Another odd live-click lexicon behavior

[wtc]

I presume it's a bug that when clicking on a word in NA28, the lexicon look-up offers the definition of the word in question but also the word that follows it in the lexicon.  Sometimes this can feel like a feature rather than a bug, for example when the following entry is lexically related to the first.  But just as often it has no etymological relationship with the desired word, and is unwanted behavior.  See for example the two entries in the lexicon pane on the right of the screenshot.

[Kristin]

I am pretty sure this is a feature as it makes it behave like a real dictionary. If you open a paper dictionary the page the word is on will show words both before and after it. The screenshot is kind of small, but I think you are looking up ἀπωθέω from 1 Tim 1:18. When I click on Mounce's dict, that is how it behaves with words both before and after. Sometimes it is helpful, and sometimes it is harmless, so I find it better than just showing the word in question.

 

[Silas Marrs]

Kristin is correct.  We intentionally show a few paragraphs after research hits, as a way to give context.  It makes sense when you consider that lexicons one of many types of tools that research can search.

[wtc]

Ahhh -- Thanks for the replies, Kristin and Silas.  I'm glad to understand that this is intended rather than unintended behavior.  I do appreciate the way you can browse through a physical dictionary or bookshelf and come upon unexpected finds.

 

That being the case, I can only express my own opinion that this is by and large unhelpful for me for these reasons:

1. It's too blunt a tool to be useful for providing any real, reliable etymological context for a word.  Historically related words might fall before, after, or in another part of the lexicon altogether.  So, I'd be indifferent about this behavior of live-click except that:
2. I like to make use of a group of lexicons to see how they each define a particular word.  If I get unlucky and search for a simple word that happens to be followed alphabetically by an unrelated but more significant and complex term, I then have to scroll through that larger and unrequested definition in order to get to the definition in the second lexicon of my group for the word I clicked on.  And then again to get to the third lexicon, and so on.  
   • I've just realized that in my workspace, there's not enough room in the lexicon pane to also display its table of contents.  Maybe that's the solution: I need a bigger screen so that I can show the table of contents and thus click past the unwanted additional term!

For my part, I'd advocate for the default behavior of live-click lexicon look-up to be:

• show the lexical entry of the word that is clicked

Or at least have that as an option?

 

 

[Λύχνις Δαν]

This appears to be a side affect of selecting the Preferences -> Research -> Show results in full text option. I don't use this option myself but just tried it out to check.

 

If you don't select that you get just the research tab except for the specific entry. However you also don't get the lexicon lookup being down automatically either.

But once you open it manually by clicking on an entry in the Research output it will have the recycle button set and things will work pretty much as you seek I think. You could even make the lexicon tab show only the specific article rather than the whole text if you want. I don't know if there is another pref for that to be automatic.

 

Thx

D