Have you ever noticed that when you do different kinds of searches in Accordance, you're really wanting different things?

Let's say you do a verse search for Ephesians 2:8. The Search tab dutifully displays that verse, and that verse only. But you don't want just that verse; you want to begin reading at that verse and continue reading the verses that follow it. To see that verse in context, you need to drag the context slider all the way to the right.

Now, leave the context slider set to all and enter the following search: Gen 1:1, 26; 5:1. When you do a search like this for a series of verses, you typically don't want to see those verses in context. Instead, you want to be able to see only those verses so you can compare them. To remove the context, slide the context slider all the way to the left.

Now, let's say you enter a chapter reference, like Exodus 20. That case is very much like the search for a single verse. You're really just wanting to jump to that chapter and likely wanting to see it in context. So once again, we need to drag the context slider all the way to the right.

Suppose that you next decide to do a word search. You click the Words button and enter the word love. In order to scan the results of this search, you don't want to see each verse in context; you just want to see the verses which contain the word "love". Once again, you need to drag the context slider all the way to the left!

From these examples it should be clear that we typically want some search results to be shown in context and others to be shown without it. Accordance makes it easy to change the amount of context, but wouldn't it be nice if it looked at the kind of search you were doing and adjusted the amount of context accordingly?

Hmmmm. It sure would be nice.

Accordance power users know there are lots of little tricks, shortcuts, and niceties which make studying the Bible quick and effective. In this series of posts, I'm offering some simple tips which can save you time and effort. Here's another one:

Can't Go To? Use the Context Slider.

In yesterday's post, I showed how you can hit Tab twice to select the contents of the Go To box so you can enter a verse reference (in a Text) or article (in a Tool) to navigate there quickly. As I explained yesterday, the Go To box is a navigational tool. When you enter a verse or article there, you are not searching for that verse or word, you are simply jumping there. If you've done a search which only shows some of the verses in a Text or some of the articles in a Tool, the Go To box can only take you to the verses or articles which are currently displayed.

For example, let's say you do a search in the HCSB for "faith." The first verse which contains the word "faith" is Deuteronomy 32:51. The next verse displayed is 1 Samuel 23:16. If you then hit Tab twice to select the contents of the Go To box and enter "Joshua," Accordance will take you to 1 Samuel 23:16, because it the closest verse which is currently displayed. Since the book of Joshua is not currently displayed in the window, how can you get there?

The easiest way to make sure that Joshua gets displayed in your window is to drag the context slider on the Search window all the way to the right (the setting for all context). You can also just click on the right edge of the context slider to set the window to show all context. With the context slider set to All, the verses containing the word "faith" will then be displayed in the context of the entire Bible. And with the entire Bible displayed, you can now hit tab twice then enter any verse in the Go To box to jump there.