Knowing who wrote the comment without jumping thru hoops

[Enoch]

Is there some way that the author of a commentary could be displayed whenever one brings up a commentary?  Say you bring up a commentary set and are looking at the commentary on Deuteronomy -- it would be helpful if the author, not just the editor of the set, of the particular commentary were at once displayed -- displayed without jumping thru hoops to get at it.

 

Failing that, the author might display by right click or by hovering somewhere.  But is it possible for the rocket scientists to come up with an immediate display of the author?

[Tony Lawrence]

I prepared a User Tool a long time ago that is available on the Accordance Exchange.  It is in bad need of an update. 

 

List of commentary authors

Edited April 27, 2016 by Tony Lawrence

[ukfraser]

I supose it depends how you define hoops. For me its three clicks, unsynchronize, click list and then click title to see the author, and then click synchronize again to see the commentary comments against the passage.

 

I don't look the author up often enough to worry about it, there are other hoops i find more frustrating

 

;o)

Edited April 27, 2016 by ukfraser

[Enoch]

I prepared a User Tool a long time ago that is available on the Accordance Exchange.  It is in bad need of an update. 

 

List of commentary authors

I think you may have given me your list before.  I got an Accordance Exchange list, & in fact I went through my purchases and made charts in a notebook of what commentaries I had on what books.  I don't recall if I wrote down the authors in the chart.  I guess I could work on that some more, then that out & put it on the table when I use Accordance, but it is a bit time-consuming to be consulting a paper list on one's desk & making my own charts.   I am confident that the brilliant Rocket Scientists at Accordance could solve this (old) problem & simply make the author appear whenever you bring up a commentary -- or at least make it pop up if you hover over the title or right click.  Ideally the school the author teaches at would also come up so you might get some idea on what his approach to scripture might be. 

Edited April 28, 2016 by Enoch

[Enoch]

I supose it depends how you define hoops. For me its three clicks, unsynchronize, click list and then click title to see the author, and then click synchronize again to see the commentary comments against the passage.

 

I don't look the author up often enough to worry about it, there are other hoops i find more frustrating

 

;o)

Thanks Fraser of the UK.  I don't know what "unsynchronize" means; I don't know what list you refer to to click, nor what synchronize means either.  Unsynchronizing Accordance sounds dangerous -- LOL.  I counted 4 hoops or 3 hoops & a holler (3 hoops & an unhoop) -- & don't dare call a hoop a ring!

 

So should there be a general feature request to unhoop Accordance?

[EricC]

[…] make the author appear whenever you bring up a commentary -- or at least make it pop up if you hover over the title or right click.  Ideally the school the author teaches at would also come up so you might get some idea on what his approach to scripture might be. 

 

+1

 

I think there must be different ways of thinking that make this desire to see this info quickly seem unnecessary to the earlier adopters of Accordance. I only came on board with Accordance a few years ago, and I still don't use Accordance as much as I could. I really, really don't like it that when I'm reading something it's so hard to find out whose words I'm reading, so I'm agreeing here with Enoch. There may be better ways, but I would expect to just right click in the main title bar and see all the info one sees when he goes to Library and clicks on the little "i" for "information". As it is, I jump through the hoops (to borrow Enoch's analogy) to go to the Library and find the info there.

 

With the following statement, I am merely pointing out one feature I think is worthy of imitation: In the "L" world (in which I indeed find myself an alien and not much at home), there is a little "i" to bring up the "Resource Information". I would think it is not that hard to program this thing, and if it had some enhancements (like some user-editability), Accordance's usability could easily out-shine "L."

 

I would propose that the included available info also allow display of brief notes attached by the end-user, in which one could document the author's perspective, who recommended the commentary or other things of interest to the user (Enoch wanted to see the school the author teaches at, which of course often changes, but if he'd like that info, I think it'd be great to let him add it). (see http://www.accordancebible.com/forums/topic/17174-organizing-commentaries-in-accordance/for this user-added info idea).

 

Example of the "Resource Information" in "L":

[Bret Hicks]

+1.  I rarely care about the editor of the commentary series - I simply want to know who wrote the volume I am currently using.  And I find myself having to consult this regularly as I take notes and want to use the authors name (without a full citation from 'coy as citation.")  There should be a single keystroke that lets me see the author of the individual commentary I am using.

 

 

In Christ,

 

 

Bret

[Antony]

I agree, I'd love an easy way to see the name of author of the commentary

[Mark Allison]

Coming in 11.2 :-)

 

[EricC]

Great. That's a good step in the right direction. I do hope Accordance will go even farther, though, and allow us users to add our comments in the future. 

 

Not that I'm ungrateful, though! 

 

Thank you, Team Accordance!

[Fabian]

Great. That's a good step in the right direction. I do hope Accordance will go even farther, though, and allow us users to add our comments in the future. 

 

Not that I'm ungrateful, though! 

 

Thank you, Team Accordance!

+1000

[Helen Brown]

You can add comments in User Notes. I don't then anyone wants the original text to be editable.

[EricC]

You can add comments in User Notes. I don't then anyone wants the original text to be editable.

 

Yes, indeed, Helen. I don't think anyone wants the original text to be editable.

 

To some degree User Notes are an option. But, I don't think it's a very elegant one.

 

I was thinking that readily accessible to the user would be a "Title Page" so to speak with all the info on the author, title, publisher, ISBN, etc. That is almost the "original text" you referred to, I think.

 

The additional thing I was requesting was letting us users have a way to append our own "penciled in notes" like we do (or some of us do) in paper books. I think it'd be nice if they were accessible in the same place as the "Title Page" info. Rather than having a user note attached to on the first word of the text or the first line of the first chapter, I'd like a convenient, easy-to-go-place in each resource where I can write down my own thoughts, e.g., who and when recommended the book to me, when I read it, general analysis of the author's viewpoint and suppositions (as I see them), whether I'd recommend it to someone else and with what reservations, etc.

 

I guess from the developers' perspective there doesn't seem to be a high enough cost-benefit relationship to make this worth it, but I would welcome it with great gratitude. 

 

Here's something I wrote back in Nov. 2015 (http://www.accordancebible.com/forums/topic/17174-organizing-commentaries-in-accordance/): Another thing that I think would be excellent would be the ability to "attach" a brief note to the actual titles in the Library list. I like to write down some notes on the commentary (who recommended it, my thoughts on the author's theology, etc.). If I could right-click on the title in the Library list to see my annotations on that title, it would be excellent. But I guess that even when one has commentaries in Bible software like Accordance, one still might want to have a separate spreadsheet listing "go-to" commentaries for each book of the Bible. Here's an example: recently a friend recommended a commentary on Genesis. He said this, and it's the kind of thing I'd like to include in such annotations so that when I have a chance to read the commentary, I can decide if I agree. He said, "[Author] is weak through chapter 11, but is great for the patriarchs."

[ukfraser]

Coming in 11.2

 

Mark ( or some one from the ios team)

Do you know if there are any plans to add the author to the title bar in the ios version as well?

 

Ever hopeful! (But extremely grateful of what we have already got!)

 

;o)

Edited May 10, 2016 by ukfraser

[Enoch]

I see how some scholar above wants to be able to make scolia!  Marginal comments!  I suppose that wud involve a keyboard shortcut to open the Workspace with wide margins into which one could jot snide comments (or gracious ones) like "Alice in Wonderland."  I won't say which book wud get that comment, tho I definitely have one in mind LOL.