The Editor is great - what I still miss. For tablet users

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vonderose
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The Editor is great - what I still miss. For tablet users

Post by vonderose »

Thanks a lot for the new update! This is a huge step. In its present form, I now really like the editor, and eventually I decided to switch.

However, you are not at the end of the street yet. Some things still need to be done. Here is a list of features that I would like to be implemented or that I simply miss. It complements those of other users in the forum.

I for my part mostly work with a Windows 8 hybrid, a Lenovo Helix that has touch and a stylus.


1) The scrolling by two fingers is rather slow. It is sufficient for turning pages over, but it is cumbersome if one wants to move quickly to some passage ahead (or some passage back). Could you not make it quicker and a bit smoother? However, as far as bookmarks and annotations are concerned, the speed seems to me quite adequate.

2) The context menu. I can trigger it with my fingertips (quite smoothly, I might say), but not with the stylus. Furthermore, it seems to me that the context menu needs some beefing up (search providers, perhaps even on offline dictionary; the delete function; add comments). At present, there are only a few functions available, too few, I think.

3) I really miss the drop down menus of some of the icons in the toolbar, I especially miss them in the menu bar and annotation icons.

4) In my version of the editor, having two or more documents open, I cannot really make work the tab view showing me all the open documents as thumbnails or as a detailed list. I suppose this is something you haven’t yet implemented.

5) Using the annotation panel, I find it a bit awkward to jump from one highlight, from one underlined passage to another. This is because of some unfortunate twist. If I tab one particular annotation in the panel, the editor not only jumps to the highlighted sentences, it also opens automatically the text of the highlight in a separate window, a pop-up within the PDF (thereby obviously avoiding a double click). Yet the window is too small to show a complete and uncut version of the highlighted text. What is even worse, it covers parts of the highlighted text itself (that is, in my somewhat enlarged PDF). To put it very bluntly, the first thing, to my mind, is superfluous, and the second is a bit annoying.


However, all in all, and I repeat myself, I am quite happy with the new editor. A big thank you to your team!
Last edited by vonderose on Wed Jan 22, 2014 4:08 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: The Editor is great - but I still miss some features. A

Post by Will - Tracker Supp »

Hi vonderose,

Thanks for the post, I'm glad that you're liking it!

3)
3) I really miss the drop down menus of some of the icons in the toolbar, I especially miss them in the menu bar and annotation icons.
Could you please be more specific here? Are you referring to the ability in the Viewer, to hold a right click on an annotation and have the comment style palette appear?

4)
In my version of the editor, having two or more documents open, I cannot really make work the tab view showing me all the open documents as thumbnails or as a detailed list. I suppose this is something you haven’t yet implemented.
You're correct, this is something that hasn't yet been implemented, but it should be implemented for either build 308 or 309.

5)
Using the annotation panel, I find it a bit awkward to jump from one highlight, from one underlined passage to another. This is because of some unfortunate twist. If I tab one particular annotation in the panel, the editor not only jumps to the highlighted sentences, it also opens automatically the text of the highlight in a separate window, a pop-up within the PDF (thereby obviously avoiding a double click). Yet the window is too small to show a complete and uncut version of the highlighted text. What is even worse, it covers parts of the highlighted text itself (that is, in my somewhat enlarged PDF). To put it very bluntly, the first thing, to my mind, is superfluous, and the second is a bit annoying.
I've reproduced this and the behaviour does differ from the Viewer, so I will report this to the Dev. Team.

As for your issues regarding touch-screen compatibility, we are aware of the issues of this nature and will be improving the behaviour of the Editor, in this regard, as things progress.

Cheers, hope that helps!
If posting files to this forum, you must archive the files to a ZIP, RAR or 7z file or they will not be uploaded.
Thank you.

Best regards

Will Travaglini
Tracker Support (Europe)
Tracker Software Products Ltd.
http://www.tracker-software.com
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Re: The Editor is great - but I still miss some features. A

Post by vonderose »

Hi Will,

This certainly helps, thank you very much!

As for point 3. If I assemble all the commands that I commonly use as various icons in one big toolbar at the very top of the Editor’s UI, I can see just one icon with an arrow pointing down: it is the open dialogue. When I click there, a dropdown menu opens, and I can choose which file I want to open, which one I want to pin to a separate list, and so forth. If I assemble, however, all the functions that I commonly use as various icons in the Viewer’s UI, I do have a lot more dropdown menus (and those it would be nice to have in the Editor too). What I particularly liked are the dropdown menus for the annotation panel and the menu bar, since they both offer a host of functions while using very little space.

This is all not particularly important, but in a way, it is part of the overall feeling of the Viewer.
By the way, rereading my post from this very early morning, I regret my overly harsh wording. Actually, I do have other PDF readers installed, like Acrobat XI or PDF Annotator, but it is your software that I use every day. I thought I should add this.

Again, thanks for the software … and your reply.
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Re: The Editor is great - but I still miss some features. A

Post by Will - Tracker Supp »

Hi vonderose,

Thanks for clarifying that, but I'm still having a hard time fully grasping that. I think I have a very rough idea, but to be able to fully advise you on a fix, or to throw a feature request forward, I'll obviously need to understand a little better. Could you perhaps upload screen-shots of the way this appears in the Viewer and in the Editor.

Cheers,
If posting files to this forum, you must archive the files to a ZIP, RAR or 7z file or they will not be uploaded.
Thank you.

Best regards

Will Travaglini
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Re: The Editor is great - but I still miss some features. A

Post by vonderose »

I added a three part PDF:

1) Editor toolbar without dropdown menus

2) Viewer toolbar with the dropdown menu bar

3) Viewer toolbar with two further dropdown menus

Greetings.
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Editor, Viewer and dropdown menus in the toolbar.pdf
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Re: The Editor is great - but I still miss some features. A

Post by Will - Tracker Supp »

Hi vonderose,

Thanks for that - I can certainly place the request for this, though I cannot guarantee and absolute yes to its implementation, only that it will be seriously considered for implementation.

Hope that helps!
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Thank you.

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Re: The Editor is great - but I still miss some features. A

Post by vonderose »

Again, thanks a lot!
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Re: The Editor is great - but I still miss some features. A

Post by Will - Tracker Supp »

No problem :)
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Thank you.

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Re: The Editor is great - what I still miss. For tablet user

Post by vonderose »

About my experience with the PDF-XChange Editor 3.0.307 over the last two, three weeks using a Windows 8 Tablet.

1) The scrolling of search results and annotations with a two-finger-scroll
It tends to stop working at times, and I cannot figure out why. It seems to be caused by resizing the search or annotation window or by moving it around. Yet there seem to be other causes too. In any case, the scrolling bar still works flawlessly, whatever I do.

1b) The open dialog.
There is no scrolling possible if one uses the list with all the pdf files that had already been opened.

2) The Two-finger-scroll
I do use Office 2013 very frequently, and I often switch between applications. As things are, I easily get confused. Word 2013 and Outlook 2013 do not have a two-finger-scroll; instead, it triggers the zooming function. Thus, going from the Editor to Office, I end up zooming instead of scrolling.

3) The choice between marking some specific area of the PDF or marking word by word, sentence by sentence
If I don’t start with my marking (underlining, highlighting) at the exact point some particular word begins, the Editor assumes I’d like to mark some specific area. Yet in my case, this is an assumption that does not apply, as I only read texts that I want to mark word-by-word or sentence-by-sentence. However, there is no way of telling the Editor what my preferences are.


A dream of mine would be the following function: that the Editor could distinguish (by way of the preference menu) between tasks specifically assigned to two fingers or just one finger (like, for instance, scrolling) and those specifically assigned to a stylus (like, for instance, marking).
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Re: The Editor is great - what I still miss. For tablet user

Post by Will - Tracker Supp »

Hi vonderorse,

Thanks for the post, I'll answer each point in turn.
1) The scrolling of search results and annotations with a two-finger-scroll
It tends to stop working at times, and I cannot figure out why. It seems to be caused by resizing the search or annotation window or by moving it around. Yet there seem to be other causes too. In any case, the scrolling bar still works flawlessly, whatever I do.
I will forward this onto the Dev. Team.
1b) The open dialog.
There is no scrolling possible if one uses the list with all the pdf files that had already been opened.
Are you referring to the recents list, available from the drop-down arrow under the Open icon? If so, I would suggest updating via this installer:
https://www.pdf-xchange.com/PDFXVE3.zip
as I and my colleagues have a scroll-bar available that should allow for this.
2) The Two-finger-scroll
I do use Office 2013 very frequently, and I often switch between applications. As things are, I easily get confused. Word 2013 and Outlook 2013 do not have a two-finger-scroll; instead, it triggers the zooming function. Thus, going from the Editor to Office, I end up zooming instead of scrolling.
I'm not sure that I understand what is desired here, could you clarify for me?
3) The choice between marking some specific area of the PDF or marking word by word, sentence by sentence
If I don’t start with my marking (underlining, highlighting) at the exact point some particular word begins, the Editor assumes I’d like to mark some specific area. Yet in my case, this is an assumption that does not apply, as I only read texts that I want to mark word-by-word or sentence-by-sentence. However, there is no way of telling the Editor what my preferences are.
I'm not sure that I understand this either, as the Editor behaves identically, regardless of where I start the highlight or underline, for me. Could you send screen-shots that demonstrate the issue?
A dream of mine would be the following function: that the Editor could distinguish (by way of the preference menu) between tasks specifically assigned to two fingers or just one finger (like, for instance, scrolling) and those specifically assigned to a stylus (like, for instance, marking).
I can place a feature request for this, but please note that if the Dev. Team feel the request is a reasonable one, I suspect that it will be of a low priority when compared with the implementation of other features and bug fixes.

Cheers,
If posting files to this forum, you must archive the files to a ZIP, RAR or 7z file or they will not be uploaded.
Thank you.

Best regards

Will Travaglini
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Re: The Editor is great - what I still miss. For tablet user

Post by vonderose »

1) Thanks.

1b) No scrolling is possible even when using the last version of the editor. Take a look at the attached PDF “Open dialog”. But I don´t click the scroll-bar, I try to scroll the list of my files using my finger (or fingers). The scroll bar certainly works. For tablet users, however, it´s a bit unconfortable.

2) This is just an observation. I always get mixed up switching between Office 2013 and the Editor. Here two fingers mean zooming, there two fingers mean scrolling. It should be easy to switch one´s gestures and to adapt to the program one actually uses. But it isn´t.

3) Take a look at the two other PDFs.

4) Thanks for being allowed to dream.
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Highlight by words, sentences and lines.pdf
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Highlight Area.pdf
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Open dialog.pdf
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Re: The Editor is great - what I still miss. For tablet user

Post by Will - Tracker Supp »

Hi vonderose,

Thanks for the clarification - I've spoken with the Dev. Team and they've asked me to create a feature request for your highlight issue, so that's now on the map.

As far as the improvements to integration with touch-screen devices, I'll also create feature requests for those, but I don't have any guarantees on them yet.

Cheers,
If posting files to this forum, you must archive the files to a ZIP, RAR or 7z file or they will not be uploaded.
Thank you.

Best regards

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Re: The Editor is great - what I still miss. For tablet user

Post by vonderose »

Thanks, as always, to you and the Dev. Team!
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Re: The Editor is great - what I still miss. For tablet user

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

:)
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Re: The Editor is great - what I still miss. For tablet user

Post by vonderose »

I have just come across something that gives me some major headache and made me revert (for this particular task) to the Viewer.

It is about the one function I love about your software: the summarizing of comments. Whereas the Viewer diligently and reliably sticks to the OCRed text, the Editor truncates whole passages. In terms of software, this might be a minor hiccup, but in terms of reliability, it is really anything but good.

Here is one example I picked by random.

OCR version by Abbyy Finereader (this versions appears in the annotations of the Editor, it is also the summarized text of the Viewer)
“Il a des mots très durs contre les Français d’Algérie, coupables à ses
yeux de ne pas avoir compris sa politique: il n’a pas un vrai discours d’apai­
sement face à un tel traumatisme, d’où une rancune obstinée qui perdure
malgré les années. C ’est dire que les mémoires ne sont pas réconciliées”


The summarized text of the Editor
« Il a des mots très durs contre les Français dérie, coupables à ses yeux de ne pas avoir compris sa politique: il npas un vrai discours d­ sement face à un tel traumatisme, dù une rancune obstinée qui perdure malgré les années. C dire que les mémoires ne sont pas réconciliées »


I think it is pretty clear what is happening. A fix would be greatly appreciated.
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Re: The Editor is great - what I still miss. For tablet user

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hi vonderose,

Can we place have a sample file attached for testing?

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Stefan
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Re: The Editor is great - what I still miss. For tablet user

Post by vonderose »

Here it is.
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Test File for Summarize Comments issue.pdf
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Re: The Editor is great - what I still miss. For tablet user

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello vonderose,

I can not see any differences in the sumaries produced by the Viewer and Editor (check attached files) - could it be that you are using an older Editor build? The current latest is 3.0.307.1 and you can check which one you have at your end in Help -> About.

Regards,
Stefan
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Editor.pdf
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Viewer.pdf
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Re: The Editor is great - what I still miss. For tablet user

Post by vonderose »

I do use Build 307.1

However, I summarize my annotations not in PDF, but in RTF.
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Re: The Editor is great - what I still miss. For tablet user

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Thanks for the extra details vonderose,

I managed to reproduce the incorrect behaviour when exporting to RTF so I've created a ticket for our devs:
#2266: Editor 3.0.307.1: Missing words when summarizing comments to RTF.
To allow them to investigate and fix that.

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Re: The Editor is great - what I still miss. For tablet user

Post by vonderose »

This is already the second Thanks for today.

So, merci bien !
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Re: The Editor is great - what I still miss. For tablet user

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

:)
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Re: The Editor is great - what I still miss. For tablet user

Post by vonderose »

I just remembered something I had wished for a long time the Viewer (or now the Editor) would include. Another wish that the Tracker wish fairy might perhaps fulfill … sometime in the future.

It is again about summarizing comments. I would like to have an excerpt that follows a PDF page by page and line by line. As things now are, a highlight on page 5 line 6 might end up in front of another one, although it is a bit higher up on the same page at lines 2 and 3. The reason for that being that you have marked the latter some time earlier.
When asking the Editor to summarize comments, you can choose between five criteria, amongst others “date” and “page”. However, neither of them gives an orderly excerpt of page 1 line 1, page 1 line 2, page 1 line 3 and so forth. Summarizing, thus, always mixes things up, since not one of criteria does take into account the geographical position on the page. If you choose “date”, it all depends on the moment you highlight; and if you click “page”, the Editor follows page numbers but not the lines on each page (with the settings “group by page”, “sort by page”). So how about a new criteria, such as “sort by line”.

I hope the Tracker wish fairy does not complain about getting too much work these days.
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Re: The Editor is great - what I still miss. For tablet user

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello vonderose,

I've just discussed 2) from your comments above regarding touch support, and my devs told me that this is what we support:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library ... s.85).aspx
(Most of it anyway - we don't for now support rotate and flicks), so you should be able to both zoom in/out using two fingers as well as scrolling.

Kind Regards,
Stefan
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Re: The Editor is great - what I still miss. For tablet user

Post by vonderose »

Yes, scrolling and zooming just works fine. It is smooth, and there is really no problem when I use my tablet.

However, imagine the following settings: you read a Pdf document on a tablet with the Editor, underline (or highlight it) continuously, and you scroll by using your two fingers. Then, switching over to Word 2013, you need to scroll as well, but there you should use just one of your fingers, since using two fingers starts the zooming function. I for my part am by now so used to the two fingers gesture that I forget about changing back when using my browser or … Word or Outlook. Yet, there, in Office, it unfortunately does not do what I want it to do … and it goes right to the zooming.
Another thing is that at times, my two fingers gesture is not correctly recognized and I end up underlining some lines instead of scrolling further down the document. I thought I might get better at it, but I don’t, and it still happens a few times during a day of reading.

All this is not very problematic, I suppose. I probably will not learn how to do it, anyway, others very probably will. Nevertheless, a solution would perhaps be to rely more on the stylus. It is great for annotating, and the one and only finger could do the scrolling.
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Re: The Editor is great - what I still miss. For tablet user

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;)
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