My Thoughts on Clause Searches in Logos 5
First things first. I love the new Clause Search feature in Logos 5. Personally, this is my favorite feature, and a prime example of the potential of Reverse Interlinears and semantic-based databases, two of the key areas that Logos has been focusing on in recent years.
I was asked to post a review on just one condition: to be honest. I think I can do that; I’m used to doing it 
Since there is so much to talk about, and it is quite easy to miss things when you set out to summarize what’s new in a major upgrade like this, I’ve decided to do an experiment and record a video for each of the new or enhanced features that I like the most. My goal is to show you how they work and, in some cases, suggest ideas of what I’d like to see added or improved. This is meant to be a conversation, so feel free to comment, link to a video response or whatever. Interaction is always the best way to learn. You’ll notice that this is an unscripted video, and I want it to be that way in order to capture that conversational approach.
I have always found Syntax Searches in Logos hard to understand, and even harder to build. Perhaps that is the reason why I am so pleased with the new Clause searches. It may well be the case that some of my suggestions/requests can be achieved via syntax queries, but I believe they belong here, and that with clause searching we are just beginning to scratch the surface of some amazing new ways to search the Scriptures. This is exciting stuff!
So here is the video (just under 12 minutes long). I hope it is worth your time!
EDIT (November 5, 2012): Rosie Perera has been kind enough to bring to my attention (see comments below) that even if you don’t specify the subject or the verb-lemma in the Clause Search, the information will be shown in the Analysis view and can be easily sorted out, as you can see in the screenshots below.
Thanks for this review, Rubén! I actually have been working on my own review of this new clause search feature, and I agree w/ you that it is one of the most significant additions from Logos 4 > 5. I agree w/ all your suggestions. Two quick things:
1) Your one example of using subject:* to find all the instances where someone loves Jesus is already possible. Just omit the subject request. I.e., if it doesn’t matter what the subject is, omit it.
2) Your hopes of finding multiple verbs using a Boolean search is my hope too. There might be another way to get at this eventually. Note that verb-ln allows you to specify a Louw-Nida subdomain. So, LN subdomains with one more than one verb–33.26 is an example–will return the results with both verbs. At this time, however, you can only specify a single subdomain. You cannot specify a domain nor a range of subdomains nor anything other than verbs. (Partly this must have to do with the mix of verbs/nouns/adjectives/etc. possible with any domain.)
I hope to get my review up soon w/ more comments.
Thank you for your feedback, Mark. Regarding comment 1), if I run the search as you suggest and omit the subject altogether, none of them will be highlighted, and therefore won’t appear in the Analysis view. They will be there, for sure, but I would have to find out manually who/what they are. Kind of defeats the whole purpose of a digital search… That’s why in my example I was trying to make the subject or the verb-lemma explicit by using a wildcard asterisk.
I’m looking forward to reading your review.
Rubén, I’m not sure why you would have to find out manually who the subjects would be. If you omit the subject in a Clause Search, you don’t need to have the subjects highlighted to see them in Analysis view. There is a column for Subject which you can sort by or drag to the top to group by. If the Subject column isn’t showing up for you, it’s because it isn’t turned on. Right click on any of the column headings and click on Subject to turn on the check mark beside it.
Similarly, if you want to see all the verbs where Jesus is the subject, just do a Clause Search for subject:Jesus and sort or group by the Verb Lemma column in Analysis View.
You are right, Rosie. Thanks a lot for pointing it out!
Notice, however, that if you want to export your data to Excel, for example, none of those subjects will show.