Several bookmark and note issues and suggestions (Pre-release build 0.6)

[amirsol81]

I am using the pre-release build 0.6 of Paperback and have noticed several issues and usability problems related to bookmarks and notes. Since they are closely related, I am reporting them together in a single issue.

1. “Bookmark 1,” “Bookmark 2,” etc. should not be announced.
   When navigating between bookmarks using B and Shift + B, Paperback speaks phrases such as “Bookmark 1,” “Bookmark 2,” “Bookmark 3,” and so on before reading the bookmarked text. This announcement is unnecessary and distracting. For example, links are not announced with “Link 1,” “Link 2,” etc., so bookmarks should behave similarly. The extra label should be removed.
2. Entire paragraphs are read in the bookmark list instead of the bookmarked sentence.
   As I mentioned in a previous report, if a bookmark or note is created inside a sentence that has not been manually selected, Paperback reads the entire paragraph in the bookmarks list, not just the sentence where the bookmark or note was placed. This becomes very inconvenient when the paragraph is long. The list should read only the sentence that contains the bookmark or note, or just the selected text if one exists.
3. Bookmarks and notes should be functionally separated.
   Although bookmarks and notes are technically similar, they serve different purposes in practice. For a better user experience:
   • B / Shift + B should move only between bookmarks that have no notes attached.
   • N / Shift + N should move between notes.
   • The current option “Bookmark with note” should be renamed to “Create note”.
   • Notes should appear in a separate dialog (for example, Jump to note) independent of the bookmark list.
   This separation would also make Paperback’s behavior consistent with other accessible readers such as Bookworm and Kurzweil 1000, where bookmarks and notes are clearly distinguished.
4. No pause between reading a note and its referenced text.
   In the current version, when you reach a bookmark that contains a note, Paperback first reads the note text and then immediately reads the passage it belongs to, without any pause or indication between them. This makes it difficult to tell where the note ends and the main text begins.
   If the suggestions in point 3 are implemented (showing notes in a separate Jump to note dialog), this issue would naturally be resolved. In that dialog, only the note texts themselves should be spoken, not the associated book passages.

[trypsynth]

Hi,

1. “Bookmark 1,” “Bookmark 2,” etc. should not be announced. When navigating between bookmarks using B and Shift + B, Paperback speaks phrases such as “Bookmark 1,” “Bookmark 2,” “Bookmark 3,” and so on before reading the bookmarked text. This announcement is unnecessary and distracting. For example, links are not announced with “Link 1,” “Link 2,” etc., so bookmarks should behave similarly. The extra label should be removed.

Agreed, thanks for bringing this to my attention. I thought I already did this at the request of a user, but I don't use bookmarks so didn't notice it broke.

2. Entire paragraphs are read in the bookmark list instead of the bookmarked sentence.As I mentioned in a previous report, if a bookmark or note is created inside a sentence that has not been manually selected, Paperback reads the entire paragraph in the bookmarks list, not just the sentence where the bookmark or note was placed. This becomes very inconvenient when the paragraph is long. The list should read only the sentence that contains the bookmark or note, or just the selected text if one exists.

I don't really agree, no. If you want it to just read what you have selected, you can select it. I get why you may want this, but it's impossibly difficult to know where one sentence starts and another ends in English alone (is Mr. the start of a new sentence?) and that's before we factor in other languages. Just so we're clear, I'd sort of like this myself, but it probably won't happen because it would be hard to code and also sort of weird, how would you know how long the bookmark should extend for? Maybe I want to bookmark that whole paragraph.

3. Bookmarks and notes should be functionally separated.Although bookmarks and notes are technically similar, they serve different purposes in practice. For a better user experience: • B / Shift + B should move only between bookmarks that have no notes attached. • N / Shift + N should move between notes. • The current option “Bookmark with note” should be renamed to “Create note”. • Notes should appear in a separate dialog (for example, Jump to note) independent of the bookmark list. This separation would also make Paperback’s behavior consistent with other accessible readers such as Bookworm and Kurzweil 1000, where bookmarks and notes are clearly distinguished.

I also don't really agree on this one, we can let other users weigh in but personally I really like it. Find something interesting while doing research for a college paper? Okay, bookmark it. I want to remember this one particular idea I had while reading another piece of info in the same book for the same paper? Place another bookmark, but this time with a note. I guess I just personally don't see the benefit to all notes being completely singled out, although maybe we could add a filter to the all bookmarks dialog to let you filter only by notes or only by bookmarks without a note?

4. No pause between reading a note and its referenced text.In the current version, when you reach a bookmark that contains a note, Paperback first reads the note text and then immediately reads the passage it belongs to, without any pause or indication between them. This makes it difficult to tell where the note ends and the main text begins.If the suggestions in point 3 are implemented (showing notes in a separate Jump to note dialog), this issue would naturally be resolved. In that dialog, only the note texts themselves should be spoken, not the associated book passages.

I agree that this is annoying, but it's not the sort of thing I can solve super cleanly. I guess I could check if the last character of your note excluding whitespace isn't punctuation, and add it then? But if I just, for example, always add a period, and you put a period at the end of your note text, you'd hear "dot dot".

Thanks for the suggestions!

[amirsol81]

Hi @trypsynth

Agreed, thanks for bringing this to my attention. I thought I already did this at the request of a user, but I don't use bookmarks so didn't notice it broke.

Thanks. I was that user .

I don't really agree, no. If you want it to just read what you have selected, you can select it. I get why you may want this, but it's impossibly difficult to know where one sentence starts and another ends in English alone (is Mr. the start of a new sentence?) and that's before we factor in other languages. Just so we're clear, I'd sort of like this myself, but it probably won't happen because it would be hard to code and also sort of weird, how would you know how long the bookmark should extend for? Maybe I want to bookmark that whole paragraph.

OK - no problem. I can live with this one, and your logic is something I can't argue against. As long as the bookmark is limited to what we select, I'm happy.

I also don't really agree on this one, we can let other users weigh in but personally I really like it. Find something interesting while doing research for a college paper? Okay, bookmark it. I want to remember this one particular idea I had while reading another piece of info in the same book for the same paper? Place another bookmark, but this time with a note. I guess I just personally don't see the benefit to all notes being completely singled out, although maybe we could add a filter to the all bookmarks dialog to let you filter only by notes or only by bookmarks without a note?

Well, what you raised is the actual distinction between bookmarks and notes: remembering a position, vs adding a note to a sentence or word. As bookmarks and notes increase, moving around notes while ignoring bookmarks, or vice versa, would become more difficult. However, the idea of a filter in the Bookmarks dialog mostly resolves this issue. Something like Show all bookmarks, and Show bookmarks with notes.

I agree that this is annoying, but it's not the sort of thing I can solve super cleanly. I guess I could check if the last character of your note excluding whitespace isn't punctuation, and add it then? But if I just, for example, always add a period, and you put a period at the end of your note text, you'd hear "dot dot".

Yes. That's very true. A period at the end of notes can resolve this, so let's keep it as is. Just one suggestion, any chance of altering it so that we can use SHIFT+Enter to create new lines in the Create a note dialog? Sometimes we need to add multi-line or multi-paragraph notes, but the text box doesn't accept new line markers in the form of SHIFT+Enter.

Thanks for the suggestions!

My pleasure, and thanks for your time and efforts!

[trypsynth]

Okay, the bookmarks prefix issue should now be fixed, it now goes at the end, like bookmark text - bookmark 1.
I can definitely look into adding shift+enter in the note dialog.
You consider them to be different, and from a user's perspective I can see why which is why I suggested something like a filter system or maybe allowing n and shift+n like you suggested but just keeping the one dialog. That said, as the developer (which I realize is a unique perspective) to me they seem the exact same. A marker position in the text, optionally that can span over multiple characters. If it does, the text it spans over is its marked text, otherwise it marks the line. Notes have the exact same properties, in addition to allowing you to add text to them.
One possible way to fix this could be to make notes only placeable at one-character boundaries, e.g. like how bookmarks used to work and do without any text selected, and moving to one will only read the note text, not the line?
I'm definitely open to thoughts here.

[amirsol81]

@trypsynth Thanks for your attention to details.
Well, from the development point of view, they are the same. But from the usability point of view, they are not. I use notes for different reasons while I use bookmarks to simply mark a place for ease of finding sections when proper headings don't exist. But, if doable, I suggest:

1. Using N and SHIFT+N for notes only. B and SHIFT+B can be used for bookmarks only, or for both.
2. Using your suggested filter in the Bookmarks dialog. This is quite appealing even if N and SHIFT+N aren't added.

I still like the idea of attaching notes to selected text, so please keep it as is. And thanks for looking into the possibility of entering paragraph marks into notes with SHIFT+Enter.

[SeanRandall]

I personally would prefer that bookmarks and notes be entirely separate things, inasmuch as a bookmark is a defined place in the text whereas a note has a comment. I'm up for bookmarks being diversified - when I was a student I regularly used different-coloured highlights and that's an area where bookmarks could be expanded. I think I'd find it frustrating to b through bookmarks and having to press excessively to avoid notes and vice-versa in a longer text, because wanting to find a spot I'd pre-marked and a comment I'd written are, to me, different use cases, just as a heading and a link are different things. Both might indicate or navigate to a specific part of the text, but they do it in a very different way.

[amirsol81]

I fully understand what @trypsynth puts forward, but I tend to concur with @SeanRandall here. As a long-time K1000 user, I tend to use bookmarks and notes for different purposes. Even in MS Word they mean different things though notes are called comments there. Ideally I'd like to be able to move among notes with N and SHIFT+N in Paperback, and be able to filter the Bookmarks dialog to display notes only for ease of access and better concentration.

[a-singer]

I don't have much to add to the excellent ideas here except to say that I would like to be able to move through notes and move through bookmarks in distinct ways. Even if the distinction is just in the UI, it would be nice to be able to say, somehow, "go to the next/previous note" and say, in a different way "go to the next/previous bookmark without anything else in it". It would also be nice to list all/only bookmarks and list all/only notes.

[trypsynth]

Fair enough, you all bring up some excellent points, and I'll add n and shift+n, as well as letting you filter the bookmarks dialog, both with a combo box in the dialog itself and specific menu items with shortcuts to open the dialog with only notes, only bookmarks, and possibly all selected by default.

[amirsol81]

@trypsynth Wow - thanks! Your efforts are much appreciated.

[aryanchoudharypro]

Fair enough, you all bring up some excellent points, and I'll add n and shift+n, as well as letting you filter the bookmarks dialog, both with a combo box in the dialog itself and specific menu items with shortcuts to open the dialog with only notes, only bookmarks, and possibly all selected by default.

are you going to do it for 0.6 itself?

[amirsol81]

@trypsynth I'd also like to thank you for giving us the ability to download a new Paperback set-up with each Github pull request! This is, simply put, fantastic, and it means that we don't need to wait for each major release to take advantage of new features and bug fixes. I update Paperback via these set-ups once or twice per day!

[SeanRandall]

While we're talking about improvements, I wanted to raise the issue of keyboarding again.
is there anything we can do to make it easier on the fingers for adding bookmarks, both with and without notes?
The old-school way of doing this would have been a toolbar: you have it toggleable in the view menu and, when it's visible, buttons can be clicked, or you could use alt_n to add a note and alt+b for a bookmark, for example.
ctrl+shift+n for a note breaks my flow and concentration somehow. It's a terribly minor, nigglesome thing but, hey: if y' don't ask, right?

I was

[trypsynth]

Hi Sean,
I want to make it possible to completely customize Paperback's keymap someday, so this will definitely be possible then :)