by Tyler F. Williams

Accordance's interface is clean and intuitive -- as all Macintosh programs should be. The search and tools windows are uncluttered and pleasantly lacking the excessive number of mysterious icons characteristic of many Bible research programs. All buttons are clearly labelled. Menus are well thought-out, with intuitive keyboard equivalents for most common functions (It would be nice, however, if additional keyboard shortcuts could be assigned by the user without turning to third-party utilities like QuickKeys). The general Search Window consists of a Search entry box where search arguments are entered, and a text window pane where search results are displayed, if desired, in multiple columns with different versions of the Bible (for more on the search capabilities of Accordance, see below).

Integration between Accordance's search functions and the various dictionaries, commentaries and other available reference tools is near seamless. An Amplify palette provides easy access to a number of features that facilitate analysis of the biblical text (Analysis, Plot, Search, Context, Parsing, etc.), as well as all installed tools, commentaries, parallel modules, and user notes (these features are also accessible from the Amplify menu). This makes accessing reference tools a mouse click away. To see a graphic plot or numerical statistics of the search results or the larger context of a selected verse, one only has to click the appropriate button. Similarly, by placing the cursor in any word and selecting the desired tool from the Tools palette, the tool will open in its own window at the desired word or verse. Parsing details for tagged texts can be accessed as a separate amplify window, or via a floating window or Parsing box. The latter displays the inflected and lexical form, parsing details, and an English gloss for any Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek word in a tagged text that the cursor passes over (it is not necessary to select or highlight the word). The only (significant!) exception to the parsing data is that the LXX text does not have its own database for English glosses. This means that lexemes in the LXX that do not occur in the Greek NT will not have a corresponding English gloss (a LXX database is currently under development). Another annoying limitation with the Parsing box is if there is more data than can be displayed on one line, it will be cut off. Currently there is an option to display the English gloss on a separate line, which solves the problem, but also takes up more space. It would be far more useful if the information in the Parsing box would automatically wrap when necessary.

It is not uncommon when studying a passage that the number of open windows seem to increase exponentially. Besides the basic Search window, there can also be linked Construct windows, "recycled" Tool windows, context windows, User notes, etc. While this can get a bit unruly, there are some very useful features built in to Accordance to help tame the situation. Selecting "Tile Windows" from the Windows menu (or typing command-I) will intelligently reposition as many open windows as possible in order to fill the whole screen, while selecting "Stack Windows" will stagger all open window so that the title bar of each window is visible. Despite these handy features, those with 14" monitors will often wish for a larger screen. In this respect, a bit more flexibility with the positioning of some windows would be beneficial. For instance, with horizontal space often at a premium on smaller monitors, it would be nice if the Amplify palette could be positioned horizontally rather than vertically, i.e., as a tool bar. On the plus side, the user has full control over the display of most of the windows, including the default font sizes, styles, and highlighting colours, as well as whether texts are displayed as continuous text, or with verses separated by a space, etc. In addition, with version 2.1 all these preferences can be set from one dialog box.

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