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Number of Occurrences in ID Palette


RobM

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Would it be possible to include the number of occurrences of a given lemma in the ID palette?

 

I was just doing some work in Job and I came across a word that I wanted to know how many times it occurs. I did the usual 'right' click and search for lemma and it opened to a new tab, which is just fine and that should stay as it is, but at the moment I was not concerned with any details other than how many times it occurs in the Hebrew Bible. It would have saved me a bit of time to simply see that number given in the ID palette.

 

Is this something that would be easy to implement?

 

Would other users be interested in having feature added?

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This has been requested from time to time, but never implemented for one simple reason. The number of hits of each word isn't stored in the file, so Accordance would have to run the search behind the scenes for every word under the cursor. This would make Instant Details less than instant!

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This would make Instant Details less than instant!

 

Would it? I realize it would add a whole extra bit of programing (though I don't know how much!), but at the same time when I do a 'right' click lemma search, the results are instantaneous. So if this were added to the ID palette would it add about .5 or .6 seconds at the most to the response time of the ID palette? That's hardly appreciable. Further, perhaps this could be an option that people can turn off and on in the Accordance Preferences for the ID palette.

 

Anyway, thanks for responding.

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Though the aforementioned frequency dynamic would be a desirable feature, I'll have to defer to the programming experts on its feasibility. I do however, have a instant detail question.

 

I appreciate being able to move my cursor over a referenced scripture, say in A.T. Robertson's Word Pictures, and being able to see this referenced scripture in the ID box. How do I change the version of this displayed scripture? I'd like to read all the NT references that 'pop' up in my ID box in the GNT-T

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Though the aforementioned frequency dynamic would be a desirable feature, I'll have to defer to the programming experts on its feasibility. I do however, have a instant detail question.

 

I appreciate being able to move my cursor over a referenced scripture, say in A.T. Robertson's Word Pictures, and being able to see this referenced scripture in the ID box. How do I change the version of this displayed scripture? I'd like to read all the NT references that 'pop' up in my ID box in the GNT-T

 

Open Word Pictures and make sure it's the active window, then press Cmd+T and choose GNT under the hypertext settings (this will change the setting for the current window of Word Pictures only. If you want this to be a permanent setting, click "Use as default" before closing the Tool Display window.) If you want to make GNT the default for EVERY tool, you can set that under Tool Display in the accordance preferences menu.

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Would it? I realize it would add a whole extra bit of programing (though I don't know how much!), but at the same time when I do a 'right' click lemma search, the results are instantaneous. So if this were added to the ID palette would it add about .5 or .6 seconds at the most to the response time of the ID palette? That's hardly appreciable. Further, perhaps this could be an option that people can turn off and on in the Accordance Preferences for the ID palette.

 

Anyway, thanks for responding.

 

Hi, Rob!

 

I requested something similar in the past, an ID Box that would only give details only if a word appeared fewer than 10 times in the GNT-T. The result would be something like the various Reader's Guides available for the OT and NT. I thought it might be a help for those trying to build their rapid reading skills in the NT. I got the same response, even though my request was much less complex than yours.

 

Consider that many users change the range of their searches, from the entire NT to just the Pauline epistles (which range also varies, based on the user's theology!) Someone working only in Mark, for example, might want the occurrences limited to just that gospel. Others might want the frequency based on root, or inflected form, rather than lemma.

 

When we move outside of accepted canonical material, the issue becomes more complex, as there is no established "canon." Sometimes there is not even any established text! Should we include editors' reconstructions [the bracketed material] or not? These are all things a user can specify in a search, which makes the results precise for his/her needs.

 

Trust me, it would be a real "head-scratcher" for our programmers.

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Open Word Pictures and make sure it's the active window, then press Cmd+T and choose GNT under the hypertext settings (this will change the setting for the current window of Word Pictures only. If you want this to be a permanent setting, click "Use as default" before closing the Tool Display window.) If you want to make GNT the default for EVERY tool, you can set that under Tool Display in the accordance preferences menu.

 

Thanks, my friend, I'm two times in your debt. :)

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Hi, Rob!

 

Consider that many users change the range of their searches, from the entire NT to just the Pauline epistles (which range also varies, based on the user's theology!) Someone working only in Mark, for example, might want the occurrences limited to just that gospel. Others might want the frequency based on root, or inflected form, rather than lemma.

 

When we move outside of accepted canonical material, the issue becomes more complex, as there is no established "canon." Sometimes there is not even any established text! Should we include editors' reconstructions [the bracketed material] or not? These are all things a user can specify in a search, which makes the results precise for his/her needs.

 

Trust me, it would be a real "head-scratcher" for our programmers.

 

Concerning your first paragraph, I would consider the lemma count to be the most pertinent 'baseline' count that most people would be interested in knowing. Getting details beyond that, the user is moving toward more in depth word study, whereas the lemma search provides a certain level of information that gives the user an immediate idea of what should/needs to be known about it (e.g., sometimes I come across a word and wonder, "should I know this word?" if it occurs frequently, then I know I should know it; if it is a hapox, then I'm not surprised). And this applies to range as well. If someone wants to know how many times a given word occurs in Mark, the user is moving past simple statistics and information to more in depth information. These people are likely to be interested in not only statistical information, but how the word is used in the various contexts... in other words, they want to perform a lemma search to see all the occurrences of the word in their contexts.

 

Regarding your second paragraph, I can understand the desire to have this feature in extra-biblical texts, but I think most users wouldn't be surprised if it is not included for this material. Those who have used, for example, the QUMRAN module already realize that all the 'normal' ID palette details are not included on every word. Some forms are morphologically ambiguous and sometimes even the context doesn't help to determine one option absolutely. So, not having the count feature for QUMRAN and other extra-biblical texts would not be surprising, alarming, or disappointing to the user who actually uses these modules.

 

Your comment that this would be a real 'head-scratcher' would certainly apply if all tagged texts were included. But since most users are interested primarily in Biblical material, I think most users would be perfectly content with having such a feature only for Biblical material. I know that when I look at extra-biblical texts for word usage, grammatical/syntactical usage, and/or content, I'm already looking at it for more in depth information and not just passing interest in a word's number of uses.

 

Oh, and regarding 'canon.' Just use BHS-W4 and GNT-T. Those who restrict to a smaller canon or add to it for a larger canon are already dealing with count issues when doing a lemma (or root or inflected form) search by having to search multiple modules or restrict the range.

 

I guess I see it in the following way: this kind of feature would add information that would be convenient for most users. It would give them an immediate grasp of whether a given word is: common or rare or should to be added to their vocabulary memory list. This feature would stop them from having to go through the motions of a lemma search in a new tab for just this small amount of information. And all that without detracting from anyone's experience regardless of theological tradition.

 

 

I say all this in argument for this feature (I hope I don't seem too negatively 'argumentative'), but at the same time, if it would take a long time to implement it I would rather see other features, search functions, and improvements take place first.

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Thanks for sharing your thoughts in more detail.

 

Such a tool does exist for the BHS-W4, the Concise Dictionary of Classical Hebrew contains frequency tables for every word in this order: BHS-W4, Ben Sira, Dead Sea Scrolls, Inscriptions.

 

Here is an example for Elohim: 2603.29.213.3 n.m.pl. [The definitions then follow]

 

By making this lexicon your default, you can access it by pressing the command key while you hover your cursor over the word. I think this is an easier solution than having the programmers try to incorporate a frequency table into the ID Box.

 

I don't know of a full blown Greek lexicon with a similar feature for the GNT-T. Does anyone know if there is one out there? Alternately, would it be worth having something like Sakae Kubo's Reader's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament in Accordance?

 

Like all feature or module requests, I suspect any future implementation will depend on the number of user requests for it.

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Thanks for sharing your thoughts in more detail.

 

Such a tool does exist for the BHS-W4, the Concise Dictionary of Classical Hebrew contains frequency tables for every word in this order: BHS-W4, Ben Sira, Dead Sea Scrolls, Inscriptions.

 

Here is an example for Elohim: 2603.29.213.3 n.m.pl. [The definitions then follow]

 

By making this lexicon your default, you can access it by pressing the command key while you hover your cursor over the word. I think this is an easier solution than having the programmers try to incorporate a frequency table into the ID Box.

 

This dictionary is on my wishlist... I was not aware of this feature within the module. I may need to get this resource sooner than I had planned!

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