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Preaching aid functions


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I would like to see more features that would aid in preaching. Customize and turn on AUTO ability to do colorcode, highlighting of duplicate themes, words, verbs, and having the ability to link to a thesaurus in the same way that Greek and Hebrew definitions are shown when dragging a cursor over them. The colorcoding is possible, but very awkward. Have to do it through a search process (very awkward indeed!), and if I forgot what color is for what, I have to go back to the preferences to remind myself of it. Even if the color was associated with the style in the shortcut window when using ctl click would help. But it would be nicer if it was included as part of an intuitive interface.

 

Also included would be that when highlighting is done, it also highlights the Greek word or Hebrew words when shown in parallel or in a new tab. Plus, the word/text is highlighted in all the tabbed windows. One can also think that when different texts are in parallel, words that are similar could be highlighted in a special way to show that a word has changed in the translation.

 

Flags for different verbs or word plays that are in the text would be nice as well. I do not know how that would work, but I cannot seem to manually do this anyway. Being able to at least manually put in bubble texts whereby as brainstorming the text happens, notes on specific words can be created.

 

Maybe a feature can be designed into the program to at least manually diagram through indenting text or drawing color lines from one part of the text to another. Being able to see the text as a different style (narrative, story, poetry, etc) in some way would be great too. Poetry is at least shown in style. That helps.

 

I am also thinking of how to put the text into a Planning Template and work from there. I am thinking of three distinct categories for brainstorming, and it would be nice if the text could be held in parallel and be used to take research and move into those three different categories. Also, have the notes be moveable so that the materials collected can be put in a organized sermon skeletal outline. If this feature is considered, I would be happy to provide what those three categories would be.

 

Preaching tools are very important, and I am sure some others may have some suggestions that I have not thought of. It takes the Bible Study/Research, and moves it into the pulpit. That is what I bought this for.

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Guest frgpeter

Seems that you want the "machine" to do all the work. :)

 

For show differences and similarities between texts follow what this help states:

 

"I. Marking Differences

 

Checking the Compare Texts checkbox in the More Options section of the Search window, Text or Reference window highlights the differences between the first two texts of each language in the panes."

 

 

 

( Try using Help, and do a search for Comparing texts -- there is further description what the markings mean and how to obtain a listing of the differences, etc. )

 

 

 

As to hightlighting and what each color means: You can set up your own pallets that name what each color is for. Go to Window --> Hightlight Pallette

 

 

On that pallete if you look at the drop down you can create your own custom list, etc.

 

 

Remember that Help is your friend.

 

 

I'm sure others will respond with other ideas. Hopes this gets you started.

 

 

G. Peter David

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Actually, no. I do not want the program to do everything- only to cut down the steps of what I already do, and to make what I do more accessable. Having to go through all those steps to set up a text before I really "get into it" is a long and laborious process-of which does not bear any fruit until I have it all done and can look at it.

 

For example: why would I have to search for the word "deserted" in all the bible before I can see that in Mark 6 it occurs 3 times. I do not care about where it is in the rest of the bible at this step. And that is just an example. Plus, I have to either switch between two tabs (no, that does not work. It does not highlight in another tabbed work space) or then switch back to the original working text until I can see the results of my action. I have not even tried to do the verbs yet, but I do not see any short-cut for that either.

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I think some of the things you're asking for, especially relating to semantic relationships, would require extremely advanced artificial intelligence (and even then...)!

 

Word plays, too, are very tricky, since we cannot always be certain when they are happening--isn't that part of the nature of great literature?

 

But to meet some of your needs:

 

You can select any range of verses and invoke the diagramming tool (Amplify > Language > Diagram), which automatically color codes parts of speech in tagged original language texts.

 

And you can create User Notes for any text to meet your "bubble text" need.

 

Besides the Help, the blog and the training DVD are very useful if you're just starting out with Accordance.

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Guest frgpeter
Actually, no. I do not want the program to do everything-

 

Guess you didn't recognize that the smily face I put there was meant to mean I was making a joke.

 

For example: why would I have to search for the word "deserted" in all the bible before I can see that in Mark 6 it occurs 3 times. I do not care about where it is in the rest of the bible at this step.

 

Why not just search the Gospel of Mark? Are you interested in somehow Accordance "reading your mind" so it knows what your context really is? Upon reading your first post it seemed that you were requesting things to be done when the "context" could suggest to another person to have other information. Thus how would Accordance "know" which way to go.

 

It also seems that it would be helpful to have a lot of the searching and organization done, just pick the "completed" pieces.

 

What I find, though, is that the process is often more illuminationg. Having to think about relationships, actually spending the time while it is coming together, to reflect and ponder.

 

just a few thoughts.

 

G. Peter David

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"For example: why would I have to search for the word "deserted" in all the bible before I can see that in Mark 6 it occurs 3 times."

 

But you don't have to. You can do a a word search with the syntax "deserted <AND> [Range Mark 6]

 

Or, you can do the followng search "* <AND> [Range Mark 6]"

 

This will let you see all the words in Mark 6 and the number of times they appear.

 

In the keyed texts and the grammatically tagged texts, the keys/lemmas are listed in the details window.

 

Using Command-T, you can adjust the way things are listed, making it easier to see patterns.

 

I use the highlighting pallette for repeated roots and word plays. I have 3 or 4 different colors set up (all double underlining), labeled "root/phrase repetition1,"root/phrase repetition2," etc. I know little about programming, but I can't imagine that it is possible to program a computer to do this automatically.

 

Have you read the blog entries about running searches and automatically highlighting things? I have done this with the cognate accusative in Greek and the intensive use of the infinitive absolute in Hebrew.

 

 

I also can't imagine the programming nightmare of linking Greek or Hebrew highlighting with English (or French, etc.), even though I'd find it handy. What MIGHT work is providing this capability with keyed texts in conjunction with grammatically tagged texts. But I'm not sure this is really possible, necessary, or worth the programming time or cost. [Keep in mind the MT/LXX database, which connects Hebrew and Greek words in ways that are similar to what you seem to be asking for with English and Greek or English and Hebrew, is $100.]

 

I do like the idea of a user tool that would more easily let you create notes on a word. I've started a "Word Study" user tool, but it would be wonderful if it were possible to create user tools in the English, Greek, and Hebrew categories for this purpose.

 

In terms of seeing more than one tab at once, you could always use separate windows (seems like David Lang did a blog entry on that, too.)

 

I'm intrigued with your frustrations, because I find that Accordance makes the exegesis I do for preaching much easier and faster. Maybe if you spelled out the process you use for preaching prep, the collective wisdom of this forum could help find more efficient ways to do what you want. Some of the rest of us preachers might learn something new about preaching prep at the same time! {Such a discussion should probably be shifted to a different category--but which one? Do we need a new "What I do with Accordance" category?}

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I do like the idea of a user tool that would more easily let you create notes on a word. I've started a "Word Study" user tool, but it would be wonderful if it were possible to create user tools in the English, Greek, and Hebrew categories for this purpose.

 

I second that! Current User Notes and User Tools correspond to verses (one to one). It would be very useful to correspond to **words** (one to many). It would be helpful to append my word study results to lexical entries. Maybe a new entity called User Lexicon Note.

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I second that! Current User Notes and User Tools correspond to verses (one to one). It would be very useful to correspond to **words** (one to many). It would be helpful to append my word study results to lexical entries. Maybe a new entity called User Lexicon Note.

 

After a bit of sanity, I realize that my request was unrealistic.

 

Perhaps, a better realistic upgrade?

 

1) When "My Notes" are in parallel to texts, be it NRSV, Greek or Hebrew, it would be nice if I could just drag and drop word(s), phrases, or an entire verse from those tabbed windows into the "My Notes" tab window, and then directly type comments into the notes window. This way, as I am brain storming and making free associations to the words or texts, I do not have to move back and forth. I can also work with individual words and phrases rather than a whole verse.

 

2) I want to have a short-cut to highlighting key words without having to do it from a search window. I want to do it directly from the text. There is a command available pushing ctl while clicking to that, but the error box coming up lets me know that the program just does not want me to have that luxury.

 

3) When dragging Greek/Hebrew words into the "My Notes" tabbed area, I would like to have the same features available to show Strongs. But I would also like to be able to link to my other resources of Commentaries and Dictionary entries as well. A link to those sources would be nice, but having the abiltiy to copy and paste into a second Notes tabbed field would work-though it would get somewhat cluttered. A link that could be accessed at any time would aleviate that.

 

4) I want to be able to link together verses or words within the text tabbed field itself. Within the "My Notes" tabbed in parallel, I want to be able to link together ideas within the notes. The Highlighting feature will serve as a useful tool for that (if number 2 is provided), but the function I want would serve to link ideas, common themes, etc. together. For example, the lesson in Mark 6 has a theme of Shepherding, Psalm 23, and Moses. Marking those themes, and being able to draw them out in as many ways possible will be a great advantage to me.

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2) I want to have a short-cut to highlighting key words without having to do it from a search window. I want to do it directly from the text. There is a command available pushing ctl while clicking to that, but the error box coming up lets me know that the program just does not want me to have that luxury.

 

Something must not be working right with your copy of Accordance. I just tried cntl-clicking a word in Accordance, and had no problem highlighting it. When I'm highlighting, I call up the Highlight pallette. No searching is required for either of these approaches.

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Something must not be working right with your copy of Accordance. I just tried cntl-clicking a word in Accordance, and had no problem highlighting it. When I'm highlighting, I call up the Highlight pallette. No searching is required for either of these approaches.

 

I apologize. I meant Highlight all Hits that would show duplicates of words or phrases.

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