Logos may perform more quickly on some computers than others, especially when using newer hardware. We are constantly working to improve performance on all computers. This article covers some steps you can take to improve performance for your particular setup in several areas such as:
The primary cause of "slow performance" is an overly broad-ranging search, especially when using the passage guide or exegetical guide. By limiting searches to a particular passage, like "John 1:1-5" instead of the entire book of John, Logos will be able to display results much more quickly.
Likewise, searching for a broad topic or common word (e.g. "love"), will generate a lot of results. Limiting your search to a specific set of books will improve search time and performance.
Guides are a great way to quickly find a large amount of information for a given passage or topic. They open automatically when searching from the home page. You can improve speed in guides by closing individual sections you don't use often. Just click the section header to collapse it. Now that section will not load results in future searches unless you expand it later.
Some guide sections may have a hidden "Settings" menu that will appear as you hover over the section header. Adjusting these settings may also improve performance and search efficiency by allowing you to search a more refined collection, instead of the entire library.
Another area that may lead to slower performance is layout "clutter". While working on Logos, it is very easy to access hundreds of resources, guides and searches, but opening too many of these items at the same time will use up system memory and may decrease overall performance. By simply closing panels when finished looking at them, we can free up memory and improve general performance. This also helps us focus our attention on the information that is most relevant.
- If you find a resource or article you'd like to save for later, considering clipping it instead of leaving the book open. This is a great way to collect information without cluttering your workspace.
- If you're ready to begin a new study, but are not quite done with the current study, save it in the layouts menu.
This will allow you to close your current panels (command: "Close All") and start your new study from a fresh layout.
Un-link Text Comparison
The Text Comparison panel is designed to follow along as you scroll through your Bibles, comparing each verse as you go. This can become very sluggish on some systems, when scrolling to a large passage (e.g. entire book or chapter). We're working on some changes to this panel for improved performance in a future update to Logos 5. Meanwhile, it may be helpful to un-link the panel.
- Locate the Text Comparison panel in your layout.
- Click the Panel Menu ("A" in the top-left corner).
- Set the "Link Set" setting to "None" or a link set other than your primary reading Bibles.
Logos does a lot of extra things automatically. If your computer is having trouble keeping up, changing these settings may improve performance.
- Links to Open Panels highlights Bible reference links that are being used by any open windows.
- Sympathetic Highlighting highlights the parallel text in a second Bible when you select a word or phrase in the first Bible, if both have a reverse interlinear (or are fully-tagged Greek and Hebrew texts).
These filters allow resources in Logos to interact with each other. Sometimes this can be a very helpful tool, but it may not be necessary for every study. Disabling these filters by clicking on the Visual Filters icon may improve performance for some resources.
Notes and Highlights
As we make notes and highlights in a resource, we increase the amount of visual data that Logos must render on the screen. This can begin to slow performance over time. Disabling highlights and notes from previous studies may improve performance on older computers and computers with integrated video cards (like most laptops and budget PCs). This is also controlled in the Visual Filters menu.
The Information Panel displays information about each word your hover over by default. This is a great way to quickly access more information about a specific word or topic, but it may be working harder than necessary if you don't need information for every word. Consider setting it to "click" instead of "hover".
- Go to Tools > Information to open the Information Panel.
- Click on "Settings".
- Set "Update information on" to "Click".
You can now access more information about any word by clicking on it, but you will not see information for every word your mouse hovers over. This may prove less distracting from your study and improve performance on computers with slower hardware.
Adjusting how you use Logos can only go so far toward improving performance. At some point, it may be necessary to consider new hardware. Learn more about Hardware on our Recommended Hardware page.