Favorites III: Favorites vs. Workspaces

I blogged about the new Favorites feature in Logos 3 here and here. Today I want to take a quick look at Workspaces—a feature that’s been part of Logos Bible Software since at least 2001—and think about when to use a Workspace and when to use Favorites.

When working on research papers in grad school, I’d go to the library, locate and pull a bunch of books I thought would be helpful, then sort them into piles, sticking slips of paper in some to mark articles, leaving others open, but always arranging them according to a logic known only to me.
Similarly, the Workspace feature of Logos Bible Software allows you to set up any number of desktop configurations that reflect the way you work.

If you have a large monitor and like to keep four Bibles open across the bottom of the screen with four commentaries across the top…you can save that as a workspace.

Or if you want to create a custom workspace for each project you’ve got going, you can do that, too. Last year, Rick Brannan wrote about his personal workspace and showed a screenshot at Ricoblog. Workspaces maximize your efficiency and make the software work the way you work.
(For step-by-step instructions on how to set up a workspace, view the tutorial video.)

This leads us to the question…

When should I use Favorites and when should I use Workspaces?
If the layout of the windows and resources—their placement on the screen—is important to you…then save as a workspace. All your visible windows, tabs, even minimized windows in the background, are preserved.

Workspaces are ideal when you have a long and fairly focused project that you’ll be working on over time, using many of the same resources and reports. They are also great for taking a “snapshot” of your Logos desktop at the end of the day so you can pick up at the same spot tomorrow.

In Logos 3, there are buttons right on the toolbar for loading and saving a workspace so this is very quick and easy.

Favorites, on the other hand, are much more granular. They don’t preserve the placement on the screen, but they are a great way to flag a specific location in a specific resource. Or to save a single search, as I showed in an earlier post.

The good news is that Workspaces and Favorites can work in tandem, to really supercharge your study. You can save a workspace that puts all your resources and reports just where you want them. Then use Favorites to load varying information into those “slots.” So if New American Commentary is one window in your workspace and you have a saved Favorite for Matt. 7:28 in NAC, clicking that Favorite will jump the commentary to that spot while leaving your screen layout intact. (Note: This seems to work best with resources; launching a report from Favorites will open it in a new window).

So there you have it, some tips on when to use workspaces, when to use favorites, and how they can complement one another. I exhort you to go forth and experiment to get comfortable with both features and figure out how they can most effectively support you in the way you study.