Subfolders For Organzing Workspaces

[JohnABarnett]

With what little useful time I have available I have been working on a new way of organizing and laying out my work using specialized Workspaces and Notes. What I'm trying to do is have subfolders for Bible (general), OT, NT, Biblical Theology, and Systematic Theology. Within each I can keep my workspaces applicable for these categories. The same would be done for Notes.

 

As part of this effort I was trying this morning to create Subfolders in the Library listing of Workspaces and Notes, only to find those options ghosted in the right-click menu. 

 

Am I missing something, or is this by design for some reason I don't yet understand?

 

 

[rcdeacon]

I for one would be interested in your setup. I have struggled a long time to find a suitable and easily workable system.

 

Bob

[JohnABarnett]

Bob,

 

I too have struggled with how to bring to bear in Accordance the resources I have in, as you say, a "suitable and easily workable system." I put that mostly down not to any lack in Accordance itself but to health factors that limit my useful time. 

 

I am still in the initial experimental stages with this effort. It was prompted by constant conflict in how best to use Accordance. Too many resources, not enough screen space to deploy them, and too often in conflict between forest and trees. Also, I wanted to go as far as I could with my study notes being in Accordance rather than simply using Accordance as a source for more organized notes in, say, Word. I found I was constantly trying to build the perfect Workspace mousetrap and never catching mice.

 

My idea for a solution started as a kernel. I had bought some NT Textual Criticism resources which only exacerbated my screen real estate and note issues. So I began to wonder, why not create individual Workspaces for discreet tasks? That way, whatever task I was doing I would have the maximum screen real estate for the most important resources for each task. Then it hit me. Why not do the same for Note files? Instead trying to cram lexical, grammatical, background, outlining, etc. into a Note file or two, create a corresponding Note file for each discreet task. This would give me the ability to record initial work in the trees that could later be called up on demand with other treework Notes in another Workspace dedicated to viewing them together as a forest. And all would be tied to the same text reference under study at any given time.

 

Say I'm studying a NT passage (NT is discreet because the original language and resources dedicated to it are discreet, i.e., Greek). I could open a Workspace "NT Lexical" built with key GNT texts, my best NT lexical resources (all actually visible instead hidden in tabs!), room for Instant Details, and my "NT Lexical" Notes file. That Notes file would contain nothing but my lexical notes. So I do my initial lexical legwork, recording important notes as I work. I do the same with Grammatical Workspace and Notes, keeping lexical and grammatical notes discrete, and if I want to switch from one to the other it's as easy as switching Workspaces. This same principal can be applies to all major disciplines of Bible study, for example before Lexical I might want to do one for Textual Criticism, or Outlining, or Translation (in which Notes file i would create my own translation for reference). 

 

To my mind the potential beauty of this comes into play in the next step. I create a Workspace called "NT Exegesis." If I've made my notes well, I don't need every Greek resource I've got, just the Greek text and my related discreet Note files, textual, lexical, grammatical, to which I might add some translator notes and a couple of key English versions. In this way, when I need a particular Note file for a particular larger task, I can call it up at will and index it to the verse(s) under consideration. If I want to go back and check my Lexical resources and work because, of course, there is always interrelationship between the disciplines, it's as easy as switching to the appropriate Workspace from which my Notes were constructed.

 

So the whole thing builds upon itself, working from the more detailed to the more general. I haven't got it all fleshed out yet, but at least to me it makes perfect sense. Text Critical > Lexical > Grammatical > Translation > Exegesis... >...>...my own Commentary. It occurs to me that one side benefit of this organization is that it discourages me from short-circuiting my own original work with the text by going to commentaries too early in the process. Another side benefit? I can easily add to or modify discreet notes without messing with other notes.

 

This should be enough to give you an idea where I am headed. It remains to be seen whether it will work in practice as my theory hopes. My guess is that others have done something similar (or better!). I don't for a moment imagine somehow I stumbled on a unique idea for using Accordance. I just know it looks like the best path forward for me unless and until it would become unworkable for some reason.

Edited April 15, 2018 by JohnABarnett

[JohnABarnett]

I should add that my reason for wanting subfolders for Workspaces and Notes becomes obvious. Ideally there would be separate subfolders for OT (Hebrew, LXX), NT(Greek), and Bible (for work not involving original languages), perhaps adding one for Biblical Theology and one for Systematic Theology. The resources needed for work in each are different, requiring different sets of Workspaces and Notes.

Edited April 15, 2018 by JohnABarnett

[rcdeacon]

Thank you John. My thinking (or better yet, rethinking) has been stirred!

 

Bob

[JohnABarnett]

Obviously I forgot how to spell discrete. Getting older is a REAL trial.

Edited April 15, 2018 by JohnABarnett

[rcdeacon]

I feel your pain (literally, I am 70)!