Tips for organizing your modules into a custom module set

Ideas and suggestions about new features
ErikJon
Posts: 431
Joined: Thu Nov 08, 2012 11:24 pm

Re: Tips for organizing your modules into a custom module se

Post by ErikJon »

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Sorry to be such a nerd, friends, but...

I've just uploaded a new revision of the custom module set, having made about 30 changes to the one posted in December. I decided to put my "Hermeneutics" folder as a subset of "Bibliology," for example, and to combine "Evangelism," "Discipleship," "Missionology" , "Children's Ministry" and "Ecclesiology" into one folder called "Practical Ministry." ("Practical Theology" is the traditional term for that, but I did not want to take a chance on confusing it with theology as such.) Also, "Pastoral Ministry" is now a subset of "Church Government," although I may eventually regret that move. I have also combined a number of sub-folders, such as Bible Chronologies, Timelines, and Bible Surveys.

I had a nightmare recently, that someone had moved my "Baptism" folder as a main root node, instead of leaving it as a subset of "Ecclesiology." I woke up in a cold sweat and couldn't sleep for hours after that.

No. Just kidding. I'm not that bad yet. It's nothing that counseling cannot heal, in the course of time.

As of today, I have reduced the total number of root folders to 17, so I am sure that all the world's problems will likely begin to diminish, as a result.


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I'm an Independent Baptist running TheWord portable v 5.0.0.1481 from an external 500GB hard drive with over 1,900 modules installed and loaded in my current module set. I'm using 32-bit Vista Ultimate SP1 with a 2.7gHz processor and 4GB RAM.
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ErikJon
Posts: 431
Joined: Thu Nov 08, 2012 11:24 pm

Re: Tips for organizing your modules into a custom module se

Post by ErikJon »

[The following paragraphs are re-printed from the first topic above, from the section entitled "Abbreviate your module titles to use at the root level, if necessary", in order to explain the screenshot attached below.]

While the bulk of my suggestions regard how to make an efficitient overall filing structure, we must not forget that other, separate custom module sets can be created and used simultaneously. In other words,, you can name your comprehensive set as "all modules" for example (mine is currently called Jan 2017" as you will see in the screenshot). Then you can go back and create an entirely new second set entitled "Favorite Commentaries," to use separately within an additional open bookview window.

In order to do that, within the "Define Custom Module Set" window, (right pane), I suggest that you first save a back-up copy of your comprehensive set, then re-open it, and call it "Favorite Commentaires" (using this example), whereby a separate set will be created without affecting the first. After that, remove all nodes except the "commentary" node. Then, go through the commentary node and all of its sub-nodes and pick out the commentaries that you have found useful, and drag each one to the root level (as if siblings to the main commentary node). When you are finished, delete the commentary node itself. Now select all the remaining module titles at root level, and sort them alphabetically. Close the window, and select this new set within any bookview window. Now all of your favorite commentaries are just one or two clicks away, but only within that one bookview window, assuming that the other windows are still displaying your previous custom module set (e.g., "all modules") That will be more convenient for Bible reading, but you can use the other windows for researching other subjects, for example.

However, you will notice that the titles for each module may still be too long, to display all of them, and most of them will be out of view without clicking on the spill-over arrow to reveal them. If you go to the green module-set button, select "options," and then "tabs in multiple rows," it will put all of your commentary tabs into view simultaneously. If you have many, the tab bar will be enormous, perhaps even impractical to use. This can be solved by re-naming the "abbreviation" of each module title in the "properties" window for each, to be as short as possible. This is probably why Costas recommends using abbreviations. So, if your "Matthew Henry's Concise Bible Commentary" is re-named "MHCBC" in the "abbreviations" field, it will occupy much less space when displayed with other commentary tabs in the tab bar. The trade-off is that you may possibly forget what the abbreviation stood for, when it was published, what the doctrinal point-of-view was, etc. In fact, I have just shortened my own abbreviations as much as possible, using "CoC" instead of "Church of Christ" in order to identify that doctrinal point of view, where I have it, but I may eventually erase that part, as I become more familiar with which commentary is which.
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I'm an Independent Baptist running TheWord portable v 5.0.0.1481 from an external 500GB hard drive with over 1,900 modules installed and loaded in my current module set. I'm using 32-bit Vista Ultimate SP1 with a 2.7gHz processor and 4GB RAM.
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