Logos 4 hits the streets

Logos 4.0 hit the streets today.  So what is it like? I like it. A lot.  Here are just a few reasons why.

Welcome home

In the old Logos 3 days the user experience paradigm that was offered by Logos and other vendors was very much the same – sure there are feature differences – as there always will be but the user experience across those features isn’t much different from one vendor to the other.  In Logos 4, that has changed.

When you open up Logos 4 you’ll notice the old home screen has been radically changed.  In its place, you’ll find a newspaper layout that displays a collection of books, excerpts, blog posts (from Logos) and messages (including a welcome message). What I like about the newspaper layout is how it helps you discover the books in your library and provide reading points in books – in case you need somewhere to start.

User interface

The concept of menus has gone.  There are six “tabs” for want of a better word – different to what you find in Microsoft Office, etc, but tabs nonetheless. The first of these is the home button which takes you to the newspaper home page, the second is the library button and the third is the search button.  Next you have the file drop down menu (not like the old drop down menus) that contains links to all your notes, bookmarks, etc.  Then there is the guides menu and then tools.

Unlike in Logos 3 the command bar is actually very useful – assuming you know what to do with it.  This allows you to type in commands to have Logos do something.  This allows power users the ability to issue commands to logos without using the menus should they wish to do so.  For instance “Open ESV” will open the English Standard Version of the Bible.

Library

A great way to get started is to click the Library button (the book) and start browsing for a book to open.

 

 

While you are in the library, type the first few letters of the author or title and watch the list of books narrow down.  When you find the book you want, click it to open it.  Another thing you might want to do while you are here is drag any often used books up to the Shortcuts area to the right of the command bar. This means that these books are only ever a single click away.

Drag and drop is one of the really interesting features about Logos 4.  You can drag and drop almost anything anywhere.  From changing the window layout to pulling frequently used tools or books onto the shortcut bar.

Layout

There are lots of things I really  like about Logos 4, here’s a little one.  I have a 24” screen which I run off my netbook.  I use both the 24” screen and the netbook screen, but often have nothing on the Netbooks screen.  Logos 4 allows me to float panels – meaning I can seperate a panel (a book or notes or whatever) from Logos’ main window and then drag it onto my Netbook screen so I can have something open sitting on the side without being in my main window.

Having said that, the layout features of Logos 4 is really powerful – I often have 20 or so books open at once, and in Logos 3, this got pretty tedious – sizing and resizing all those windows – particularly when they all sat on top of each other was a real pain.  In Logos 4 you can easily drag panels around to change the layout and Logos handles the resize for you.  Don’t like where a windows is?  Just drag it to another panel to dock it there instead. Easy.

Once you’ve got everything laid out the way you want it, Logos automatically saves the screen layout for you to come back to. You can also give the layout a name, making it easy to come back to it later.  If you change the layout, Logos will automatically copy the new layout without overwriting the old one.  This means you can have a bunch of layouts set up to use for different purposes – e.g. devotional reading, reading a single book or study.

Synchronization built in

One last point I’ll make in this post.  Logos 4 now automatically synchronises all your data, books, reading plans, etc back to a Logos server (yes you can turn this off).  This is really nice if you use Logos on multiple machines as it will automatically pull down the latest copy of your notes, etc from the server when Logos starts or it notices a change.  This prevents you having to use third party file synchronization tools to get your books and notes, etc onto other computers and also means that if your computer has a problem (e.g. your hard drive dies) you have a back up on the server.

The other benefit of the synchronization is that it works with the new Logos iPhone/iPod touch application.  You can now have Logos running on your iPhone and it too will synchronize your notes, books, and any other resources you want – so you can read your library on the go.

Existing users

There are a couple of things to be aware of.  If you are current Logos 3 user, you should know that any notes, etc cannot be upgraded to Logos 4 at this stage.  Logos are working on providing a method for you to take these notes across but it isn’t there yet.

However, Logos also now updates itself – so you always have the latest version installed on the computer – which means that as new functionality becomes available, you’ll get it automatically.

Speaking of free – the engine upgrade is free – if you already own a Logos 3 collection, you can go ahead and download Logos 4 and install it side by side with Logos 3.  Logos 4 will detect your Logos 3 books and even download newer copies of the books from the Logos server for you.  However, there are also a bunch of new collections available from Logos should you want to upgrade your library.

If you haven’t already done so, head to www.logos.com/4 and download Logos 4 and take it for a test drive. In my opinion, you’ll find the product well worth while – regardless of whether you are a seasoned Bible software user or completely new.