Comment pane author feature

[n0d9McNt01XWHaX0K0bv]

Hi,

not sure if I can't find the feature or this is actually an improvement request.

What I try to achieve is to filter for comments by author A. This works fine for "initial" comments by this author. All replies by Author A to comments from Author B don't show up though. As far as I can see this is true for all the Author related functionality in the comment pane. Group by Author, Show Comments->By Author.

Any chance this could be implemented (or this feature is present but I'm just missing it)?

Thanks,
n0d9McNt01XWHaX0K0bv

[Puffolino]

Hi,
if you like to see modifications within comments pdf won't allow to the same things like word processors can do. Comments are "owned" by it's creator, so the author won't change if the comment is edited. But you can edit the properties of a comment, so another author could be chosen. Maybe it would be enough to select all edited comments (this can be easily done in the comment panel when grouping by modification date) and set a new author "Modified" in the properties (the original author can't be seen anymore, if you'd need to do so, multiple authors like "Modified by A" and "Modified by B" must be used)...

Then you can check the comment filter, you'll see they work as expected

[Dimitar - Tracker Supp]

Thank you for the tips Puffolino

[n0d9McNt01XWHaX0K0bv]

Hi Puffolino,

Thanks for the tip, that is feasible as a workaround. I'm not sure I got across what I meant though. I didn't mean a response by editing the comment.

In the image you see a comment by Author A, where author B is asking for clarification. The reply is a comment itself with its own properties but it doesn't show up as a comment by Author B in the left pane. When filtering for comments only by Author B it disappears completely. The alternative is to create a new sticky close to the comment you want to respond to - but I'd consider that a workaround as well and not really convenient in documents with hundreds of comments.
I agree it's tricky where to show responses since they are part of a thread but I'd still expect the comment to show up as a comment by Author B (I'm not sure about the technical difference between a comment and a response.)

Thanks,
n0d9McNt01XWHaX0K0bv

[Dimitar - Tracker Supp]

Hello n0d9McNt01XWHaX0K0bv,

Could you please provide us with an example file with which you have this issue?

Regards.

[n0d9McNt01XWHaX0K0bv]

Hi Dimitar,

thanks for your response. Attached is the file.

Best Regards,
n0d9McNt01XWHaX0K0bv

test.pdf

(33.27 KiB) Downloaded 78 times

[n0d9McNt01XWHaX0K0bv]

Hi Dimitar,

did you have a chance to look at the document? Do you agree that the behaviour is somewhat odd?

Thanks and Best Regards,
n0d9McNt01XWHaX0K0bv

[Dimitar - Tracker Supp]

Hello n0d9McNt01XWHaX0K0bv,

I apologize for the delayed answer.

I was able to reproduce the problem at my end, so I have forward your case to our developers.

When there is development on this issue I will contact you.

Thank you for your patience and understanding while we are doing our best to solve the problem in the shortest possible time.



Regards.

[BMT216A]

HI Dimitar,
any news to this request? Our users are facing the same issue: Answers to Comments could not be filtered by author because the author of the answers cannot be chosen. Answers to comments made with Adobe Reader are "Notes" instead of "Comments" - perhaps this is the problem?

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hello BMT216A,

We received a reply from our devs back in 2020, that when you are grouping by Author - only the author of the initial comment is considered, and any replies to that are shown in the "Author A" subtree, even if the replies are by another user - as breaking those apart would actually cause confusion and it will be difficult to understand that a specific "Author B" comment is actually a reply to something else if they were split:

So we do not believe the behaviour is wrong, and are not planning on changing it.

If you have a sample of the type of file with answered being "notes" can you please share one with us?

Kind regards,
Stefan

[BMT216A]

Hi Stefan,
for us it is difficult to understand why only Authors from the initial comment can be chosen in filter. It is important that we have the possibility to see all comments (or answers) from one author. In this example User2, User3 and User4 cannot be chosen.

Comments and answers produced with Acrobat have the attribute "Notiz" (German), while Comments produced with PDFX-Change have the attribute "Kommentar" (in screenshot Answer from User4 was made with PDFX-Change). But I think at the end this not crucial for the filter issue.
Best regards!

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Hello, BMT216A

The logic here is that the people replying to the original comment are not "authors". They did not create the comment, but are only replying to it. This is why they do not appear as "authors" to be filtered by. As Dimitar mentioned before, showing these out of order, without the entire thread leading up to a specific comment, would only add confusion to this process; and that is not something we plan to do.

Kind regards,