Reference Box

[williamk]

The one enigma about Accordance after many years of using this great program is the Reference Box in the lower right corner of the Search window. Specifically, I never use it and it often is a source of irritation. If my cursor gets in that box due to an errant tab move, I seem to end up in a loop of error windows telling me that I need to insert a book name at the selection point in the Reference Box. Often, I can only get out of this loop by switching from a Verse search to a Word search, then coming back and re-doing my Verse search.

 

The Accordance manual says the Reference Box "enables you to go directly to any verse in the search results." I confess I have not found a reason to need to do this.

 

So, what I am looking for is some suggestions from other users on how, and in what kinds of searches, they use the Reference Box feature. I'm sure I've gotten stuck in my own ways of using Accordance and am more than willing to incorporate a feature like the Reference Box that I currently avoid at all costs. So any and all suggestions would be appreciated.

[David Lang]

William,

 

What used to be called the "Reference Box" is now called the "Go To Box," and in my opinion it is one of the most under-utilized features of Accordance. I blogged about the use of the Go To Box in a post called Getting to the Verse You Want. Basically, if you're going to be jumping around to a bunch of different verse references, it is sometimes better to leave the entire Bible displayed and use the Go To Box to jump quickly to each verse. The Go To Box is also useful if you do a search and then want to jump right to a particular portion of the results. Let's say I do a search for "love" and want to go immediately to the Psalms. I just enter Ps in the Go To Box and hit return, and I'm there.

 

If you inadvertently tab to the Go To Box and delete the reference or enter an invalid reference, you will get an error. The solution is to enter a valid reference or click one of the text access buttons to get to another verse. We looked at trying to avoid the "loop" you describe, but couldn't come up with a solution which didn't raise more issues than it solved.

 

The Go To Box also works for Tools. So, for example, if I want to jump quickly to a particular article in a dictionary, or verse in a commentary, I'll enter it in the Go To Box and hit return.

 

Hope this helps.

[williamk]

David,

 

Thanks for the reply and help with the Reference/Go To Box. I read your blog entry and it was very helpful. I wonder if my calling it the Reference Box means that my Accordance Help is out of date? I got that term from the Acc Help file -- is "Go To" box the official name in the Help File now? I'm running 7.0.3. --

 

Tx,

William K.