Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy
Technically, "notes" is a stand alone application. What you're talking about is what iRex calls "scribbles". I know what you meant though. 
The main reason is that scribbles are currently only supported on document types with fixed layouts. When you're writing on the screen, it's not saving them to the original document (which may not even be possible in the case of DRM, or if a format only supports text and not images). Rather, it's storing the writings separately and then tracks what page they're on and where to place them on the screen when it's re-showing them. It basically remembers where your scribbles were, and then overlays them when displaying the document.
If you "scribble" on a document type (such as ePub) that has a variable page layout (IE, changing the font or margins will cause the entire document to change... words/lines move around, number of pages increases/decreases, etc) then it becomes extremely difficult to track how to put your scribbles back together when displaying the document. For example, if a word appears on line 5 of a document and you underline it. Then if you change the font size that word is now on line 15, the underline isn't going to be in the right place anymore. Getting the underline to "follow" the original position in the document when it is dynamically changing isn't simple (and probably isn't even possible with some document types).
They've talked about addressing this to a limited extent for variable layout documents in the future, but I don't know if they have a specific idea in mind yet. I think some of the other manufacturers do things like let you write on the screen, but the writing disappears if you do anything that causes the document to reflow. Some of the others don't allow you to write "free hand" at all, but rather you attach a bookmark or footnote to a page and then you write on that. |
Thanks for the info. Makes sense now after your explanation.