In Accordance, you can open a commentary (or any other reference-based tool) in a pane within your Bible search tab, or in a separate zone. So what are the strengths and weaknesses of each approach?
To open a commentary as a pane, select it from the Reference Tool pop-up menu on the right side of the Search window.
The primary advantage of opening your commentary as a pane is that it will appear alongside your Bible text and scroll in sync with it. All you need to do is select the commentary you want and Accordance does the rest. You never have to worry about manually tying or syncing the two.
Opening a commentary in a pane is like creating a study Bible where the commentary follows along with the text. The primary means of accessing the commentary becomes the text itself: you navigate to the desired passage and the commentary follows along. Yet what if you want to focus more intently on the commentary itself: to search it, to use its table of contents, etc.? It is then that you’ll want to open your commentary in a separate zone.
By opening your commentary in a separate zone, you have access to the search entry box at the top of the window, as well as the Browser pane and other features. The only downside of opening a commentary this way is that it will not automatically scroll in sync with your Bible text as it would in a pane.
You can, however, make it sync with your Bible text by tying the scrolling of the two windows. To do this, simply go to the Set submenu of the Window menu and choose the name of the resource you want to Tie with the current resource. For example, if your commentary zone is active and you have another zone with the HCSBS as the main Bible text, you would go to the menu and choose Tie to “HCSBS.” From that point on, your commentary will scroll in sync with the HCSB, just as if you had opened it as a pane in the HCSB window.
In my next post, I’ll show you how you can open a commentary in a separate zone and have it tied to your Bible text automatically. Until then, let me remind you that the introductory sale on NICNT ends today. Buy it today and you save a hundred dollars off the regular price, so don’t miss out.