File load order of Session documents

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Timur Born
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File load order of Session documents

Post by Timur Born »

Hello.

How does Editor decide the load order of documents when a session is loaded (what loads first, what last)? I would like to change that order for my sessions.
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Tracker Supp-Stefan
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Re: File load order of Session documents

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello Timur Born,

Is it the order in which your files will be displayed that you want to change, or the actual physical order in which they are loaded (e.g. say smaller files first as they are faster, and then the last 1-2 huge files last)?

Kind regards,
Stefan
Timur Born
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Re: File load order of Session documents

Post by Timur Born »

Physical order by which they are loaded. I seem to have found out that Editor loads files by the order they were opened before a session is saved. So for my specific sessions I went through the small ordeal to load them in the order I need.

The reason I care for the load order is that this also is the order of Editor windows being opened when a session is loaded. I am using separate Editor windows (thematically) for separate search results (please improve search!) and then group said windows via Groupy. And Groupy's tab order is equivalent to the load/open order of Editor windows, so it matters by which order they are opened. Groupy tabs can easily be re-arranged, but doing this everytime I open a session is a bit more redundant than I like. ;)

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Re: File load order of Session documents

Post by Vasyl-Tracker Dev Team »

Hi Timur.

When we save a session and when each doc is in a separate window (mainframe) - then we have only two options to save their order:
- mainframes in their creation order (is fixed)
- mainframes in their activation order (is dynamic)
And at the moment we save all mainframes in their creation order. In your case, when you manually changed the order of corresponding tabs in the Groupy utility - how can we find out anything about this? Or even without this utility, when you just manually reordered Editor-tabs on your taskbar - should we also detect it and reflect it in the saved session? Not sure about it at the moment. Moreover, after a bit of research, we noticed that Windows doesn't have a "natural" and reliable way to get the visible order of tabs inside the taskbar. :(

Cheers.
Vasyl Yaremyn
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Timur Born
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Re: File load order of Session documents

Post by Timur Born »

I understand. Maybe make the session file editable to change load order manually by the user?

The whole reason I am using separate Editor windows and Groupy is because Editor does not display search results per tab, but only per window.
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Re: File load order of Session documents

Post by Vasyl-Tracker Dev Team »

Hi Timur.
Maybe make the session file editable to change load order manually by the user?
Unfortunately the data in a session is too complex for manual customization. Its not a simple list of objects but very deep tree that may contain multiple roots(=mainframes). Each 'root' contains own subtree that exactly describes layout of frame's panes and doc-tab-groups inside each frame...

I understand that in your usage scenario it might be important to have an individual search-pane per document tab. However, for a major number of use-cases it would certainly be redundant to have so many 'duplicates'. Having the option to switch modes, between 'per-frame' and 'per-tab', for the search-pane - that may be possible, but is quite complicated. This may change if we see heavy user demand, but for the moment, there is very little demand for this handling.

Cheers.
Vasyl Yaremyn
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Timur Born
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Re: File load order of Session documents

Post by Timur Born »

This assessment confuses me. Currently Editor displays invalid search results whenever a document tab is switched. If users open multiple files then they need per file search results.

And even many years after Apple's PDF viewer offered sorted search results (by rank or at least by number of hits per page) Editor still only sorts chronologically (by page number). There are no sorting options whatsoever, which for PDF files going in the hundreds or thousands of pages is a real downer.

So having search results at least match the currently active tab/document for easier search access is what I would expect from a document viewing application. Luckily the Groupy workaround in combination with Editor's sessions eases the pain some.
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Re: File load order of Session documents

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello Timur Born,

Your comments have been passed on to our devs, and Vasyl will get back to you shortly with further feedback!

Kind regards,
Stefan
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Re: File load order of Session documents

Post by Vasyl-Tracker Dev Team »

Hi Timur.
If users open multiple files then they need per file search results.
How about simple and very common case when user wants to search in folder? How user will do this having just search-per-doc option?? Should he OPEN ALL pdf-files from that folder to search in them? Obviously, this is an unusable way when folder has tens/hundreds/thousands of pdfs... Or should we allow 'searh-in-folder' option in this search-per-doc pane too? If yes, then, to be able to search in a folder, does the user have to open at least one doc-tab? Do you see how difficult and unnatural it will be for many people, for this scenario?
Probably there is better to think about improving the Find-feature that is per-doc only and currently has only GotoPrev/GotoNext buttons to navigate through the find-results. With the full list of find-results, similar to the one in Search-pane we have - hope it will be good solution for your case..
And even many years after Apple's PDF viewer offered sorted search results (by rank or at least by number of hits per page) Editor still only sorts chronologically (by page number). There are no sorting options whatsoever, which for PDF files going in the hundreds or thousands of pages is a real downer.
We will check this, thanks for the tip.

Cheers.
Vasyl Yaremyn
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Timur Born
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Re: File load order of Session documents

Post by Timur Born »

Search in folder results can work the same as it does not with per window search results. Tabs just need to offer the same option (!) that windows already offer. When I use 10 windows then I can get up to 10 search results, when I use 10 tabs then I can only get 1 search result. The latter can be useful on its own, but most of the time it is a restriction (for my use case).

My workaround is a good one, mostly even more useful than just using tabs in a single window. The only drawback is the load order, which cannot be changed once a session is saved.
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Re: File load order of Session documents

Post by Vasyl-Tracker Dev Team »

Hi Timur.
When I use 10 windows then I can get up to 10 search results, when I use 10 tabs then I can only get 1 search result.
In cases when you looking for the same criteria in all 10 tabs - the current way is certainly better than others. Because, 'in one click', you are quite literally able to search in ALL tabs as well, and in the result-window you can get something like:

Code: Select all

- Document1
      Entry1 
      Entry2
      ...
- Document2
      Entry3 
      Entry4
      ...
...
Clicking on any DocumentN.EntryM will immediately switch you to the corresponding entry on the corresponding document tab. So, you still have a simple option to see ALL the entries found in all open tabs, and in one spot. Of course, this solution has its pros and cons, but displaying all results in one window is the fastest way to see all entries in all open tabs.

However, for the search per doc and with individual search-criteria - the current simple Find-feature is capable, but it doesn't show you ALL found entries, just has Prev/Next to navigate through them. That is the moment which can be improved in the future. At the moment I cannot say exactly how it will be improved but it will be..

Cheers.
Vasyl Yaremyn
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Timur Born
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Re: File load order of Session documents

Post by Timur Born »

Which of course also works for separate windows (mostly), so having separate search results does not take away from that.
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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File load order of Session documents

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

:)
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
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Timur Born
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Re: File load order of Session documents

Post by Timur Born »

Vasyl-Tracker Dev Team wrote: Tue Nov 16, 2021 10:17 pmIn cases when you looking for the same criteria in all 10 tabs - the current way is certainly better than others. Because, 'in one click', you are quite literally able to search in ALL tabs as well
I'd like to emphasize again. You can do the same thing when search results are per window, so why not also allow search results per tab? It would not limit the possibility of searching for the same thing in all tabs while adding the possibility of searching for different things in different tabs.
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: File load order of Session documents

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hello, Timur Born

Thank you for the emphasis, I cannot promise that we will see a change here, but it is being considered.

Kind regards,
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

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