Smart Notes

Smart Notes (called Study Notes in previous versions of the program) are a way for you to make and save notes about the Bible. Once you have created notes, your set of notes will appear as a commentary along with the rest of the commentaries in your library. In fact, you could create an entire personal commentary using this feature.

Creating Smart Notes

Step 1

Important Note: For your convenience, an empty note set has been provided with OneTouch, named "My Personal Notes". You should feel free to use that note set for your personal notes. If you will be using the My Personal Notes set, please skip to Step 2. The following instructions for creating a new Bible study note set should only be used if you find it necessary to create a study note set in addition to the My Personal Notes set provided with OneTouch®.

The first step in creating your Bible study notes is to create and name a note set. You will do this once for each note set you wish to create. (Typically, all of your personal Bible notes will be kept in a single set. Additional note sets may be desirable if other members of your family wish to maintain their own personal Bible study notes.

1. On the OneTouch® menu bar, select File, then select New study note reference work. The Create a Study Note Reference Work dialog box will appear.
2. In the Author field, type your name. Then use the Tab key (or the mouse cursor) to move to the Short Copyright field.
3. The Short Copyright will automatically be generated using the information that you entered in the Author field.
   The Short Copyright is used whenever material is copied from OneTouch® to the Clipboard. A typical copyright notice would be "Copyright 1998 © <your name here> . All rights reserved." Change the copyright to suit your needs then Tab to the Full Name field.
   Hint: To enter the copyright symbol (©), hold down the Alt key, then press 0169, then release the Alt key.
4. The Full Name of the reference work is sometimes used when somebody is making a selection from a list of available reference works. This field is required and cannot be left blank. Type the complete name of your Bible study note set then Tab to the Short Name field.
5. The Short Name of the reference work is also the most commonly used name. It will appear in most reference work lists, as well as in the Reference Work Edit box when you are viewing that reference work. This field is also required and cannot be left blank. Type the short name of your Bible study note set.
6. Click the button to create your Bible study note set or click the button to leave the Create a Study Note.

Reference Work dialog without creating a new Bible study note set. If you selected OK, then your Bible study note set will be created and will appear in the list of available reference works in the study note pane. To learn more about adding Bible study note materials, continue to Step 2.

Use the Default References Tab (located in the Options | Preferences dialog) to move your Bible study note set to the desired position in preference order.

You can return to the Study Note Reference Work dialog at any time by clicking on the Copyright button on the lower toolbar.

Step 2

The second and third steps are repeated each time you choose to add or change a Bible study note. The second step is to go to a specific passage in a Bible window. The following instructions assume that you will be using the My Personal Notes set (provided with OneTouch® for your use) or that you have already created and named another Bible study note set. If you have not yet done that, please click the following button to go back to Step 1. To add or change a Bible study note:

1. Open a Multipane Bible Window by clicking on the Bibles button (located on the Main Toolbar) or by selecting File | Bookshelf | Bibles... from the menu.
2. In the Verse Reference Dialog, specify the desired book, chapter, and verse.
3. Click the paperclip button (located on the the lower toolbar (Local_Toolbars) to display the Bible study note pane in the lower portion of the Bible window. If you have previously added a study note for this reference, that note will be displayed in the study note pane. Otherwise, a message will be displayed indicating that the study note set has "no study note on this Verse."
4. Click anywhere in the study note pane. This causes the study note pane to become the "active" window, and updates the lower toolbar to accurately reflect the actions that can be taken in a study note pane.
5. Click the Edit button (located on the the lower toolbarLocal_Toolbars) to edit the current note or add a new note. If a note already exists for this reference, you will immediately be in "edit" mode--where you can add, delete, or change the text of your Bible study note. You can even paste materials into your note from other reference works within your OneTouch library. If a new note is being created, the Verse Reference dialog will appear. You can use this dialog to attach your note to a verse range, rather than simply the current verse. By default, the Verse Reference dialog will indicate the current verse as both the beginning and ending verse--in other words, a verse range consisting of only one verse. You can change the range by respecifying the beginning and/or ending chapter and/or verse numbers. A study note that is attached to a verse range will be available from each and every verse within that verse range.

Study notes are automatically saved when you exit edit mode (click the exit edit button on the lower toolbar). However, you can also save a note at any time by clicking the Save button button (also located on the lower toolbar). Conversely, you can exit a note without saving any changes (in other words, to abandon any changes that have been made), by clicking on the Exit-no-save button (also located on the lower toolbar).

Step 3

The third step in creating a study note is to make changes to your study notes. When making changes you can add content, change existing content, and/or delete content. The simplest form of entering text is to type it directly into the edit window, which you opened in Step 2. However, your commentary will become far more useful with the addition of formatting and embedded references. "Formatting" describes how the content will be displayed. "Embedded references" provide access both to and from other reference works in your OneTouch® library via Smart Reference™ and cross-references.

Internally, your study notes are stored with specially formatted text. You can see this source text and modify it with the View Source dialog (Select Edit | View Source from the main menu).

View Source dialog

Formatting and embedded references are added to a reference work using "tags" and a "compiler." While this may sound technical, it isn't. Let's look at an example. The following text is from a personal commentary, attached to the book of 1 John:

<BTT:Heading Title 1>When Moses wrote, "In the beginning God..." (Genesis 1:1) he was writing purely under the influence of the Holy Spirit. But when John takes up the pen in this letter, he is writing both under the influence of the Holy Spirit and from personal experience.

In formatting this portion of text, the author wanted to emphasize the words "both" and "and". This is done by applying any one of the text styles that are defined in OneTouch®. In this case, the text type Emphasized satisfies the need. (You can view a complete list of all available text styles, and their attributes, by selecting the Options | Text Styles menu item under OneTouch®.) The <BTT> tag (short for "BEGIN_TEXT_TYPE") is used to mark the beginning of the formatted text and to name an existing text style, while the <ETT> tag (short for "END_TEXT_TYPE") marks the end. Hence,

When Moses wrote, "In the beginning God..." (Genesis 1:1) he was writing purely under the influence of the Holy Spirit. But when John takes up the pen in this letter, he is writing <BTT:Emphasized>both<ETT> under the influence of the Holy Spirit <BTT:Emphasized>and<ETT> from personal experience.

This text contains one Bible reference, Genesis 1:1, which would be "tagged" as follows:

When Moses wrote, "In the beginning God..." (<BIBLE:Genesis 1:1>) he was writing purely under the influence of the Holy Spirit. But when John takes up the pen in this letter, he is writing <BTT:Emphasized>both<ETT> under the influence of the Holy Spirit

<BTT:Emphasized>and<ETT> from personal experience.

This commentary text is now completely "tagged." When it is saved, OneTouch® will convert (or "compile") the tags. When the commentary text is next viewed, you will be able to double-click the Genesis 1:1 reference and instantly bring up that Bible text. And the formatted text will be displayed with whatever attributes you have assigned to the Emphasized text type (italics, by default).

The following tags will be useful in creating your personal commentary.

<BIBLE> to indicate an embedded Bible reference, which can then be used to access the corresponding Bible text.
<TOPIC> to indicate an embedded topical reference, which can then be used to access the corresponding Encyclopedia articles.
<STRONGS> to indicate an embedded Strong's number reference, which can then be used to display the corresponding Strong's definition(s).
<BTT> and <ETT> for marking portions of text as a particular text type.
<PARAGRAPH> for marking paragraphs of text as a particular paragraph type.
<TAB> to insert a tab character.

Press the Close button to close the dialog. Press the Save button to save any changes to your notes.

Editing Notes

To edit an existing note:

1. Open a Commentary Window by clicking the Commentary button on the Main Toolbar and selecting your personal commentary (typically, "My Personal Notes")
2. Specify the desired reference (book, chapter, and verse) in the reference field.
3. Click the Edit button (located on the lower toolbar) to begin editing.
4. Make the desired changes.

Spelling Checker

OneTouch® spelling checker allows you to check the spelling in your notes. To check the spelling in any study note article, you must be in Edit mode. Then choose the Spell Check item from the Edit menu. Any words that are not found in the dictionary are brought to your attention.

The spelling checker will use your Microsoft Word dictionary if Word is installed on your system. It will also use the dictionaries supplied by Biblesoft, and any custom dictionaries that you have created. The The Custom Dictionaries Dialog allows you to choose which dictionaries will participate in your spell checking. You can also use the dialog to create and edit your own dictionaries.

Note: A "dictionary" in this sense indicates a list of words that the spelling checker will use to determine valid words.

Preferences

The following preferences are related to Study Notes:

Open warning - When this setting is enabled, a warning message will be displayed whenever you go to open a commentary to a reference that does not contain text. When this setting is disabled, no warning message will be displayed.

Auto Save - When this setting is enabled, a Study Note that is being edited will automatically be saved any time you switch to another window or pane, as well as when you exit edit mode. When this setting is disabled, you must click the save button (located on the lower toolbar) to save.

Closest match warning - When this setting is enabled, and the requested reference does not exist in the selected commentary tab

(Verse, Chapter, or Book), a message will be displayed to indicate that the reference work has no commentary for that reference and that the closest available reference will be displayed instead. When this setting is disabled, the closest available reference will be displayed without any message. Note: This only affects movement within a commentary (via the Verse, Chapter, and Book tabs), and only appears when there is content under that tab that can be displayed. In other words, it will never be displayed when no commentary exists anywhere within the selected tab (for the current reference work)--regardless of whether this option is enabled or disabled.

Study Note Editing Tools Visible - When this setting is enabled, the Study Note tagging buttons (specifically the Bible, text type, and paragraph type tags) are shown on the lower toolbar when you are in edit mode. When this setting is disabled, these three buttons are not displayed. Regardless of this setting, these buttons can be displayed or hidden using the Toggle Editing

Tools button (located on the lower toolbar).