab obscures all the tabs behind it. What if you want to see the new resource alongside your main passage of study?

Thankfully, Accordance doesn't lock you in to one way of working. If you want to detach a tab from a workspace so that you can view that resource in a separate window, simply choose Detach Tab from the Tabs submenu of the Window menu. When you do, that tab will become a separate window that you can view alongside your workspace.

In an interesting bit of synchronicity, while I've been blogging about combining and customizing Atlas layers, a user asked the following question on our user forums:

I would like to map all the places mentioned in the book of Acts. How do I do so? You can only highlight one place at a time. Any ideas?

By mentioning the ability to highlight one site at a time, this user showed that he already knows how to find sites on the map. Let's say, for example, that you're reading in Acts 17 and you want to map all the places mentioned in the first verse.

If you select Amphipolis and click the Map button on the Resource palette, a map window will open with Amphipolis highlighted in red. You could then go back to the text, select Apollonia, and click the Map button again. Now those two sites are highlighted on the map. Actually, because there are two sites named Apollonia, you'll see one highlighted near Amphipolis, and another on the opposite side of Greece. Since that second Apollonia clearly cannot be the one mentioned in Acts 17, you can remove the highlighting from it by selecting it and hitting the delete key. Finally, you could return to the text once more, select Thessalonica this time, and click the Map button once again.

Just as you can convert multiple map layers into a "set," you can convert these found sites into a Custom Site Layer. To do this, just choose Convert to Custom Layer at the bottom of the Sites pop-up menu of the Map window. In the dialog box that appears, you can give this new layer a name (such as Acts 17 sites) and can even choose other sites to add.

This process of amplifying repeatedly to the map and then converting the found sites into a layer gives you an easy way to customize the sites you want to appear on the map. While handy, this method is admittedly a little tedious, especially if you're wanting to map more than a few sites. That's why the user who wanted to map all the sites in Acts mentioned the fact that you can only select one location at a time.

Thankfully, a different approach is available. (You knew there would be, didn't you?)

Most of the site layers you can overlay on the Atlas are based on a database of geographical information. For example, "Major Biblical Sites" shows all sites mentioned in the Bible which meet a certain level of importance. "Iron Age Sites" shows all sites which were occupied during that particular archaeological period. While we provide you with these predefined site layers, you can create your own site layers which meet whatever criteria you specify.

To find all the sites mentioned in the book of Acts, choose Define Site Layers from the Site pop-up menu. In the dialog box that appears, create a new site layer, give it an appropriate name (like Acts sites), and in the Biblical Periods section, check the checkbox labeled NT Writings (Acts-Rev). When you click OK, you should see all of the sites mentioned in those NT books. Obviously, you may get a few which are not mentioned in Acts, but the vast majority of them will come from Acts.

Those who purchase the Atlas are immediately impressed by its flexibility, integration with the text of the Bible, animated routes, and 3D capabilities. But even all of that is just scratching the surface. When you learn how to customize Atlas layers in some of the ways I've shown you this week, you come to realize how incredibly powerful the Atlas really is.

In yesterday's post, I showed you how you can hold the shift key down to select more than one map layer of the same type. By shift-selecting the Tribes of Israel and Middle Eastern Nations region layers, we were able to see which modern nations currently contain the territories allotted to the twelve tribes of Israel.

Once you've created a useful combination of layers, you can convert them into a layer "set." Sets are combinations of individual layers, and you already have a few pre-installed for you. Modern Nations and Roman Provinces are actually Region Sets combining two or more individual layers. To add this new combination of layers as a set, simply choose Convert to Region Set at the bottom of the region layer pop-up menu. This will open a dialog box where you can give your Region Set a name and even add additional layers if you'd like. Once you finish and click OK, your new Region Set will be listed as a single item in the pop-up menu that you can select whenever you want.

If you own the Accordance Bible Atlas, you already know that you can overlay the map with layers showing various sites, regions, and routes. You can even draw and save your own layers. But what if you want to combine more than one layer of the same type?

For example, let's say you want to see which modern nations now contain the territories allotted to the twelve tribes of Israel. If you look at the region layer pop-up menu of the Map window, you'll see a layer for the Tribes of Israel, and you'll see a layer for Middle Eastern nations, but how can you select them both so that you can view them at the same time?

Answer: The Shift key. If you select one layer, then hold the Shift key down while selecting another layer, the two layers will appear on the map at the same time. The pop-up menu can only show the name of the last layer you selected, but a plus will appear next to the name so you can see that other layers have been selected as well. If you open the pop-up menu you'll see a plus beside each layer which is currently displayed.

Here's what I get when I combine the Tribes of Israel with Middle Eastern Nations. The combination of layer colors creates an interesting effect:

If you find that the combination of colors gets confusing, you can customize one of the layers to show only region borders rather than the color fills. We even include a Tribe Borders layer which is basically the Tribes of Israel layer with the fills turned off:

I'll show you how to turn off the fills and otherwise customize layers in an upcoming post. In the meantime, try combining layers using the Shift key and see what you discover about biblical geography.

The Resource palette is perhaps one of the most useful and recognizable aspects of the Accordance interface. It enables you to open any Accordance module, and if you first make a selection of text, to search any module you choose for that text (a process we call "amplifying" your selection). As a longtime Accordance user, I rely on the Resource palette a lot.

If you don't like the default look of the Resource palette, you can modify it in a number of ways. First, you can collapse any sections of the palette you don't use by clicking a disclosure triangle. For example, if you don't have the Atlas or Timeline (what are you thinking?), and you don't want those two icons reminding you how much you're missing out on, you could collapse the Background section of the palette. You can also go into the Appearance settings of the Preferences and choose a horizontal orientation for the palette, or choose to use text buttons rather than icon buttons.

You can even close the Resource palette altogether. After all, the Resource palette isn't the only way to open modules or amplify to them. To open modules, you could use the New submenu of the File menu to open a new window with your default Bible text, tool of each type, parallel, map, etc. You might also choose to leave your Library window open all the time. That way, you could use the Find box to locate specific modules very quickly, then hit return to open them.

As far as amplifying is concerned, all the options on the Resource palette are also available through the Amplify menu at the top of the screen. Many of those options are also available through the use of keyboard shortcuts and contextual menus.

It's a radical vision, and one which this Accordance old-timer is not quite ready to adopt, but those of you who are looking for ways to save on screen real estate or simplify the interface may well want to consider living life without the Resource palette.

In a recent update of Accordance (there have been so many in the last year I can't remember which one), we added a new capability which has changed the way many of you interact with Accordance. The Instant Details box has always shown the basic tagging information for any word in a Key-numbered Bible text or grammatically-tagged original language text you mouse over. This would include a brief definition called a gloss, but many users asked to see more. So we now allow you to hold down the command key to see your default dictionary's definition for that word. So, for example, if you have BDAG at the top of your list of Greek lexicons, holding down the command key will show BDAG's sometimes very lengthy definitions.

This new capability has caused many of you to change the size and position of your Instant Details box to accommodate the additional information. If you use the command-key feature a lot, it no longer makes sense to keep the Instant Details box tucked down at the bottom of the screen where you can only see a line or two. But if you make it larger to accommodate more information, what is the best place to put it?

One possibility is to place it over some of the other palettes. For example, if you keep the Library window open, you could place the instant details box over the Library window. This should give you plenty of room to view long dictionary articles.

Of course, if you want access to the Library window, you now have the problem that it is covered by the Instant Details box! But here's the trick, you can set the Instant Details box to fade from view whenever it is not in use. To do this, go to the Instant Details settings in the Preferences and check "Set to automatically fade." The Instant Details box will now appear whenever you drag over a word in your main workspace, but will disappear when you drag anywhere else, thereby revealing the Library window underneath.

Most employers frown on their employees taking a second job. Since no one can serve two masters, it is rare that someone can "moonlight" and not allow their regular work to suffer in some way. Even worse would be to use your primary employer's company blog to promote your moonlighting work. I've already done the former, and now I'm about to do the latter. Fortunately, I have a very understanding employer.

Last year, when there was no shortage of Accordance work for me to do, OakTree Software graciously gave me the time I needed to write a book entitled Macs in the Ministry. That book is being published by Thomas Nelson as part of their new Tech Guide series, and is scheduled to be released next month. While the book does include a couple of chapters on Bible software (one surveying the available options and another outlining how to study using Bible software), its focus is not primarily on Bible software, but on how you can use your Mac to help you in six alliterative ministry activities: preparation, presentation, publication, promotion, participation, and practical needs.

Macs in the Ministry is divided into two parts. Part One is designed to provide you with "Inspiration." Each chapter takes one of the ministry activities just listed and shows you what you Mac can make possible. You'll find lots of ideas you can incorporate into your own ministry, and plenty of examples from other "Mac ministers." Part Two is about "Perspiration," about learning how to do some of the things part one inspired you to do. This section contains step-by-step tutorials on how to create movies, slideshows, websites, sermon outlines, a daily Bible study curriculum, etc.

When writing Macs in the Ministry, I wanted to do more than just write a technology book. So I took this as an opportunity to preach to the preachers. Throughout the book you'll find practical ministry advice on developing a coherent philosophy of technology in ministry, selecting the right image for a presentation, taking advantage of social networking, Biblical examples of self-promotion, why we often fail to involve others in the work of ministry, ways to avoid neglecting your family, and much more. My hope is that Macs in the Ministry will end up on people's shelves because of their interest in technology, but will stay on their shelves because it offers ministry advice which will never become obsolete.

Macs in the Ministry should be available in bookstores and online outlets in a few weeks, and I believe you'll also be able to buy it from OakTree. Until the book is released, I'll be blogging about it and sharing more tidbits at macsinministrybook.com.

Alright, I guess I've commandeered my employer's blog long enough. OakTree Software has been incredibly supportive of this project, and I'm very grateful for their selflessness in that regard.

A few years ago, I lent my year 2000 Pismo PowerBook to a friend who needed to run some classic Mac software. My son had tripped over the power cord years before and had broken the connector, so I ended up buying a second battery and a separate battery charger to keep the thing running. Not an ideal solution, but it worked. My friend reported to me last year that my laptop had finally died, which I take to mean that he can no longer get the batteries to charge. I suspect that a few hundred dollars would get this decade-old Mac running just fine once more. (By the way, Rick, if you're reading this, when am I gonna get my Pismo back?)

My point here, apart from teasing my friend, is that Macs are hard to kill. They work and work and work until you finally move on to something else, and even when you no longer have any use for them it's hard to part with them completely. Heck, I still get nostalgic when I see my Pismo's translucent bronze-colored keyboard.

Because we know many older Macs are still in circulation, we have always been committed to supporting them as far back as we can without limiting our future development. Users of very old Macs may not have access to a handful of Accordance features, but even to this day that list remains incredibly short. Even more amazing is the fact that the latest versions of Accordance still run lightning fast on these old machines. When my friend saw how quickly Accordance ran on my ten-year-old Pismo, he was quick to express his amazement. One user even posted pictures to our forums of Accordance running on a PowerBook 170, one of the first generation PowerBooks released in 1991!

Our commitment to users of older equipment is not half-hearted, as can be seen by how quickly we released Accordance 8.4.3. Yesterday morning I reported that Accordance 8.4.2 was causing problems for users of PowerPC Macs and that we would soon release a fix. Accordance 8.4.3 was released just a few short hours later. We refuse to use the fact that you're using older hardware as an excuse for problems with Accordance. While there's always the possibility that the limitations of older hardware may affect something, we will "not go quiet into that good night." If your Mac still runs, chances are it will still run Accordance surprisingly well.

I'm pleased to announce that Accordance 8.4.2 is now available. This is a free download to all users of Accordance 8 or above. This new update primarily includes fixes for bugs so obscure few of you would ever discover them, but is also includes a few minor enhancements.

In the duh-can't-believe-we-left-that-out department, we've added the Edit User Note command to the contextual menu which appears when you right- or control-click a verse in a Text window. Yes, you could always choose Edit User Note from the Selection menu or use the keyboard shortcut command-U, but we should have included it in the contextual menu as well. That oversight has now been corrected.

In the consistency department, when you're viewing your user notes in a parallel pane and you begin typing in that notes pane, Accordance will automatically open an edit window and place it neatly over the notes pane. However, if you used the Edit User Note command, the Edit window would appear in a different location. In Accordance 8.4.2, whether you open an Edit window by typing in a notes pane or using the Edit User Note command, the Edit window will always appear neatly over the notes pane.

In the convenience department, whenever you make the Library window active, the Find box will automatically receive focus (provided nothing is selected in the Library browser pane). This enables you to begin typing to find a module as soon as you bring the Library window to the front.

I said earlier in this post that 8.4.2 fixes bugs so obscure few of you would ever discover them. Unfortunately, it also introduced a bug for some users of PowerPC Macs which has been quite easy to discover. This bug was apparently introduced by a new compiler, and we'll release a fix soon. In the meantime, users of PowerPC systems may want to wait until the release of Accordance 8.4.3.

This past Friday night, all the OakTree Software staff located here in Central Florida gathered for our annual company dinner. Since we have a number of employees located in other parts of the country, we try to schedule the company dinner at a time when at least some of those far-flung staff members happen to be in town. Last year, the dinner was timed to coincide with a visit from one of our associate scholars. This year, a module developers' training seminar gave us an excuse to include several out of town members of our module development team.

The hardest part about attending our company dinner is deciding where to sit. When you'd like to visit with everyone, it's hard to settle on a table. Basically, my wife and I just try to position ourselves at one of the larger tables and then wait and see who else sits down. In some settings, such a luck-of-the-draw seating strategy could easily backfire, but with OakTree staff, every hand is a winner.

The annual company dinner is always a pretty informal affair. There's no marshaling the troops pep-talk or state of the union address. The only business-related talk we heard was a brief update about current and upcoming projects.

Last year, because we were being visited by a world-class Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, we asked him to give a brief talk about the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Because this scholar still knows how to communicate with regular folks, we all learned a lot and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

This year, we had no visiting scholar with us, so one of our own gave a Keynote presentation on the spectacular Nabataean site of Petra. Often featured in movies like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Petra features beautiful edifices cut right into the red stone cliffs. If you have the Bible Lands PhotoGuide, you can explore this amazing site yourself.

After we applauded the presenter and the members of our office staff who had organized the event, the evening began to draw to a close. Everyone got up and began gathering their belongings, while the winners of an earlier drawing laid claim to the tulip centerpieces which had decorated each table. Almost as soon as my wife and I had picked ours out, I had to defend it from the clutches of our iPhone developer. Yes, we have an iPhone developer, and yes, he was able to find another unclaimed centerpiece to take home. By the way, if the thought of grown men fighting over flowers seems odd, please understand that we were acting on behalf of our wives. :-)

In the end, we all headed home well fed, better educated, and with the renewed feeling that our company is more like a family than a corporation.