Thread: [All models] touch layer precision / small references numbers
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Old 02-22-2018, 06:57 PM   #4
davidfor
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Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Sydney, Australia
Device: Kobo:Touch,Glo, AuraH2O, GloHD,AuraONE, ClaraHD, Libra H2O; tolinoepos
Quote:
Originally Posted by datanoise View Post
The hardware isn't better than say kindle but it's purely a software issue? Why did they choose the spot to be so little? It's barely usable...
Alternatively, why did the book designer choose to make the footnote link so small? Or a slightly different question, why are you reading in a font that is to small for you to use all the features of the device?

These questions aren't meant as a criticism, but to point out some difficulties with this sort of thing.

The developers of any tool have to make decisions on how to do things. In this case, they had to decide how to render the link and the tap area. The code in the book defines the link and that includes the size. Strictly, if the tap area is larger than the link defined by the book code, they are not respecting the book code. And what happens if there are multiple footnotes next to each other?

The kepub renderer does handle the links differently. And it does increase the tap area size for footnotes. Why the difference I don't really know, but it is probably related to the underlying libraries used. For epubs, the Adobe RMSDK is used, for kepubs, ACCESS or NETFRONT or something is used (I've lost track of this). What these do probably limit what Kobo can do in the display and touch area.

The epub renderer is quite a faithful rendering of the book code. There are lots of opinions expressed here about whether this is good or bad. And a lot of them are of the type: "Yes, they must be faithful, except in this one little area".

My opinion on this is that the book developers need to get away from the idea of a tiny little superscript number for footnotes. It is bad enough but sort of understandable in print books, but is completely pointless in ebooks. Make the word or phrase a link to the footnote. Something nice and easy to select.

Also, there will be some hardware limits on this. The touch resolution will define the smallest area that can be treated as tap zone of some sort. Then there is the size and accuracy of the finger doing the tapping. Those combined will mean a lot of us miss the area we need to tap.
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