Firmware Update Kindle adds Page Numbers (and more)

[Piper_]

Has nothing to do with "old mentalities."

It is the geek in me that recognizes that locations are bad UI and hates using them. Most people I see lauding them don't have a clue how they are calculated, and they attribute things to them that they do not do, as if highlights and such rely on locations for precision.

Aside from the numbers that require too much calculation and the crazy "1357-64" display of range, the worst is related to the fact that no one can predict or figure how many locations they are looking at. You can have one full screen of text that holds 50 locations, and the next full screen holds 10 locations.

All of that is flat-out bad UI, so no one should be surprised at the negative reception.

They also can't be standardized, and have no future as the disparity would only get worse as ebooks became more sophisticated.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Piper_

Has nothing to do with "old mentalities."

It is the geek in me that recognizes that locations are bad UI and hates using them. Most people I see lauding them don't have a clue how they are calculated, and they attribute things to them that they do not do, as if highlights and such rely on locations for precision.

Aside from the numbers that require too much calculation and the crazy "1357-64" display of range, the worst is related to the fact that no one can predict or figure how many locations they are looking at. You can have one full screen of text that holds 50 locations, and the next full screen holds 10 locations.

All of that is flat-out bad UI, so no one should be surprised at the negative reception.

They also can't be standardized, and have no future as the disparity would only get worse as ebooks became more sophisticated.

I disagree. The people who laud them know exactly how they work: you enter a number and you go back to that same point each time with far more precision than a typical printed page, regardless of display page size. They do not need to know any more about how they work. That's good. While there's not way to easily know how many locations you are looking at, short of estimating byte counts, there is also no need to. The ranged display is a confusing UI choice, I agree. They opted for detail over clarity.

They certainly can be standardized. It simply may not be the Kindle standard that is adopted. It is certainly possible to define a single standard of representing precise position in an ebook, and stuff like multimedia and other features can be accommodated. It's a virtual certainty that not everyone will like or follow a standard, though.

[Piper_]

Originally Posted by ApK

I disagree. The people who laud them know exactly how they work: you enter a number and you go back to that same point each time with far more precision than a typical printed page, regardless of display page size. They do not need to know any more about how they work. That's good. While there's not way to easily know how many locations you are looking at, short of estimating byte counts, there is also no need to. The ranged display is a confusing UI choice, I agree. They opted for detail over clarity.

They certainly can be standardized. It simply may not be the Kindle standard that is adopted. It is certainly possible to define a single standard of representing precise position in an ebook, and stuff like multimedia and other features can be accommodated. It's a virtual certainty that not everyone will like or follow a standard, though.

I didn't say the people didn't know how they work. I said they didn't know how they were calculated.
i.e., many people based their approval on a mistaken belief that they counted paragraphs, lines, or characters, or were needed for highlighting, etc. That would have been fine, if it were true.

I'll leave it at that, except to say that the proof of bad UI is in the results of a usability study, and those results are hard to deny, considering the never-ending negative feedback from users.

Anyway, I really shouldn't have responded, hard to ignore the repeated challenges as they were. This subject is OT and the points from both sides have been posted covered ad nauseum in countless threads.

[lyric]

Originally Posted by tomsem

I've just discovered something interesting about page numbers. I purchased a book directly from O'Reilly - also available in the Kindle Store - and sideloaded the .mobi format from them (no DRM!). Somehow, it downloaded a page number file (.apnx) and displays page numbers! I'm still trying to figure out just how...

Did you use the latest version of Calibre to load the book? It creates an apxn file with (approximate) page numbering for you automatically!

[speedlever]

Originally Posted by lyric

Did you use the latest version of Calibre to load the book? It creates an apxn file with (approximate) page numbering for you automatically!

How does that work? Do I need to delete books I sent to my K3 via calibre and resend them with the latest version in order to get page numbers? Does it make a difference if you side-load books vs emailing via myaccount@kindle.com? I normally do the email transfer.

[JeremyR]

Originally Posted by Piper_

Aside from the numbers that require too much calculation and the crazy "1357-64" display of range, the worst is related to the fact that no one can predict or figure how many locations they are looking at. You can have one full screen of text that holds 50 locations, and the next full screen holds 10 locations.

Hmmm, I've never noticed that much variation. Usually it's more like 6-8, depending on how much white space is on the screen.

I'm not crazy about locations myself, but it does generally let me know with some basic math that I can do in my head easily how many page clicks I have until the end of the book.

Which actual book pages doesn't accomplish. And percentage by itself is just completely worthless (and redundant, you can see that by the bar). Why they just can't tell you how many clicks is beyond me. Seems like it would be easy to calculate, and more readily useful.

[speedlever]

I would be happy with the option for dynamic page numbers, based on text size and line spacing. I would think that should be easy to implement.

[Barneyabz]

Originally Posted by speedlever

I would be happy with the option for dynamic page numbers, based on text size and line spacing. I would think that should be easy to implement.

Another vote for simple page numbers based on the screen you see.

Cheers

Barney

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Piper_

I didn't say the people didn't know how they work. I said they didn't know how they were calculated.

I understand. My point was just that end users don't need to know how they are calculated to use them for their intended purpose.

speedlever et al: Regarding the dynamic click-based page numbering, I can understand the value as an option, but can you imagine the support calls Amazon would get when people changes a font size to read at night or in the car and then can't get back to the page they thought they were on?

ApK

[speedlever]

I suppose there are pros and cons to every way to mark a page; either by location, dynamic or hard page number, or %age.

I don't know how to get back to a certain %age location other than just paging through until I get there. I have better luck just searching on a keyword and going to that location to get me close enough to catch up. I agree that %age and the location bar seem redundant.

No big deal to me, either way, at this point. Just a matter of convenience.

[WT Sharpe]

A very nice feature I just discovered is that when you copy a passage to the My Clippings file, it now quotes the passage along with both location AND page number (as long as the book is one of those that has been converted to display both). Being as how that's the only time I really need either page numbers or locations, except for during navigation when they're displayed by default, I suppose I'm a really happy Kindler.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by lyric

Did you use the latest version of Calibre to load the book? It creates an apxn file with (approximate) page numbering for you automatically!

Yes, that's what happened (not necessarily to my liking however).

[ApK]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Yes, that's what happened (not necessarily to my liking however).

It's an option in Calibre that can be turned off (at least in the .46 version).

ApK

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by ApK

It's an option in Calibre that can be turned off (at least in the .46 version).

ApK

Yep, that was added in .46, along with a 'slower and more accurate' option (the 'quick and less accurate' method generated about 4x the number of pages that the physical book has). I'll be playing with it some more, but haven't been impressed with it so far. But then, I was never someone wanting page numbers in the first place.

[yifanlu]

I haven't seen this posted yet, but I think 3.1 is finally out of beta.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custom...deId=200529700

See the page, it no longer says "Early Preview Release" as it did this morning. However, the download is exactly the same as the "preview release"

Also, on that page (newly added):

The Kindle software update 3.1 is only available for download over Wi-Fi or from this page. Connect to a Wi-Fi network and the update will download in the next few days, or download the correct file listed above.