Tab of Commentaries

[Chadwick]

I may be showing my utter ignorance of Accordance, but this problem is vexing me.

 

As many folks do, I have a Bibles tab that has three different Bible translations in parallel, vertical panes, plus the EBC at the bottom of the screen in a horizontal pane. It's nice to see so many things at once.

 

I'd like to do the same thing with my Greek Tools. That is, have one tab that has several vertical panes, each containing a different Greek tool. My tools are: Liddell & Scott, UBS Lexicon, Louw & Nida, and Thayer.

 

Is there a way to have all four of these tools in one tab? And ideally, linked together so that when I triple-click a word in my GNT-T, Accordance switches to the Greek Tools tab and pulls up the article in each tool for the search word.

 

Thanks for any help.

[David Lang]

Parallel panes are only available in Bible windows, since Bibles, reference tools, and user notes can all be viewed and scrolled by verse, chapter, and book. Tools cannot be displayed as parallel panes within a single tab.

 

To do what you're asking, you can do one of two things.

 

First, you can create a separate workspace for Greek tools containing the various lexicons you mentioned. Then you can save that workspace as a Favorite workspace (provided you're using version 8). Having done that, you can select any Greek word and then choose your Greek Tools workspace from the Favorites menu of the Resource palette. The Greek Tools workspace will be opened and all the lexicons will automatically be searched for the same word.

 

If you really want to see all those lexicons on screen at once, another option would be to triple-click a Greek word to open your default Greek lexicon. Then detach that tab from your workspace by selecting Detach tab from the window menu (or using the keyboard shortcut command-option-T). Once you have your lexicon displayed in a separate window, duplicate the window using the keyboard shortcut command-D. In this new window, switch to a different lexicon, then replace the Greek word in the search argument with a LINK command pointing to the window containing your default lexicon. The LINK command joins the two windows so that the second lexicon window will use whatever search argument is contained in the first lexicon window. Now just duplicate this second window two more times and change those windows to your other Greek lexicons.

 

Finally, use the Tile Windows command (Command-I) to tile your main Workspace and these four separate lexicon windows on screen. Now when you triple-click a Greek word, all four lexicons will be searched for that same word, and you can see all of them on screen at once.

 

If you don't want to see the lexicons all the time, you could even enlarge your main Workspace so that it covers these lexicon windows. They'll be brought to the front whenever you triple-click a Greek word.

 

NOTE: For this second arrangement to work, Go to Preferences-->Appearance and make sure the "Confine hypertext to the same workspace" option is NOT checked.

 

Hope this helps.

[Rick Bennett]

I may be showing my utter ignorance of Accordance, but this problem is vexing me.

 

As many folks do, I have a Bibles tab that has three different Bible translations in parallel, vertical panes, plus the EBC at the bottom of the screen in a horizontal pane. It's nice to see so many things at once.

 

I'd like to do the same thing with my Greek Tools. That is, have one tab that has several vertical panes, each containing a different Greek tool. My tools are: Liddell & Scott, UBS Lexicon, Louw & Nida, and Thayer.

 

Is there a way to have all four of these tools in one tab? And ideally, linked together so that when I triple-click a word in my GNT-T, Accordance switches to the Greek Tools tab and pulls up the article in each tool for the search word.

 

Thanks for any help.

 

At this point it's not possible to have anything but texts in parallel with each other in one tab, and those have to be compatible texts (i.e., you can't have Josephus in parallel with GNT-T, obviously because their material isn't parallel).

 

However, there are two ways that I can think of to accomplish what you want. First would be to define a Tool Set (ctrl-click the stack of books in the resource palette under tools and select define set). Select your desired lexicons and name the set. From here once you have a word highlighted you can amplify to this tool set (highlight word, click and hold the Tool Set icon and select your set - notice the magnifying glass icon). This will open each lexicon in a separate tab with your entry highlighted.

 

The second way, and the one which I prefer, is to create a favorite workspace. Select New Workspace from the File menu, then open each of your desired lexicons in a separate tab. One of the new features in ver. 8 is the ability to save a workspace from the Favorite icon in the resource palette. Ctrl-click the star icon and select Add Workspace, and then enter a name. Once you've done this you can easily amplify to this workspace from your Greek text. In addition I would turn on recycle contents (command-K) so that each time you amplify to this workspace it doesn't open a new one. See the screen grab below for a possible layout.

 

[Rick Bennett]

Looks like you beat me to the punch, David. If you combine our replies it looks as though there are actually three ways to accomplish this.

[Chadwick]

Thank you very much for your answers. Using a Favorite Workspace will work fine, I think.

 

However, David, would you foresee ever being able to do what I've asked? That is, put multiple tools in the same tab? And/or being able to place Bibles and Tools in the same tab?

 

I realize that currently the Tabs are used for texts that can be parallel and scroll together, but personally I can see the usefulness of non-parallel tabs. And maybe that's a way to do it -- under the File:New menu, one could create a New Parallel Tab (or New Search Text as it reads now), but also have the option to create a "Diverse Tab" or a "Miscellaneous Tab" where one could place a hodge-podge of different texts, tools, and references that aren't connected together. The purpose of this would simply be for ease of access.

 

Just a thought. Thanks for a great product! I've already converted two others to Accordance since I started using it less than a year ago!

[Robb B]

I could see having a tab with parallel texts/tools of the same type (ie, Greek tools or Hebrew tools). Generally, these are organized along the same lines and could scroll together. You can already do this with reference tools in the search window if you want. This would just be an expansion of that. The only tools that I could see being problematic are general tools since their organization can be quite diverse. Overall, I think this is an interesting idea with potential, but a simple reproduction of the search text window for tools would probably not be the best implementation of it. The browser, &c., need to be factored in.

[Peter Maddison]

Thanks for your post Rick. It was most helpful.