Which Bible software has best searching?

[DavidIB]

Which of the major academic Bible software packages do you think has the best searching?

 

I'm reviewing Logos, BibleWorks and Accordance for Tyndale Tech (www.tyndalehouse.com/TTech), and I want to include some usability tests. So I have devised some 'typical' types of searches people want to do.

 

If you are familiar with one of these, please try out one or two searches and tell me the method you found with the FEWEST STAGES.

 

To make it more interesting, I've selected some searches which have significant results, so if you are successful, your findings might turn into a significant sermon or a paper.

 

I'm mostly interested in your method for carrying out the search. I will publish the fastest methods in the review

[Rod Decker]

Hope you're not in a hurry David. Most of the brightest Accordance search minds are at ETS/SBL this week and next. I'd guess that when there's time you'll get some helpful responses.

[Lorinda H. M. Hoover]

[David Lang]

hold down the option key and choose KJVS from the English Texts button on the Resource palette.

 

Lorinda,

 

Just a little tip. Since you're selecting a word in the KJVS and wanting to search the KJVS, just option-click the Search button at the bottom of the palette. The search button automatically searches the current module for the selected text. You get the same result, just without having to go through a menu.

[Lorinda H. M. Hoover]

Thanks, David, I didn't know that!

 

That is one wonderful thing about Accordance, there's often more than one way to accomplish a task!

 

Lorinda

[DanG]

Lorinda,

 

Just a little tip. Since you're selecting a word in the KJVS and wanting to search the KJVS, just option-click the Search button at the bottom of the palette. The search button automatically searches the current module for the selected text. You get the same result, just without having to go through a menu.

 

I walked through the examples but forgot to option-click on the Search button. It still searched the text, but with different results. What's the difference between the two searches (option-click vs. click)? This might seem like a dumb question, but how do I know what I'm searching for?

 

-Dan

[Lorinda H. M. Hoover]

When working with keyed texts (as in Strong's numbers or G/K), a selecting a word and "plain" clicking to search an English text will search for the selected English word. Option-clicking will search for the key number. You can see the difference by looking at the contents of the search box at the top of the new tab or window that appears.

 

Lorinda

[DanG]

When working with keyed texts (as in Strong's numbers or G/K), a selecting a word and "plain" clicking to search an English text will search for the selected English word. Option-clicking will search for the key number. You can see the difference by looking at the contents of the search box at the top of the new tab or window that appears.

 

Lorinda

 

Right. I guess I didn't really explain that I was clicking in the GNT-T. I know it's searching for two different things by looking at the search box in the new window. I'm just not sure what they mean. Thanks for your time.

 

-Dan

[Lorinda H. M. Hoover]

[Lorinda H. M. Hoover]

Right. I guess I didn't really explain that I was clicking in the GNT-T. I know it's searching for two different things by looking at the search box in the new window. I'm just not sure what they mean. Thanks for your time.

 

-Dan

 

Ah, with the GNT-T (and other grammatically tagged texts), a plain click searches for the lemma (the root word), while and option-click searches for the inflected form. So if you select κλέψῃ in John 10:10 and plain click, you will get a list of all of the occurrences of κλέπτω, regardless of conjugation/inflection, while with an option click Accordance will search only for the inflected form κλέψῃ.

 

Lorinda