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All time best Accordance Feature?


Brian K. Mitchell

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What Accordance feature are you most fond of?

Or, what do you think Accordance Bible Software's top feature is? And, why?

 

(If, this question has been asked recently or too often I apologize in advance. However, I think this topic is one that will be of interest to more than just me)

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It's a hard (but good/fun!) question--personally, the ability to have multiple workspaces open at once I think is probably the one thing I would have a hard time doing without. Also, all the search layers they add to each module.

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The logic of Accordance's non intrusive User Interface is probably my number one favorite of them all. This was something I was first made aware of through David Lang's posts. At, first I thought he was simply bragging, but now I see he was right. I finally understand what people mean when they say Accordance is intuitive.

 

To some degree there is some feature overlap among the top three BibleSoftware companies' programs the one salient point where they greatly differ is in their philosophies of how to accomplish tasks through the UI. Not, only is Accordance's UI beautiful, it is also logical and easy to use, in fact so much so I am often not aware of the UI. The same can not be said of some of the other programs I use. A point that contributes to easy of use, of Accordance, is how consistence the UI is. I am not coerced into learning a new interface every time I change tasks. Also, I can use normal language(rather than codes) to run queries or I run them graphically. I also, love the character palette because it makes it so much easier to search on accents.

Edited by bkMitchell
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Thank you, BKM! You totally got it!

 

Sometimes we get tagged for the absence of "bells and whistles" in our interface. I suppose we could add them easily enough, but we've worked hard to make sure our program doesn't get in the way of its resources. For us, it's "all about the texts." We want users to be able to read, study, and explore without being distracted from them.

 

Thanks for the feedback.

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Although Accordance includes many great features, I think that the ability to instantly look up words with a triple click, together with the ability to link various resources to one another, are the most impressive. My standard workspace includes two Greek dictionaries (LEH and BDAG) and three Hebrew dictionaries (HALOT, CDCH, and BDB). I love that a triple click will open all of the relevant dictionaries to the correct entry. As someone who remembers thumbing through one giant lexicon after another in search of an unusual form or root, I'm especially aware of Accordance's advantages in this regard!

 

Linking Bibles and reference tools also allows for seamless movement between examining a passage in a single translation, to multiple translations, to critical editions, textual apparatuses, and textual commentaries on the original languages. My workflow wouldn't be possible without it.

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Again over all permanence is great but the instant details wind is perfect for me.i can have it where i want it large as i want it and instantly see great or scripture references with no need to click. This may sound like a small thing but for me even though others have similar functionality Accordances works best and quickest for me.

 

-Dan

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I originally bought Accordance (version 4?) because Online Bible wasn't available for OS X, and I happened upon the developers' stand at a computer show in Earl's Court/Olympia.

 

That may not be its best feature but at the time it was the reason for me to buy Accordance. It was Mac and it ran on OS X.

(At least, that's how I remember it.)

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Great to hear Alistair, I dabbled with OLB for a while too. Mainly because the resources (a lot of them) were free.

 

Accordance was first native for OSX at Accordance 5. You could run earlier versions in the classic layer, but v5 was the native version in 2002.

 

See here for MacWorld's review

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Ken,

 

That article was an interesting read. I wonder how many discs it would take to contain all of Accordance now? :)

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How to pick a favorite feature? I can't. What I like about Accordance is what I like about Mac — it does everything I want it to do without hassle. No jumping through a bunch of stupid hoops. Customizability. I can set up a workspace for a particular task easily. The user is in control, not the program (and not the OS). Computers, operating systems, and programs, especially Bible software, ought to serve the user, not run the user in circles and make him want to pull out his hair or use his laptop as a frisbee. Even though I haven't done any programming in years (Cobol . . . yes, I know that dates me but you already know I'm a grandmother), I really appreciate efficient coding — I don't see it or understand it at this point, but I see the effects (Jn 3:8 comes to mind). We have a super-slick, super-fast program that just works. And it's beautiful.

 

Edited by Julie Falling
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Thank you, BKM! You totally got it!

 

Sometimes we get tagged for the absence of "bells and whistles" in our interface. I suppose we could add them easily enough, but we've worked hard to make sure our program doesn't get in the way of its resources. For us, it's "all about the texts." We want users to be able to read, study, and explore without being distracted from them.

 

Thanks for the feedback.

 

It was my pleasure! :)

And, thank you and the rest of the Accordance team for continually making a great product better!

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Speed of the search, and the Search all are my favorite features (if speed is a feature).

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