Libronix/Mac vs. Accordance, Part 1.1: Speed Search Revisited

This entry was originally posted on August 3, 2009 on the original This Lamp website and has been relocated here.

Before moving to the next part of the comparison, I thought it might be worth revisiting the initial speed search comparisons between Libronix and Accordance. A number of folks suggested that my computer was running Libronix (and presumably Accordance, since it was under the same conditions) a bit slower than it should have been. I removed a particular application that had been making my core temperature run hot as well as spinning my fans up on average of twice what they should be. As you’ll see in this new video, Libronix is, indeed, faster but still significantly slower than Accordance, and slower--in my opinion--that Bible software ought to be.



For high-def versions of this video, go to my MobileMe Gallery.

And if you think that speed is not that big of a deal, I’d encourage you to read this post on the Accordance forums, “How Important Is Searching the Bible?”

---

See also
Libronix/Mac vs. Accordance, Part 1: "Speed" Search
Libronix/Mac vs. Accordance, Part 2: Printing

Comments

[R. Mansfield]

Below are the original comments for this post. Please continue any further discussions here.

Donovan
FYI, to find out what is running in the background, you cannot rely on what is graphically portrayed, but rather use text commands to find out what is going on under the hood with services and resource allocation.

That said, this is a fair comparison. Accordance is clearly faster. No question about that. Speed has never been Logo's big selling points, including their windows versions.

I think when comparing Logos and Accordance together the big thing that most users will appreciate is the user interface is MUCH better in Accordance. Fair enough Logos for Mac is less than 1 year old, but that to me is the biggest issue over speed that they need to overcome. Accordance has tightly integrated resources to create a logical work flow. Logos for Mac in its infancy is much more like an ebook reader.

BTW, I only own Logos for Mac and I am truly grateful for the port to Mac because I had a sizeable investment in resources from being a Windows user for many years. I hope that Logos watches these videos and makes some big improvements.

Particularly for exegetical studies, I see Accordance as a serious option to consider. (who knows, I may very well have to buy into it next year when I do some course work in Greek!) Logos at the moment is a HUGE resource for building a commentary and reference library. I hope more resources that are currently on Logos make it over to Accordance as well.

Good blog.
September 27, 2009, 3:36:38 AM EDT – Like – Reply

Joe Miller
thanks brother
August 9, 2009, 12:15:36 PM EDT – Like – Reply

Sean R.
Joe,

Thanks for the definition! I do, however, understand the meaning of arcane and should have been clearer in my writing. I was attempting to point out that the commands, rather than being arcane, are easily powerful. My emphasis (at least in my mind, perhaps not so clearly in my writing) was on the ease these commands bring to searching. And as they are readily available three ways (menu, type them, or keyboard shortcuts), I do not view them as being "mysterious, known only to a few."

And yes, I did somewhat change the topic from what you stated—thanks for pointing that out! I would have done better to focus on your point rather than getting sidetracked on the powerful search capabilities of Accordance.

As for your use of arcane—it wasn't arcane; my response, however, evidently was.
August 9, 2009, 7:39:47 AM EDT – Like – Reply

Joe Miller
Hi Rick, you wrote, "I never said "not everyone knows all the search commands," and I especially never said "some are undocumented.""

My mistake then. Sorry to have misrepresented your statement. I should have looked back to verify it instead of going from memory. Still, long lists of commands that require study or experience.. I think the use of 'arcane' is an accurate description of the Boolean commands utilized by both Accordance and Logos.

You wrote, "Regardless, these more complex searches are very beneficial, regardless of whether one is using Libronix or Accordance, and I don't feel they should be minimized. "
I agree Rick. I use them all the time. Like I said to Sean, if you are referring to my use of the word "arcane" its meaning does not suggest limited benefit. You changed the topic from what I wrote.

Apparently my use of arcane is arcane since neither you or Sean seem to understand the meaning.
August 7, 2009, 1:47:38 PM EDT – Like – Reply

R. Mansfield
Joe, a point of clarification...

I never said "not everyone knows all the search commands," and I especially never said "some are undocumented."

What I said was that there was an extended list of keyboard shortcuts for all search commands and other tasks in Accordance, and I suggested that the list of these shortcuts is so extensive that perhaps the developers don't even have them all memorized.

Or perhaps they do. I don't know.

Regardless, these more complex searches are very beneficial, regardless of whether one is using Libronix or Accordance, and I don't feel they should be minimized. The beauty of using either program is that the beginning can start off with very simple searches and progress to more complex queries over time.

The Libronix Bible Speed Search is a nice feature, but it aimed primarily for fairly simple searches rather than complex ones.

And again, there is no "Accordance Speed Search." Accordance has one search window in which all searches can be performed. And it's speedy without needing the name.
August 7, 2009, 10:06:46 AM EDT – Like – Reply

Joe Miller
Hi Sean,

Your answer shows me that you do not know the meaning of "arcane" so let me help you out.

The dictionary defines arcane as "mysterious, known only to a few, or secret" Your post argues for "power" which has nothing to do with arcane.

I should point out to you that Logos' regular search also uses these same Boolean search commands and there is a HUGE long list that most people don't know. Even though I understand these searches from my study of Fortran in Engineering, I can't remember them all from time to time.

I agree with you that both the Logos and Accordance searches are powerful in utilizing these Boolean commands, but they are still arcane (unless of course you are telling me lots of bible software uses know how to code in this old computer/math language???). LOL

Beyond the fact that few, if any, use Boolean anymore, even Rick above stated that not everyone knows all the search commands and some are undocumented... that makes them arcane Sean.

The advantage of the Accordance search is that it offers some of the Boolean commands in a drop down list. Logos should do something like this.

The advantage of Logos Speed Search over its standard search is that it bypasses the arcane Boolean commands and creates a more dynamic and interactive search of the Scripture. The Accordance speed search, does not offer this flexibility.
August 6, 2009, 3:07:28 PM EDT – Like – Reply

Sean R.
The search commands in Accordance, rather than being arcane, unlock tremendous power and provide the user with the ability to easily customize one's search in very specific ways. While, for example, I may need to type a few extra characters to find the example noted above (David Saul wept), I may easily define a search to, for example, find David within a five words of Saul (the search would look something like this: David < within 5 words > Saul). This is, of course, a very simple example. The search commands allow me to perform very specific, complex, and powerful searches easily. As Rick noted above, the search commands may be entered by typing them, selecting them from the menu, or entering them via easily memorized keyboard shortcuts.
August 6, 2009, 6:35:52 AM EDT – Like – Reply

Joe Miller
BTW, as I reread my post, I fear it came across a little belligerent... that is not intended, but probably a result of my limited time and trying to type to fast
August 5, 2009, 3:43:37 PM EDT – Like – Reply

Joe Miller
Ah, thanks for that.

I think you said it all here, "I know it sounds cheeky to say it, but Accordance is just fast, period."

I downloaded the Demo of Accordance and found its version of "speed search" is fast, but has no versatility and nowhere near the power of Logos to quickly drill down the list of thousands to 1, 4, or 15 verses.

So if people want to create a list of 1,000 verses in one second (over say 30 seconds), use Accordance.

If people want to be able to do intelligent searches for multiple key words without having to memorize arcane Boolean operations, use Logos.
August 5, 2009, 2:06:36 PM EDT – Like – Reply

R. Mansfield
Well, as I implied in both videos when I complimented Logos on the ability of the Bible Speed Search to instantly begin searching a text as soon as one is typing in the dialogue box, this is a feature particular to Libronix.

There's no distinction between a Bible search and a Bible Speed Search in Accordance. I know it sounds cheeky to say it, but Accordance is just fast, period.

Every Bible software program I've ever used had its own search arguments that had to be followed. If one were to type

David Saul Wept

into the Accordance search window, Accordance looks for the exact phrase "David Saul Wept" which of course, won't be found.

To do this kind of search in Accordance, one would type

David < and> Saul < and> wept

And hitting the return key, the results are instantaneous. (By the way, in the actual Accordance argument, there's no space between the less than sign and the word "and" but I was having difficulty getting Haloscan to read my tags properly.)

Now in comparison to simply typing those three words in the Libronix's Speed Search one might initially think the approach in Accordance would be a bit slower. And it is if you type that line in above just as it is implied there. Another option, of course, is to go to the Search menu, choose Command and then choose AND. Some folks do that, but I never do either method that I just described to you.

Any longtime computer user knows that the key to moving quickly through ANY software (not just Bible software) is to learn the keyboard shortcuts. The developers at Oak Tree have mapped out keyboard shortcuts to just about anything you want to do in Accordance. I just printed out a PDF file of the entire list and it's 11 pages long! See it here:

http://homepage.mac.com/rmansfield/assets/Accordance/Accordance_8_key_shortcuts.pdf

Of course, no one has all those shortcuts memorized--probably not even the developers. And you can certainly do everything through menus or other means.

However, what you can do is memorize the command key strokes for those commands you use the most.

For the < and> argument, it's command-shift-A. You do that enough times and you don't think about it any more.

So, when I did the search for David < and> Saul < and> wept I was able to do that very quickly because I have the < and> argument memorized.

One thing that I noticed in the Libronix Bible Speed Search is that every time a new word is typed, the search kind of starts over (Spotlight does this, too). For this kind of search if you and I were to sit at our respective keyboards and race, yours might be slightly faster, but if so, I would think less than a second if at all.

Of course, I'm a pretty fast typist and some of these Accordance key commands are second nature to me by this point.
August 5, 2009, 1:28:17 PM EDT – Like – Reply

Joe Miller
Thanks Rick! Much better video comparison.

As Bob, the President of Logos said, the bottleneck is the rendering engine. I am glad to hear they are changing the entire thing for the next release so that rendering issue will be completely resolved.

While I still believe the speed search will not hinder any meaningful real life study, I appreciate your making a much better standalone video! Nice job!

One question though. One of my frequent uses of speed search is to find a passage where I can only remember two or three words from the verse.

For example, I wanted to find the verse where Saul cried over his pursuit of David. I typed in the speed search "David Saul Wept" and in a second I had the result.... 1 Sam 24:16. Is this search possible w/Accordance's speed search?
August 5, 2009, 12:34:06 PM EDT – Like – Reply

Mike Aubrey
David, I can honestly say that I am *very* glad to hear that I did some poor exegesis on your words. And so, I apologize for misreading you. Thanks for taking the time to clarify.

In terms of how I interact with the material, I don't often do English simple searches (though every once in a while), but I regularly search Greek lemmata & full phrases in Greek - last night I searched for ἐκ παιδάριου to see if it occurs outside of Jeremiah (it doesn't).

I wouldn't mind having faster searches, but its not a terribly high priority. Our budget is so tight that what I buy in terms of Biblical studies is highly regulated. Though I will admit that I've regularly thought Accordance would look nice on my wife's Mac.
August 5, 2009, 12:31:18 PM EDT – Like – Reply

David Lang
Mike,

It was not my intention to suggest that people who are not concerned about the speed with which search results are delivered "don't care about searching the Bible." To avoid that misunderstanding, I probably should have used a different title than "How important is searching the Bible?"

Neither was it my intention to generate good "PR & advertising" for Accordance. If I wanted to do that, I would have posted my question somewhere other than our own user forums.

The point of my question was simply to ask whether most people interact with Bible software differently than I do. I often do a simple search, skim the results, and refine the search to get fewer hits. I don't necessarily read each hit verse sequentially, so the "who reads that fast?" defense makes no sense to me.

Rather than just writing off the experience of users who seem genuinely happy with another program, I asked my question in an attempt to see if I'm merely approaching Bible study from a different perspective than they are. To borrow Bob's terminology, I'm trying to determine what really is the "primary way people will interact with the material."

I'm sorry if my question came across as a criticism or unfair characterization.
August 5, 2009, 7:32:31 AM EDT – Like – Reply

R. Mansfield
Mike I read David's post when he first wrote it, and now I've gone back and re-read it after your comment. Frankly, I don't get the same message as you at all.

Maybe David will have to step in here and speak for himself, but I don't see him saying that some people don't care about searching the Bible period. He does wonder if perhaps simple searches aren't as important to some, but he's asking the question, not drawing conclusions about someone's attitude of complacency.
August 5, 2009, 6:34:06 AM EDT – Like – Reply

Mike Aubrey
I read David Lang's comments and as much respect as I have for David (from a number of blogs he has written for), but he made a big jump there.

He's baffled that there are people who think that the speed issue doesn't matter. And its probably valid that he should be. I don't know. But what I do know is that it's a huge leap when he takes a person complacency with the speed of a Bible search and interprets it as meaning that person doesn't care about searching the Bible.

That's a bunch of nonsense. I understand that he loves Accordance and wants to do some good PR & advertising whenever he can, but it's definitely *not* a fair characterization of users of other software and it doesn't make me want to get Accordance (not that I can afford it anyway).
August 5, 2009, 1:39:07 AM EDT – Like – Reply