Feature request: Adobe’s “Expand Current Bookmark”

[bob_sun]

Hello,

Can we expand bookmarks under a particular heading bookmark, rather than for all bookmarks?

This is useful when reading books with chapters, and selectively expands some keeps the clutter minimum.

This is available in Acrobat as “Expand Current Bookmark”.


Bob

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the post - perhaps I'm not quite understanding, but I believe that you should be able to this by clicking the little arrow to the left of the bookmarks:

Screenshot_1.zip

(16.17 KiB) Downloaded 118 times

HTH!

[bob_sun]

Yes; but isn't this expands only 1 level out? What if there are 2 or more levels under each book chapter?

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Hi Bob,

What if there are 2 or more levels under each book chapter?

One could expand the sub-folder in the bookmarks pane...



Am I also missing the point?

[bob_sun]

can it be done with one-click? Sometimes the subfolder also has several levels, and many items.

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Hi Bob,

that would be the "Excpand All Bookmarks" icon no?



hth

[bob_sun]

This is a nicety of Adobe. Please see attachment.

[bob_sun]

Adobe has two options:

• Expand current bookmark
  Expand top-level bookmark

Currently Editor does the 2nd. I see this as high useful for large PDFs when one wants to focus on specified parts - expanding the all would create unnecessary and clutteirng long list, whereas expanding the top-level is insufficient and one needs to manually expand each lower-level subitems.

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the clarification.
We will have this suggestion reviewed by our interface developers and see what can be done.

Regards,
Stefan

[bob_sun]

Stefan,

Thanks,

I would suggest try opening a long Microsoft help document with many levels of bookmarks, and one will immediately find this "fully expand current bookmark" feature of Adobe indispensable.

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Hi Bob,

the suggestion is before the development team and we'll see what comes. We really can't make any promises right now about whether this will be implemented. Microsoft MSDN and other tech pages function as the Editor does as far as I can tell. You can expand each bookmark and drill in as deep as you want one bookmark at a time.

Same with Adobe "Expand this bookmark" - it appears to me to be the exact same thing as clicking the triangle next to a bookmark for us.

regards

[bob_sun]

I checked the adobe funcitonality again: what it exactly does it to expand to bookmark to the current page. For example, if the current page is linked to a 3 level bookmark, then the bookmakr expands to level 3, only for the those relating to the current page.

Anyway I still highly recommend implementing this (full expansion of selected bookmark and sub-items).

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hi Bob,

I've just spoken with one of our devs, and we've created a feature request ticket in our system:
#2612: Editor FR: Expand/Collapse bookmarks suggestions
But it is with a low priority, and there are other more important tasks we are currently working on - so it can take some time to implement this.

Regards,
Stefan

[bob_sun]

Dear Stefan,

Many thanks!

Bob

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

[Ivan - Tracker Software]

Doesn't the button shown on the screenshot below behave as the "Expand Current Bookmark" in Acrobat?

[bob_sun]

Ivan,

I confirm it is indeed the same.

Could we add additionally the described "expand all subitems under current bookmark", like for the entire chapter, to next release?


Bob

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Hi Bob,

it's on the ticket now.

hth

[bob_sun]

Dear Paul,

Thanks.

Would we have a new release by the end of this month?

Bob

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hi Bob,

Build 309 is planned for this week if nothing unexpected happens, but I don't believe the note Paul added to the ticket will be acted on for build 309.

Regards,
Stefan

[bob_sun]

Dear Stefan,

Any update on the new release?


Bob

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi Bob,

A few issues had pushed back the expected release until today. While we do hope to have this released later today, this is obviously dependent on what, if anything, inhouse testing turns up.

Cheers,

[bob_sun]

Will,

Please remind me when the update is ready

Bob

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi Bob,

The Developers have told me that, while we're almost certainly going to be releasing today (provided nothing goes terribly wrong), the earliest time it will be available for download by users is in about 4hrs. It obviously takes a while to build the installers and it also takes from 1-2hrs for the files to upload and sync.

I'm afraid that, by that time, none of the support or sales staff will be in to post a reminder. I apologize for the inconvenience and would suggest either checking in around then, or early tomorrow.

Cheers,

[Sasha - Tracker Dev Team]

Hello Bob,

I'm afraid that this will not be implemented as there is an "Ensure Visibility of Corresponding Bookmark" option that works as a checkbox and will automatically open the corresponded bookmark based on the position on the Pages View. You were speaking about the Acrobat's "Expand Current Bookmark" feature - it works like our's Ensure Visibility feature though it needs to be clicked each time to open the bookmarks.
Alternatively, to achieve what you desire, you can check the Ensure Visibility checkbox and then collapse all bookmarks - this will open only the subtree with current bookmark.

Cheers,
Alex

[Timur Born]

Currently the option only works for one bookmark per page, though. So if a page contains one simple bookmark and a then a second bookmark that is nested then the nested bookmark does not get expanded automatically. Editor would have to check for all bookmarks on the current page in order for this to function properly.

[Sasha - Tracker Dev Team]

Hello Timur Born,

How can I recreate this? I've just tried doing the same you advised - everything worked OK.

Cheers,
Alex

[Timur Born]

Use a page with two or more bookmarks, with the first bookmark not being nested and the second (or later) bookmarks being nested. Editor will always activate the first bookmark of a page and thus does not expand the later bookmarks on the same page.

This is even more relevant for those nested bookmarks that start on one page, but have their sub-tree bookmarks spread over several pages. That "Feats Description" bookmark shown in my screenshot is one of those, it will only expand once I reach a later page that activates one of its later sub-tree bookmarks.

[Sasha - Tracker Dev Team]

Hello Timur,

Also, if you zoom enough, you will experience the behavior that you are expecting. If you are seeing the whole page, then only the first bookmark will be active (if there are several of them on the page).

Cheers,
Alex

[Timur Born]

In my document there are no "bookmark positions" other than the whole page. So if one page contains several bookmarks then they all point to the page, not a subsection of the page. So when the page is read then only the first bookmark is opened, but not the subsequent ones that also point to the same page.

Adobe Reader instead jumps to the first sub-entry of the first collapsed bookmark on a page. So in my example it would expand the "Type of Feats" tree and select its first sub-entry when I read the page, while Editor selects the "Prequisites" bookmark instead. When more nested bookmarks are present on a single page then Reader does not expand those either, though.

Somewhat off-topic question: Is Editor able to create bookmarks for selected text and images (like Acrobat) within a page instead of bookmarking the whole page?

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Hi Timur,

we are getting very specific here, I am not entirely sure I properly understand. Perhaps it would be easier for us to follow along if we have the same document as you and can compare your described actions in both our Editor and Adobe Reader.

Can you share that PDF with us?

[Timur Born]

Unfortunately I bought that PDF for $10 and thus am not allowed to share it. Just look at my screenshot. You can see that both the "Prequesites" and "Types of Feats" bookmarks share the same page (visible in the screenshot), yet the "Types of Feats" sub-tree is not expanded.

[Sasha - Tracker Dev Team]

Hello Timur Born,

It should not be expanded. Only the first bookmark from that page that is closer to the top left corner of the Pages View is getting highlighted. Thus I told you, when you zoom and scroll enough, the Types of Feats bookmark will get highlighted and if there is a child of that bookmark on that page, it will only get highlighted (and the parent bookmark opened) when it will be the first bookmark on your current Page View top left corner position. In your example, you can achieve this by zooming and scrolling in a way, that for example the "Combat Feats" word would be hidden above the current Pages View top - then if there is a Combat Feats sub bookmark it will be highlighted and it's parent (Types of Feats probably) will be opened. If there is no bookmark after the Types of Feats in this case, then the Types of Feats will be highlighted and it won't be opened. That's the basic algorithm how it works.

Cheers,
Alex

[Timur Born]

I tried the zooming and it did not work with this document. This is why I wrote that all bookmarks only seem to point to pages, not sections of a page. They all seem to be positioned in the top left corner, at least that's what I can guess.

Is there a way to make Editor show where bookmarks are positioned and can Editor put bookmarks on sections of a page instead of using the top left corner (Acrobat can set bookmarks to images or marked text)?

I assume that Adobe knows about the basic nature of this practical problem and thus decided to always expands the first nested bookmark of a page when one or more are present. This looks like a good compromise to me.

[Sasha - Tracker Dev Team]

This is why I wrote that all bookmarks only seem to point to pages, not sections of a page. They all seem to be positioned in the top left corner, at least that's what I can guess.

Can you show the Critical Feats bookmark's GoTo action screenshot?
And also several others would be also OK to compare.

Cheers,
Alex

[Sasha - Tracker Dev Team]

Hello Timur,

Though do not bother - I've downloaded the pdf that you have (for free btw though Beta version - some random link in Google) and what I see, that the bookmarks are pointing to the Named Destinations that are all "Left: Inherited, Top: Inherited; Zoom: Inherited". That means that all of the bookmarks are badly generated in your document thus they are behaving like that.
No flaw in our logic whatsoever.

Cheers,
Alex

[Timur Born]

You most likely downloaded the Beta test PDF of the coming version 2, which likely differs from my version, but if bookmarks are created the same in it then it should be suffice to discuss the problem.

The "flaw" in your logic is that you insist on only opening nested bookmarks when they are created correctly. Many PDF documents are not created perfectly correct so Adobe opted for the "practical" solution of always opening the first nested bookmark of a page if one (or more) is present. This is an approach that I would suggest for Editor to adopt, because in practice (!) it seems to produce more usable results.

Keep in mind that is a "Feature request" thread, not a bug report one.

[Sasha - Tracker Dev Team]

Again, if all of the bookmarks point onto the same point on page (that's what I meant by created incorrectly by logic), we are highlighting the first bookmark only. The Acrobat logic would be always to select the first deepest child from the same page (even if it's lower or higher then the current view position) - took me a while to experiment to find this out. In case of the bookmarked table for example, this would work awkwardly. Thus we will leave our logic as it is.
For your document, I will suggest using the "Geneare Bookmarks from Page Text" feature. Try to play with styles and you will get a perfect bookmark tree that correctly navigates to what you need.

Cheers,
Alex

[Timur Born]

Thanks for the hint, I will try to create new bookmarks from text. It doesn't seem that easy, though, depending on how much the document is formatted in my favor (for automatic bookmarking). I already stumbled over a problem with this that may need me to open a new thread if I plan to really use that feature.

Meanwhile, is there any means in Editor to expand all bookmarks of a nested sub-tree instead of having to either expand all bookmarks or manually click through a whole sub-tree of nested bookmarks (when the document is badly created)?

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hello Timur,

No there is no way currently in the Editor to expand just a part of the subtree from a given bookmark down.

Regards,
Stefan

[Sasha - Tracker Dev Team]

Hello Timur,

Well, you can write your own custom JavaScript and even create a button for this. That JS will go through the bookmarks and will set their state to opened when they are from the same page (logic that you need). Here's the link to the JS Reference (check out the 177 page):
https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/ ... erence.pdf
There are many samples on how to use it. Though in this case, it's a tricky one, as you can't obtain the pages that the bookmarks are pointing to from the JS. Though it's doable. There is a JavaScript that can be launched when the document is opened. There, you can go through all of the bookmarks and execute their actions. After each action execute you can get the current page from the document and save it along with the bookmark in some sort of array. Then you will have page<->bookmark relationship after each document opening. The downside is that the document will scroll through all of the pages before you can work with it.
In your button JS, you can get the current page from the document and then open the bookmarks that reference that page - then you will have the result that you need.

Cheers,
Alex