Quote:
Originally Posted by ntamas
When I tried to type words for the first time in this new version, I quickly realized that something is wrong with it. In the previous version without the covering I could immediately see if the typed word is in the dictionary because the index showed the word. In this version, I can't immeditely see if a word is in the dictionary because the top part of the index is covered so I always have to press enter after typing the word or just press the middle of the screen to make the menu bar and the virtual keyboard disappear.
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Ah, got it. What a mess.
The hidden index words is annoying when you have to tap to see them all, maybe to discover that your word isn’t shown. And if it isn’t, there seems no way to redo the search other than selecting a word in the index (the toolbar tap area is taken up by index items), and only then you can try again. At least these do not count as ‘jumps’: as long as you keep doing new searches, you can return to the Library or book with one tap.
It seems most of the trouble is with following hyperlinks. Each one earns you an extra ‘<-‘ (2 taps) to get back to where you can finally return from whence you came.
The disappearance of the Home button means it is harder to exit hyperlink hell, but if you had entered the dictionary from a book, you would still have needed to hit the back button as many times as now to get back to reading it. That was part of the problem: you could hit <- button and never come to the end of it, going back to Library, back to a book before that, back to a previous location, and get lost. Dictionary is the last refuge of <- (well, that and exiting Collection or Series group). I can easily believe they didn’t have this use case (“Use Home button to exit dictionary”), in the zeal to eliminate Home from the toolbar, or that they had it, but shrugged it off rather than make a special case toolbar out of it (there’s plenty of room to have both ‘back’ things up there (Amazon, if you are reading this, you forgot to add a label to let people know <- goes back to the Book (if that’s how you opened dictionary)).
I wish I could see for myself how it worked before with the Index terms. It is difficult to believe that they mucked with this functionality and didn’t notice the issues with that. Easier to think it has always been like this. I do have a few Kindles out on loan that probably have not updated yet, might have to see if I can call one of the loanees and walk them through and have them describe it (or show me on FaceTime or whatever).
Still it is one of those things that 99.44% of Kindle users will not ever notice.