Search window: For me, the primary appeal of BW is the power and flexibility of its search engine. Through the search window command line, the user can search for verses containing individual words, forms of words, phrases, groups of words, parts of words, etc. For this reason, BW will appeal mostly to those who desire to do exegetical work in the original languages. Although modern-language-only users can benefit from the software’s ability to search phrases and word combinations that are impossible for an exhaustive concordance, my impression is that those who are interested in doing such complex searches are normally those who are able to work in the biblical languages. And I do such searches all the time. Much of my research would simply be impossible if I did not have such a useful search tool as BW.
New to me in the search window of BW9 (though I believe this feature first appeared in BW8) is the ability to rearrange and hide verses that return from a search. The user can now tick a box next to each verse that returns from the search in order to configure the results as desired. This is an especially helpful feature when a search returns so many extraneous verses that they become a distraction. By hiding the extraneous verses, the user can “clean up” the window and concentrate better on those that actually matter for the project.
Another great feature of BW is the use of tabs above the search window’s command line. The tabs function exactly like tabs in Internet Explorer: they allow the user to work with multiple texts and have multiples projects open at once, each with their own search results and analysis window. Since I frequently use BW to conduct word/phrase searches, I normally devote individual tabs to a specific corpus of literature, so I can quickly do a search in, e.g., the LXX/Apocrypha/NT, Josephus, Philo, or the Apostolic Fathers without having to close or change my current window.
