calibre 5: Beta testers needed

[apricoto]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

1. yes tapping in the top 1/3 rd of the screen will open the controls, that's how controls are accessed. Unless you tap a link in which case the link is activated, or do a long tap, which will start a highlight

2. An x is used to close things, am not coming up with a special icon for it

3. click them and find out

4. moving the cursor left does not scroll pages, moving it up into the top or down into the bottom margin scrolls pages

5. Click the nice export button on the highlights panel to export highlights wherever you want them

6. Its a standard list control, used everywhere. Are you saying you cant distinguish list items anywhere in calibre?

7. I have no idea what this means

8. Pressing and moving your finger means you are swiping, swiping either takes you to the next/previous page or chapter depending on the motion. Dont do that. If you want to start highlighting, tap and hold.

thanks. impressively quick response.

1. perhaps I wasn't clear. Problem is that sometimes trying to annotate or open a link, opens the the controls instead.

2. understood. perhaps a different color for highlights, etc X, or more physical separation?

3. :-) i guess that's one way. for the sake of new users of annotations, perhap slightly different wording>

4. this is not what I found. moving cursor,(or finger) a bit too far to left into page margin suddenly highlighted 3 pages.

5. I suppose that is true. I will ask differently: If the Calibre epubs are in a folder on sd card, and the sd card is moved to another device, will the annotations move with the sd card?, or are they stored in another file/folder on C:

6, 7. I was expecting to see a collection of highlights rather than the first line of each bit of highlighted text, and was thinking of the "highlight" command in popup as a way to give a title to the highlight rather than for annotating. (after all, I had already highlighted the text, and the pencil tooltip says 'highlight', not 'annotate'. my misunderstanding.

8. yes, in an ideal world. yet I have found myself more than a page away from where I started. Like I said, I might press and hold to highlight, highlight wasn't happening, i pull my finger off to try again and boom, I am somewhere else in the book, and not just at the previous page. this sort of thing has happened several times. Happened again just know. touchscreen> landscape, 2 pages on screen>long press top of right page attempting to highlight several lines. Instead only one word highlights and the continuing to drag my finger takes me to another page, somewhere. Sometimes I wind up several pages back, sometimes forward. And then I have to try to guess where I have landed, to get back to where I was.

I had stopped using Calibre for reading because of the lack of highlighting/annotating. Am back to it now experimenting with this new feature. But this behavior will send me back to using pdf reader. I can't believe that I am the only person having this issue. Maybe there needs to be fewer ways to move between pages. Is it possible to turn off all page moving actions except one? eg: if I want to go next page I have to tap on right side edge, no swiping anywhere on page, or at top, or bottom, or....? too many options.

Thanks for responding to this long list of comments.

[JimmXinu]

Does Calibre not flush the library DB to disk when changing libraries?

I was pretty sure it does, or at least did, but I don't have another explanation for something I saw the other date:

I do my plugin dev testing in the same Calibre install I use as my 'daily driver', but in a different library. Currently, that install is 64bit v4.99.12 on Win10. I run Calibre in debug mode from a command prompt with calibre-debug -g.

Using a test library, I was testing something in FFF that was generating too much network traffic and I wanted to kill it quick. I did Ctrl-C in the command prompt by ancient reflex.

The weird thing is that my main library--which I wasn't in at the time--was missing all the changes that I had made to it before running that test in the test library. Updates to columns for existing books where lost, a deleted book was back (but not the dirs and formats on disk), and new created books were in the library dir, but not the DB.

[kovidgoyal]

@JimmXinu: There is no flush to disk step. The database is sqlite any write changes are made immediately, in transactions which are committed as soon as the change is completed.

@apricoto:

1) Cannot reproduce, presumably you are missing the link. As for starting a highlight, you tap and hold till the bar pops up, I dont see how that could possibly pop the controls, since it cannot be mistaken for a tap.

2) Or maybe you will simply get used to them with time. No one else seems to have this issue.

3) Am happy to improve the wording, suggestions are most welcome.

4) Also cannot reproduce, reproduction steps would be appreciated

5) Annotations are stored inside epub files by default, can be turned off the misc section of the viewer preferences.

8) Lets see if anyone else complains of this, I'm not adding the ability to disable touch controls just for one person.

[nixsee]

Apricoto, I think you misunderstand what highlights and annotations are - highlights are literally that, just a highlighted segment of text and the browser lists those segments. There's no "title" for it - that's what an annotation is: you highlight and then add a note.

Kovid, I think apricoto's #6 has some merit - there could maybe be a couple more pixels of padding between the rows in the Highlights Browser, if possible.

Another suggestion: is it possible to have an indicator in the Highlight Browser and Annotation Browser of which highlight style was used for each one? They generally have some systematic relevance, so being able to see them at a glance would be very useful.

[apricoto]

double tapping on highlight listing got this error:

calibre, version 4.99.12
ERROR: Unhandled error: Uncaught TypeError: elem.scrollIntoView is not a function<br><span style="font-size:smaller">Error at userscript:viewer.js:12372:18</span>

Traceback (most recent call last):
at Number.onload (userscript:viewer.js:16852:21)
at IframeBoss.content_loaded (userscript:viewer.js:24670:18)
at IframeBoss.content_loaded_stage2 (userscript:viewer.js:24696:26)
at IframeBoss.jump_to_cfi (userscript:viewer.js:19409:13)
at scroll_to (userscript:viewer.js:13798:33)
at ScrollViewport.flow_scroll_into_view (userscript:viewer.js:12372:18)
TypeError: elem.scrollIntoView is not a function.


the book text disappeared, so double tapping did take me to text. closed and reopened book. text still gone, highlights window open> double tapping highlight got same error:
calibre, version 4.99.12
ERROR: Unhandled error: Uncaught TypeError: elem.scrollIntoView is not a function<br><span style="font-size:smaller">Error at userscript:viewer.js:12372:18</span>

Traceback (most recent call last):
at Number.onload (userscript:viewer.js:16852:21)
at IframeBoss.content_loaded (userscript:viewer.js:24670:18)
at IframeBoss.content_loaded_stage2 (userscript:viewer.js:24696:26)
at IframeBoss.jump_to_cfi (userscript:viewer.js:19409:13)
at scroll_to (userscript:viewer.js:13798:33)
at ScrollViewport.flow_scroll_into_view (userscript:viewer.js:12372:18)
TypeError: elem.scrollIntoView is not a function


I've closed the highlight window, but still no text. close the book viewer, reopen> text is there. open highlight window> double click a highlight> same error and text disappears..

[kovidgoyal]

@apricoto: ALready reported and fixed for next beta.

[Katja_hbg]

hi Kovid, I just try to install beta 5 on my old notepad but it seems not to work as it expect win 8 or higher.
My pc is already on win 10 but the notepad cannot be updated. Is there any chance to run calibre 5 on win 7?

[kovidgoyal]

No, I'm afraid not, calibre 5 wont run on win7.

[apricoto]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

@JimmXinu: There is no flush to disk step. The database is sqlite any write changes are made immediately, in transactions which are committed as soon as the change is completed.

@apricoto:



2) Or maybe you will simply get used to them with time. No one else seems to have this issue.

3) Am happy to improve the wording, suggestions are most welcome.

4) Also cannot reproduce, reproduction steps would be appreciated

5) Annotations are stored inside epub files by default, can be turned off the misc section of the viewer preferences.

8) Lets see if anyone else complains of this, I'm not adding the ability to disable touch controls just for one person.

3) preferences>scrolling behavior> screen fulls, should be screens full. Its a common error. its the screens that are multiple, not the full.

4) fair. it I come up with more precise steps i'll let you know.

5) after I wrote i saw a line about it preferences.

8) I did try switching from page view to continuous, which perhaps eliminates some of the problems, though here I find that I have to be very precise about pausing on screen when scrolling before lifting finger, or the screen will continue to scroll several more lines. And the text increasing or decreasing in size. Because one finger was too close to, or touched, the screen while scrolling? haven't had these problems with other programs. I liken the multitude of touch screen options to having an automobile steering wheel that will simply steer only if hands are in a particular precise place, touch in some other place and radio turns on or off, lights go on or off, or car speeds up or slows down. It would make people crazy. I would prefer having one way to move pages forward or back and turn the other options off. Or leave on which ever ones you use. Few people will write you about things that they don't like. They'll find another program that is more comfortable for them. Touchscreens are becoming more difficult to use as developers install more and more actions into every inch (centimeter?) of screen space. I now find having my laptop in my lap is a problem since any part of me accidentally touching (or even getting too close to?) the touchpad causes something unwanted to happen on screen. too sensitive. (the pads/screens, not me ;-) )

good to hear from you.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by apricoto

3) preferences>scrolling behavior> screen fulls, should be screens full. Its a common error. its the screens that are multiple, not the full.

Actually, it should be 'screenful', plural 'screenfuls'. It's a single word.

[apricoto]

Originally Posted by mbovenka

Actually, it should be 'screenful', plural 'screenfuls'. It's a single word.

my mistake. i didn't get past seeing it as 2 words.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by mbovenka

Actually, it should be 'screenful', plural 'screenfuls'. It's a single word.

Well somebody needs to update the Hunspell English dictionaries accordingly then, because they still flag screenful and screenfuls as spelling mistakes.

[apricoto]

uh oh. i opened a 'can of worms'. Can i retract my suggestion re: screen(s)(_)ful(l)(s)?

[Thasaidon]

Originally Posted by apricoto

uh oh. i opened a 'can of worms'. Can i retract my suggestion re: screen(s)(_)ful(l)(s)?

No chance.

The worms are out and wriggling now.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by apricoto

uh oh. i opened a 'can of worms'. Can i retract my suggestion re: screen(s)(_)ful(l)(s)?

Yeah, I am leaving those alone.