A feature that Kindle could use

[Mark Rehorst]

Besides better pdf handling, I have recently found myself switching between three or four technical books and came to the realization that it would be really nice if Kindle had some way to set up a short list of "favorites" that could be quickly accessed with just a couple button presses.

[eSheri]

Does the Collections feature not work for you? I thought it was great for organization & quick access to books. Just create a collection called Favorites and move your books there.
Hope that works for you!

[MickeyMark]

1) Better PDF viewing (pinch zooming and panning)
2) Nested collections (or folders, if you want to call them that)
3) The option to have it "ring" when it downloads a personal document
4) A built in alarm clock
5) Toast bread, and bake cookies!

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by MickeyMark

1) Better PDF viewing (pinch zooming and panning)
2) Nested collections (or folders, if you want to call them that)
3) The option to have it "ring" when it downloads a personal document
4) A built in alarm clock
5) Toast bread, and bake cookies!

[RainingLemur]

Originally Posted by MickeyMark

5) Toast bread, and bake cookies!

My Kindle already does that for me.

Wait, no. That's my wife...Shoot. The Kindle DOES need that feature.

[Mark Rehorst]

Originally Posted by eSheri

Does the Collections feature not work for you? I thought it was great for organization & quick access to books. Just create a collection called Favorites and move your books there.
Hope that works for you!

Collections works, and I use it, but it's a little too slow and involves too much button pushing. I'm talking about really fast, multi book/page view switching. Like the "last" button on the remote control for your TV.

I'm in the process of teaching myself to program microcontrollers in C. That requires looking at C programming books, compiler manuals, IDE manuals, and hardware data sheets, in this case all pdf files, and I find myself flipping back and forth a LOT. I'll look in the books for something specific I want to do, then go to the computer and type some code, run the compiler and use the simulator to check the behavior of the hardware.

Maybe I just need multiple Kindles!

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Mark Rehorst

Maybe I just need multiple Kindles!

You have solved your own problem!

I do think there's a place in the world of digital reading for 'fast switching', if not tiled or tabbed windows. We've had windowed environments for more than 30 years, task switching even longer than that, yet our much more generously endowed ereaders are incapable of this basic function. All it would take is one button or hotkey to switch, and another to toggle an item into and out of 'rotation'. Sigh.

Kindle Cloud Reader actually allows this, but of course that doesn't help the lowly, ground-based Kindle.

If Kindle Fire has a tabbed browser, and Cloud Reader supports that browser, we'll be in business (but I doubt that it will, at least not for awhile).

But on Kindle itself, the best I have been able to come up with is to make a Collection with just the books you want to switch between, sorted in Recent order. Open the bottom book first (least recent). Then to switch to the next book, use Back instead of Home (assuming you haven't jumped a chapter or navigated an href). Back will take you back to the collection you opened the book from, and will be positioned on the next book (the previous one now at the top of the list). Et cetera.

Optimally it only takes 2 clicks to jump to the next book (Back, Select). Of course if you 'jump' within the book, Back will not take you back to the Collection, but rather to the previous location in the same book. And so then you have to use Home and navigate back into the Collection, etc.

I think Amazon messed up a little with the implementation of Collections. I would prefer that Home took you back to the Collection you opened the book from (if you opened from a Collection). A second Home would take you back to the top level. Often one is working with a related collection of items, such as 'current reading', or 'samples', and it's just a little inefficient when you have to navigate back into a Collection that you were just in and wanted to stay in. Lately I have tired of this, and while I still file things in Collections out of habit, I have just been using By Most Recent view instead of Collections view, as the latter requires more clicks to switch among the things I'm actively reading. But of course that doesn't do much to leverage Collections.

[iansoady]

Originally Posted by Mark Rehorst

I'll look in the books for something specific I want to do, then go to the computer and type some code, run the compiler and use the simulator to check the behavior of the hardware.

Maybe I just need multiple Kindles!

If I was doing that I'd probably have the books on the PC and use either Adobe (or better, something like Foxit reader) for the manuals so you can window everything.

I have workshop manuals for my car / motorcycles on the Kindle and on a laptop and the latter is far easier to use.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tomsem

I do think there's a place in the world of digital reading for 'fast switching', if not tiled or tabbed windows. We've had windowed environments for more than 30 years, task switching even longer than that, yet our much more generously endowed ereaders are incapable of this basic function. All it would take is one button or hotkey to switch, and another to toggle an item into and out of 'rotation'. Sigh.

I agree. This is something which the now-defunct iRex DR1000S did extremely well. It allowed you to have multiple documents open, and switch between them with two taps of the stylus (one to bring up the document list, a second to select the document to view). This was great when you were referring to multiple documents at once, as you often are in a business or academic environment.

[Andrew H.]

I would like the option to quickly switch between pages in the same document - this would be particularly handy for books with maps.