New or Altered Map Locations?

[Lawson Stone]

I'm preparing a map in which my own research has led me to think a couple of locations are different from the majority view represented in the locations in the Atlas module.

 

Is it possible to edit the locations, i.e. to move a site from one location to a different spot?

[Joe Weaks]

You accomplish this not by "moving" the site as it is in the Map.

You can create your own Custom Site Layers that does not include those two sites, and then create a User layer that places the two sites where you propose them to be.

 

The help files on Custom Site Layers and User Layers are what you need to be reading.

[Lawson Stone]

I'll give that a try. Many thanks!

[Joe Weaks]

After reading up on those features, do post any further question on the forum. I'm sure they've also covered their use in the Accord Blog, and probably with a video tutorial. That may not be easy to find; I'm not familiar with them, but someone here might can point you to it.

[Lawson Stone]

I confess I have a love-hate relationship with the Atlas. I love it, of course. Nothing else in the world even close. But I get frustrated with it. Sets and Layers still confuse me, "Custom" versus "User" is a distinction I don't understand, I have created maps with added drawing etc. and not seen how to save my work, and lost it all. The labels are too big and over-write each other, but to make the scene large enough so they don't, I then can't export as an image because you can't scroll-select or turn anything larger than what the display can handle into an image…and on a laptop online help is not as convenient as a manual, but the last printed manual I can find is for 6.9…so as someone who has used Accordance since it was That Other Program with That Other Company, I find the Atlas the most Un-Accordance like module.

 

Anyhow…I will skull in the help pages and try to figure this out.

 

I'd also like to see a set of tools aimed at Bible scholars with specific archaeological and topographical interests, i.e. archaeological sites that aren't (yet) correlated with the Bible, by periods, alternative sites, more ability to edit labels and such.

 

So, back to my one, lone place I just want to add to a map.

[Lawson Stone]

I do appreciate the advice. I'm working now with an empty User Layer that I want simply to add a location to, but it's a location not in the Accordance database. Rather it is, but not with the name I want to use for it. So my question is perhaps now more clear: can I either (a) edit the name of an existing location? If not, ( can I create a location that is tied to a map coordinate so it's in the right place however I manipulate the map, and assign it the name I need?

 

I'm reading the help files, but the terminology on the maps has always been hard for me to assimilate. I think I've got layers and sets figured out, which I actually had, as my old dad would say, "bass-ackwards." That's helping a ton. Now I'm trying to debug how I'm understanding the terms "User"and "Custom"

[Lawson Stone]

I give up. I"m just going to photocopy a map from an atlas, enter the items I want on the map, and send it to my publisher hoping for the best. I cannot unravel this.

[Helen Brown]

Lawson: You cannot add a site with coordinates. This may not be the best time to start learning all this. I'll be happy to help you create the map you want, but basically I would do this:

 

Create a Custom Site Layer showing the sites you do want to display, but hiding all the labels, showing only the site markers of your choice.

1. Zoom the map to the size you want to use, since user layers cannot zoom accurately.
2. Create a user layer of labels associated with the sites, i.e. in the user layer create text rectangles and place them as you want. You can also create new markers to cover the markers from the site layer and to match your own added or moved sites.
3. Save the layer and then save it as a png.

[Lawson Stone]

Thanks for the advice. I am nibbling away at this. I appreciate the support. I'm actually not a newcomer to the maps, but I do find some of the edit features a bit counter-intuitive, or maybe it's my own intuitions that are "counter" ;-)

[Joe Weaks]

Thanks for the advice. I am nibbling away at this. I appreciate the support. I'm actually not a newcomer to the maps, but I do find some of the edit features a bit counter-intuitive, or maybe it's my own intuitions that are "counter" ;-)

Lawson,

You are spot on and not alone. The custom site collection and the user layer features have a very steep learning curve.

[Lawson Stone]

Thanks for the reassurance. What's odd is sometimes I get it right, and then when I try the same process I miss some very small step and the outcome isn't right.

 

What would be great about being able to add new/custom sites with co-ordinates is that there is so much map data now that is vital to scholarship, such as the many archaeological surveys that are out there. Being able to create a custom database of Israel Map Coordinates and sites, with some sort of taxonomy and typology of sites, would allow the creation of a new level of sophisticated tools.

[Lawson Stone]

Confession time--in all the years and years I've used Accordance, I've never watched any of the videos. So I downloaded the two videos related to the Atlas, and I have to say I got a lot of clarity on the interface. Still not the most intuitive, but I get it better now than I did before. The videos were extremely helpful, even for a guy who has used Accordance since it was marketed as "GramCord for the Mac!"

[Timothy Jenney]

[Chuckle] Welcome aboard, Lawson!

 

When I came to work for Accordance, I considered myself an expert. I too had used Accordance for fourteen years then, since I had to buy the program from the Browns—but the texts from Grammcord! Anyway, it only took them about five minutes to assess my knowledge. I fell far short of expert. It turns out that users typically only use about 10% or so of the features that are available to them. It's not the same 10%, either!

 

I try hard to retain that perspective when I podcast. We've found the podcasts, blogs, and the new Accordance Help all have their place in broadening users' expertise. The free one-day seminars are great overviews of what is possible, but provide just too much information to retain. It takes these other avenues to remind and reinforce how to do something in Accordance.

[Michael J. Bolesta]

[Chuckle] Welcome aboard, Lawson!

 

When I came to work for Accordance, I considered myself an expert. I too had used Accordance for fourteen years then, since I had to buy the program from the Browns—but the texts from Grammcord! Anyway, it only took them about five minutes to assess my knowledge. I fell far short of expert. It turns out that users typically only use about 10% or so of the features that are available to them. It's not the same 10%, either!

 

When the program was accordance [many moons ago], I ordered and read the optional wire bound manual cover to cover. For a short period of time I "knew" to to access all the features. With the exponential of features, modules, key board and other optional means to achieve similar ends, I too have dwindling to 10% (if that). Yet for any powerful program, do we not tend to find the features we use consistently and use them (reasonably) well? Not that we would not benefit from those we have forgotten (or never knew at all)!

 

That is the value of the Forum, podcasts, the blog, the Exchange, the training seminars, the browser help system.

 

Thanks to you, all the Accordance folks and Accordance users. The LORD bless you all.

[Lawson Stone]

I am also happy to say that I have completed the most excellent map I was trying to create. My editors are happy and one even used the term "brilliant" and expressed wonder at how something like that could even be created. It's an attempt to combine on one map the "campaigns" in the book of Joshua, north and south, and the archaeological evidence for the earliest Israelite settlements in the hill country, say 1250-1150 BC. What's interesting is the two sets of sites and the areas they define are almost totally non-overlapping: very few settlements in the battle zones, little to no battles in the settlement zones. I never saw that on one combined map before, and thought it would be helpful for the readers of a book I'm contributing a chapter to. And my editors agree.

 

Accordance actually scares me sometimes.