Tag: WORDsearch

Ruminations

Some Concluding, Year-End Musings on 2012

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

Logos: Logos Bible Research scored huge in my estimation this year. I had struggled to be productive with earlier versions of their software, but version 4, released just about 3 years ago, represented a dramatic improvement in usability and performance, and I started drifting toward it then – especially since they were also beginning to release quality Catholic resources (e.g. works by Aquinas). Then, this Spring, they put together a series of terrific Catholic base packages, all of which included an outstanding edition of the Catechism of the Catholic ...

Bible Study Tools

WORDsearch, LifeWay, and the Future of Bible Study Software

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

It’s been a couple of months now since the Southern Baptist Convention’s publishing arm, LifeWay, announced that they had gotten into the Bible Study Software publishing market by buying WORDsearch – a sale that included QuickVerse, which had just been bought by WORDsearch a couple months earlier. I wasn’t thrilled by either of these announcements (especially the second one), and the passing of time has not made me feel much better. As I mention in the summary of my analysis of QuickVerse, I think the sale to WORDsearch was a good thing overall for Quick...

Bible Study Tools

Updated WORDsearch Tweaks

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

From the better-late-than-never department, I’ve updated my Overview of WORDsearch Bible Study software to account for version 9. I’ve also updated the customizations under the Tweaks tab: more color schemes, more Internet dictionary resources, and a minor re-work of my Bible Search Range Defaults file that works better with the new indexer engine in WS9. This can all be found here.

Bible Study Tools

WORDsearch 9 Released: Initial Impressions

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

WORDsearch 9 was released Monday, roughly two years after the release of version 8. This is the third release of WORDsearch developed on the Bible Explorer platform for CROSS eBooks. Long-time WORDsearch users who have been waiting for a return of the search results management genius of the old Ref List will not find what they’re looking for, but some significant improvements have been made to version 8 nonetheless. The biggest improvement, by far, was a complete reworking of the window syncing mechanism. In the two previous iterations of WS, as in...

Bible Study Tools

WORDSearch Releases HCSB Reverse-Interlinear

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

WORDSearch released a reverse-interlinear based on the HCSB last week, further extending their original language capabilities with this translation. I wish I liked the HCSB better as a translation, because I really like WORDSearch as a study environment, and this looks like a very useful tool. As far as I know, this is only the 3rd interlinear commercially released in a “reversed” format, which orders the text according to the translation rather than the manuscript, making it easier for novices, in particular, to work with the interlinear tex...

Bible Study Tools

HCSB 2nd Edition Released by WORDsearch (with Strong’s coding!)

Posted on by John W Gillis / 4 Comments

WORDsearch yesterday released a revised version of the Holman Christian Standard Bible for use on their Bible Study platforms. This is a free update for existing HCSB license holders, and replaces the previous version on their download server. This is a hugely improved study resource, as the text is now tagged with Strong’s numbers, providing easy access to the meanings of underlying Greek or Hebrew words using the Strong’s Dictionary, or other compatible lexicons. The HCSB joins the KJV and NASB (and an interlinear) as Strong’s-tagged ...

Bible Study Tools

ESV Study Bible for WORDsearch Released

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

WORDsearch released the ESV Study Bible in CROSS format today, for use with either their WORDsearch products, or their free Bible Study program, Bible Explorer 4. This should be a hot-ticket item, as the paper-bound ESV Study Bible has been very well received since its release, which was less than two months ago. I find it surprising – and encouraging – that the work is being made available in ebook versions so soon after initial publication. WORDsearch looks to be the first electronic publisher to get the ESV Study Bible out the door. The wo...

Bible Study Tools

WORDsearch Versions Comparison Published

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

At long last, I’ve completed and published a chart comparing the functional differences between the current WORDsearch 8 version, the previous major release (WORDsearch 7), so-called classic WORDsearch (WORDsearch 5), and the current version of WORDsearch’s free Bible Explorer 4 application. I originally intended it as a tool to help people trying to decide whether to upgrade to WORDsearch 8 from either WORDsearch 7 or Bible Explorer, but the addition of a column comparing the functionality of classic WORDsearch adds an interesting wrinkle to...