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tomsem · 11-15-2018, 09:20 PM

I was initially dubious about the new Themes feature, mostly because the UI change pushed XRay and Aa (and Notes? Cannot remember) off of the toolbar, so it takes more taps to get to these.

However, I’m warming up to it:

easy to set up different themes for Portrait and Landscape and switch orientation more quickly (Prior to this, I would want to change one or two page display settings along with Orientation, so switching orientations was so cumbersome I rarely did it)
multiple users of same device can switch to their preferred page display settings quickly (not my use case)
different fonts may need different size/line spacing etc. so that’s also easier to set up and switch

A few refinements I’d like to see:

I’d really like to be able to Lock or Pin page display settings on a per-book basis. So maybe next to the ‘Aa PAGE DISPLAY v’ control, there could be a little ‘padlock’ icon that you tap to enable the lock, ensuring that that book will look the same for subsequent reading sessions on that device. As long as the lock is set, you can modify the current settings or choose another theme without affecting appearance of any other book: settings become ‘local’ to that book. Unlocking reverts to using global page display settings. Books without a locked theme would just use the last theme that is set.
in the Themes panel, one of the options in the menu for the named themes should be ‘Details’, which would bring up a dialog enumerating what page display settings it has, e.g. Font, Page, Reading options so you don’t have to actually select the theme and navigate to each panel to find out what it does.
there seems to be no way to erase or discard a Custom (unnamed) theme, apart from saving it, giving it a name, exiting Font & Page Settings, selecting a different theme, going back into Font & Page Settings/THEMES, and then deleting it (you cannot delete the currently selected theme) — VERY cumbersome workaround to clear this bit of Clutter in the theme selector. (Note that accidentally or intentionally changing text size with pinch gesture will silently create a Custom theme and that will become the selected theme.) Once a Custom theme exists, a message in the THEMES panel offers to ‘Save your current settings to a new theme’ even when a named theme is selected — which is inaccurate, as the ‘current’ settings are derived from the named theme, not the Custom theme that is not selected. So the message is a little confusing, and should be changed, maybe to ‘save your Custom settings’. I think the cleanest way to fix the clutter issue would be to put up a dialog when switching from Custom to a named theme, offering to Cancel (the theme switch), Save (Custom settings as named theme and select it), or Discard (Custom settings and switch).

Anyway, I’m planning to send some suggestions to kindle-feedback about this.

Meanwhile need to add some custom fonts to my new PW4. How many fonts can you fit in 32GB?

11-15-2018, 09:20 PM	#1
tomsem Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,942 Karma: 27060153 Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: USA Device: iPhone 15PM, Kindle Scribe, iPad mini 6, PocketBook InkPad Color 3	Thoughts on Page Display themes feature I was initially dubious about the new Themes feature, mostly because the UI change pushed XRay and Aa (and Notes? Cannot remember) off of the toolbar, so it takes more taps to get to these. However, I’m warming up to it: easy to set up different themes for Portrait and Landscape and switch orientation more quickly (Prior to this, I would want to change one or two page display settings along with Orientation, so switching orientations was so cumbersome I rarely did it) multiple users of same device can switch to their preferred page display settings quickly (not my use case) different fonts may need different size/line spacing etc. so that’s also easier to set up and switch A few refinements I’d like to see: I’d really like to be able to Lock or Pin page display settings on a per-book basis. So maybe next to the ‘Aa PAGE DISPLAY v’ control, there could be a little ‘padlock’ icon that you tap to enable the lock, ensuring that that book will look the same for subsequent reading sessions on that device. As long as the lock is set, you can modify the current settings or choose another theme without affecting appearance of any other book: settings become ‘local’ to that book. Unlocking reverts to using global page display settings. Books without a locked theme would just use the last theme that is set. in the Themes panel, one of the options in the menu for the named themes should be ‘Details’, which would bring up a dialog enumerating what page display settings it has, e.g. Font, Page, Reading options so you don’t have to actually select the theme and navigate to each panel to find out what it does. there seems to be no way to erase or discard a Custom (unnamed) theme, apart from saving it, giving it a name, exiting Font & Page Settings, selecting a different theme, going back into Font & Page Settings/THEMES, and then deleting it (you cannot delete the currently selected theme) — VERY cumbersome workaround to clear this bit of Clutter in the theme selector. (Note that accidentally or intentionally changing text size with pinch gesture will silently create a Custom theme and that will become the selected theme.) Once a Custom theme exists, a message in the THEMES panel offers to ‘Save your current settings to a new theme’ even when a named theme is selected — which is inaccurate, as the ‘current’ settings are derived from the named theme, not the Custom theme that is not selected. So the message is a little confusing, and should be changed, maybe to ‘save your Custom settings’. I think the cleanest way to fix the clutter issue would be to put up a dialog when switching from Custom to a named theme, offering to Cancel (the theme switch), Save (Custom settings as named theme and select it), or Discard (Custom settings and switch). Anyway, I’m planning to send some suggestions to kindle-feedback about this. Meanwhile need to add some custom fonts to my new PW4. How many fonts can you fit in 32GB?