PDF XChange Forum

Both with the Editor and Viewer, hundreds to thousands of MBs are being written to disk as temp files just for viewing a PDF, just for me to view a small 50~MB PDF and to scroll through it creates over 2.5GB's of files, how can I turn this sh#t off, I'd rather use my computers ram for this and not hard driver.

Hi Special,

thanks for the post. I'm sorry you are having issues with the software.

It is quite possible that a 60MB PDF could create such temp files depending on the content. If you would like to send us the file in question we could confirm what is gong on and why it is creating these large temp files.

The reason we do not only use RAM is so that PDF-XChange does not take all your system's RAM and cause other applications to start paging memory to disk which would make us quite unpopular.
You can manage how much RAM to allocate under Edit --Preferences --> Performance however on 32 bit system you will of course be limited due to the limited address space 32 but systems suffer. The 64 bit Editor also has a 2GB limit when specifying RAM usage because it shares the same code as the 32 bit Editor.

Can you send us the file to look at?

I don't have access to my PDFs I have atm, but these are two such examples of what I am talking about that I found on the internet, also the RAM excuses is kinda BS, PC's now have 16-32GB at a minimum and there is no reason why not to have at least an option to support this if the user so chooses. Using an alternative to PDF X-Change such as SumatraPDF and you'll see just how much more smoothly everything goes because it is not doing all that caching to the HD. It's really really bad on traditional 'plater' hard drives btw, not SSDs where you might not hear all the grinding it's doing.

Anyway here are some examples of PDFs and I'll upload my copy of SumatraPDF too for you just to see the differences in loading.

Please fix this, because I really love you guys and you have some great features as well, but like my title says, it to me is unacceptable that a 100~MB file will cause 2.5GBs of temp files just to try and speed things up when in reality it slows your HD down to a crawl because of the insane I/O it is doing.

https://docs.google.com/uc?id=0B9ShI44S ... t=download
http://www.mediafire.com/file/3pxwomm48 ... mes%29.pdf

Hi Special.
This is because Editor by default use disk cache for images. You may turn this off in settings in Performance tab, as shown in attached screenshot.
HTH.

That seems to be an editor exclusive feature? Is there any chance you can add that to your Viewer as well, blah blah I know you claim to 'not support it' anymore and the Editor supersede it, but for a lot of people the Viewer is a much more light weight option for just simple viewing, I have no doubt the code is shared between the two, so I hope this is a quick and easy request.

Hi Special,

Thanks for the post - The Editor was completely re-written from the ground-up and shares almost none of the same code as the Viewer; this is particularly true of the printing and rendering engines. It's not a simple thing and requires that the feature be re-written, from scratch, for the Viewer.

We are not implementing any new features in the Viewer any more, I'm afraid, so you would need to switch to the Editor for this.

Thanks,

Well at least you guys are upfront and honest about this and not "We'll see what we can do." then months later nothing.

I guess I should take a chance instead and ask for features that would improve the editor (IMO) to make it a better "Viewer" instead.

(Should I make a new thread about this for easier tracking?)

Anyway there are two things I would need the Editor to do for me to replace SumatraPDF as my viewer. To the devs here I would suggest downloading SumatraPDF (my link above) and take a look at it to better see what I mean here.

1) In SumatraPDF, holding right click drags the image around, and while holding right click + wheel scroll, zooms the image, this is all done with just the mouse and no need to select different "tools" Hand tool, Snapshot, etc. Having to juggle these tools is one annoying mutha... (This is a must requirement.)

2) In SumatraPDF, hitting F11 does fullscreen, but the shocker here is that it can do two pages side by side in fullscreen, in the Editor it only one single pages.

3) I would try and reduce the size of all those Toolbars in the editor, they are still large, some can't be combined or condensed, etc. If I could combine all this into just a single bar that would be great.



Also here is a Bonus Bug report, if we take my earlier link as an example;

https://docs.google.com/uc?id=0B9ShI44S ... t=download

and go to a page somewhere in the middle, lets say page 200, while viewer 2 pages (facing or whatever) and zoom in to 125%, one of the pages disappears.

Hello Special,

Thanks for your suggestions.

1) I will pass this for consideration.
2) If you set up a keyboard shortcut to show to pages side by side - it's possible with the Editor too
3) You can hide all the default toolbars, and create a completely new one from scratch and only put on it the tools that you actually use.

I will pass the bug report for investigation too!

Regards,
Stefan

To go into a little more detail here;

1) I would like to pan with the right click and drag method, zoom in and out with the right click hold + Scroll wheel (I don't like having to use two hands to hold the Ctrl key), and zoom reset (so I guess "Fit to page") by holding right click and pressing left click. Please make this happen!!!! These things would make it an amazing viewer in my opinion.

2) Okay I did this but it's a little buggy, I use two pages with cover as my default view, so pages look like 1, 2 3, 4 5, 6 7, etc. (which is correct for my example) but in fullscreen mode after using the hotkey to do two page view, pages are like so 1 2, 3 4, 5 6, 7 8, etc. which don't make sense, when going into fullscreen mode it should take into consideration what view you are already using and just use that. Also I don't like how there is NOT that little page gap between pages when in fullscreen two page mode. If these quirks can be ironed out that would be amazing.

A totally separate issue/request here, but can the Editor be set to look for PDFs in a user set directory, by default it always opens the My Document folder, but I keep my work PDFs on my second drive under a Work folder, I'd like to set that as my default. As a workaround I've set a windows shortcut to my work folder in My Document but that's not very clean.

Hi Special.

1) In SumatraPDF, holding right click drags the image around, and while holding right click + wheel scroll, zooms the image, this is all done with just the mouse and no need to select different "tools" Hand tool, Snapshot, etc. Having to juggle these tools is one annoying mutha... (This is a must requirement.)

Interesting features.. Currently I'm not sure for 100% that such stuffs will not cause some conflicts with any existing tool but I guess it can be added in the future builds like an option.

2) In SumatraPDF, hitting F11 does fullscreen, but the shocker here is that it can do two pages side by side in fullscreen, in the Editor it only one single pages.

In the near future we planning to improve usability for fullscreen-mode: for example we will add some new buttons into FullScreen toolbar (it appears in left-bottom corner in fullscreen-mode) and also we may allow customization for this bar, so you will be able to add any other buttons to it...

3) I would try and reduce the size of all those Toolbars in the editor, they are still large, some can't be combined or condensed, etc. If I could combine all this into just a single bar that would be great.

You may create your own toolbar(s), fill it and then hide all existing standard toolbars and menu. It may dramatically reduce size of toolbars pane..

Also here is a Bonus Bug report, if we take my earlier link as an example;

We were unable to reproduce any issue with that.. Can you provide screenshot of program-window after jumping to 200 page?

Best
Regards.

Interesting features.. Currently I'm not sure for 100% that such stuffs will not cause some conflicts with any existing tool but I guess it can be added in the future builds like an option.

Please try to make this work, an option that a user can check to prioritize the mouse or something.

In the near future we planning to improve usability for fullscreen-mode: for example we will add some new buttons into FullScreen toolbar (it appears in left-bottom corner in fullscreen-mode) and also we may allow customization for this bar, so you will be able to add any other buttons to it...

Looking forward to this.

You may create your own toolbar(s), fill it and then hide all existing standard toolbars and menu. It may dramatically reduce size of toolbars pane../quote]
I'll have to try this when I get a chance.

We were unable to reproduce any issue with that.. Can you provide screenshot of program-window after jumping to 200 page?

I made a pretty bad gif of it, I have no idea how to make good gifs so this one will have to do.

1) I would like to pan with the right click and drag method, zoom in and out with the right click hold + Scroll wheel (I don't like having to use two hands to hold the Ctrl key), and zoom reset (so I guess "Fit to page") by holding right click and pressing left click. Please make this happen!!!! These things would make it an amazing viewer in my opinion.

We will think what we can do for that..

2) Okay I did this but it's a little buggy, I use two pages with cover as my default view, so pages look like 1, 2 3, 4 5, 6 7, etc. (which is correct for my example) but in fullscreen mode after using the hotkey to do two page view, pages are like so 1 2, 3 4, 5 6, 7 8, etc. which don't make sense, when going into fullscreen mode it should take into consideration what view you are already using and just use that.

Some pdfs may have own settings how full-screen must be displayed. Good PDF-viewer must obey such parameters like page-transition settings or custom user settings in application's preferences dialogue for full-screen. In that case, if document has specified any pages transitions for fullscreen or user set it in app. preferences for all documents - the pdf-viewer must show it and the two-pages/continuous layout cannot be used together with transitions-effects. That is reason why we always stated the full-screen with single-page layout only..

I guess we can add option like 'Use current pages view in Full-Screen' but it may stop running the pages-transitions effects..

Also I don't like how there is NOT that little page gap between pages when in fullscreen two page mode. If these quirks can be ironed out that would be amazing.

Just hit the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+G (Show Gaps Between Pages) - it will toggle such gaps.

A totally separate issue/request here, but can the Editor be set to look for PDFs in a user set directory, by default it always opens the My Document folder, but I keep my work PDFs on my second drive under a Work folder, I'd like to set that as my default. As a workaround I've set a windows shortcut to my work folder in My Document but that's not very clean.

When you hit the 'Open' button to show the 'Open File' dialog - by default Editor always uses the folder of document that was previously opened(or saved) by you. Initially it is your My Document folder.

Or something is wrong with it on your machine?

Unfortunately but we cannot reproduce such problem with disappearing the pages.
Please export your editor-settings from the system registry, this key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Tracker Software\PDFXEditor\3.0\Settings
archive it and send to support@pdf-xchange.com

I guess we will be able to reproduce and fix your issue..

Editor set up I use to maximize screen real estate using a single line of tool bars. Viewer screen shot for comparison. I open up other tool bars above as needed with shortcut keys. Just some ideas.

We will think what we can do for that..

I guess we can add option like...

Options will satisfy both sides of the camp, a suggestion could to have an option to just disable the right click context menu (because its all redundant anyway Copy/Paste, different tool select, etc. if you have them on a hotbar) and replace it with finer panning/zooming controls.

Just hit the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+G (Show Gaps Between Pages) - it will toggle such gaps.

This does not work in fullscreen (F11).

When you hit the 'Open' button to show the 'Open File' dialog - by default Editor always uses the folder of document that was previously opened(or saved) by you. Initially it is your My Document folder.

This is true but if you open documents else where, such as a temp folder or the browsers download folder, it then will remember that place.

Please export your editor-settings from the system registry...

Will do... but on Tuesday, not going back to work for some settings

Thanks for the feedback Special,

Looking forward to the settings file when you get the chance to provide it!

Cheers,
Stefan