Marvin 3.0 feature requests

[dandelioncottage]

I miss this too. It made it easy to keep track of what was coming up next for my book clubs.

Originally Posted by MSWallack

In Marvin 2, there was a home page that showed a large cover of the book being read and then a few smaller covers of the recently read books. I really liked that page. Is there something similar in M3 that I just haven't found?

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by MSWallack

Perhaps I just haven't figured it out yet, but there are two things that I'm missing in M3

1) Is there a way to remove a book from the recently opened list? If I accidentally tap on a book and it opens, it shows up on that list. I like to keep that list clean with only the books that I've really been reading.

2) In Marvin 2, there was a home page that showed a large cover of the book being read and then a few smaller covers of the recently read books. I really liked that page. Is there something similar in M3 that I just haven't found?

I agree with request #1. Both for accidentally opened books as well as removing books that have been finished. Since I can't manually sort the reading list, I've been using the recently opened book list to keep track of books that I want to read next.

[Faterson]

Originally Posted by brokeass

Would be very nice to have a reference to page numbers in the journal, or even a means of linking back to the portion of the text where it is found. Unless this is already possible, and I have overlooked it?

Nope, you haven't overlooked it, and it's really possibly the worst functionality gap in Marvin 3. I don't think it's acceptable for the Journal to be dead – devoid of hyperlinks to the original book locations. For several weeks now, I've been trying to persuade Kris that this was unacceptable, but with no success so far. Let's hope Kris will rectify the situation soon.

[democrite]

Originally Posted by MSWallack

1) Is there a way to remove a book from the recently opened list? If I accidentally tap on a book and it opens, it shows up on that list. I like to keep that list clean with only the books that I've really been reading.

I might vote nay for some particular less used features in fear that, like M2 suffered a bit and I think M3 shows a bit of that -- or at least it might be worth considering simplifying it a bit or moving around features --, M3 turns in some feature rich monstrosity like MS Office, where day to day use becomes more cumbersome. Not that this is in particular, though it might be less used and I'd be concerned to make some concept of general use as intuitive as possible, but for the question in itself of requests, of mine as well if you consider them as such. Since a slide to delete seems to be possible to add, and doesn't add additional buttons to the UI, sure, sounds good.

Relating to the question of requests, if Kris was thinking of a possible future macOS app but hasn't and won't say anything for a while, or has some reservations, I'd perhaps say decide what you want; if there was a fear of flood of requests to be more like calibre, stick to what you think should be. A well designed calibre alternative, by someone friendly, is certainly needed.

[Der]

I have a visual impairment requiring that I read somewhat large print. Also, I read on an iPhone, so screen space is limited. It is therefore important to me that the margins be as small as possible. Ideally, they'd be nonexistent.

In M2, I was able to make the vertical margins be just a few pixels (or thereabouts) wide. In M3, this is not possible, even with those margins set to Narrow. As a result, I lose an entire line of text on each page. In M2 I had seven lines, while in M3 I have only six with the font size and line spacing the same.

I request that there be an option to set the vertical margins to None. If that's not pssoble (which I believe is the case), how about Negilgible?

[democrite]

Kris,

Since you were working on a different way of changing highlights, I found this. Very interesting. Removes the need for one icon and is pretty clear, although I'm undecided if it's my choice; perhaps any UI is going to compromise something else.



And a small detail. The slide animation when returning from another app to an open book in Marvin, is it needed? I think it'd be nicer without.

As for syncing, I think on Facebook you said you were having trouble getting it 100%? Not sure if it's worth the effort if it becomes only temporary, maybe WiFi sync, if multiple devices with Marvin open, could sync all including books.

Of the popup menu for dictionary deep view highlight search etc., if there are later additional entries like custom per language dictionaries, or maybe for that a long hold as an additional option, I'm not sure of the most intuitive order, like if left right or center, which is quicker and where to put more common uses so they're even if only slightly easier to see and get to.

Yes, eventually I might put into question every detail. Not to say they're as is bad, but just to reopen the question.

[Rezn8r]

Have I missed this one? In M2, the customizable popup toolbar made it easy to highlight an entire sentence with a single keypress. Amazing how often I used that. Any way to do this in M3?

[democrite]

I imagine it's coming back eventually but Kris probably has some prioritized list. As for its form, not sure. I too would use it, though some features now are available from the iOS share menu, some like lookups could be language specific. Maybe a list where each is toggled, can be set visible, and anything enabled appears additionally in a more menu, like now with custom commands, so they remain available like if an ePub doesn't have properly set its language. An initial thought but not sure; Kris probably has something in mind but since we haven't seen it, we don't know.

Of other aspects of the UI, maybe I mentioned as part of something else, I'm finding going from selecting menu options from the right (not a bad choice), to having to go to the top left to close a menu, awkward. For settings, where one is used to a detail screen, and then going back to a main list, ok. But somethings, like in library view, the top center could be a dropdown, that would include rows of icons for viewing mode and sort by. Collections and lists, perhaps that's left to be only in the iPad side menu, and a swipable or other equivalent on iPhone (haven't tried to see what it looks like there), that would sort of be like an iTunes sidebar, being able to drag and drop to collections, when selection and multi select are enabled, actions appear like delete, set author, send, etc, a sidebar that's also context sensitive. Haven't though much about the details, but sort by and viewing mode together in a dropdown, with search persistant either as a top right icon or swipe down, that seems good.

For the sidebar, Settings seems like it could go at the end; I believe continue reading and collections and lists, followed by the others with settings at the end is the order of most used. Pretty much the order it is in now, but settings at the bottom, and viewing mode moved to the dropdown.

Of the UI, much of it is already significantly better than M2, though no doubt Kris you had time to think over it, redesign the whole app with all the features that were added over time, have the iOS 9 look, having the benefit of seeing and using other well designed apps released over the years, etc. Perhaps you believe there could still be a lot of UI design done, and just wanted to do the more important things first. Since I use M3 so much, and am quite attentive to the UI, like every single detail like how much I have to move a thumb or finger from one step to another, I'm certainly willing to help comment and mockup, and revisit and revisit every design choice, or each one as they come along, when you're ready to tackle something in particular. I'm hoping for something that's as well designed as Tweetbot, or any of the other well regarded iOS apps, and is Apple Design Award worthy. Not that goal specifically, but where every single thing is a joy to use, and thus gets the attention of designers. I'm not sure how much I can help with that, but at least trying to examine everything until there's some idea of ah, now it's perfect, I'm willing.

[kguil]

@everyone Looks like this thread is going to become a long one. While I might not be able to respond to every request, I will certainly be reading and considering each and every one of them. Of course, I cannot promise that each request will become a feature.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by kguil

@everyone Looks like this thread is going to become a long one. While I might not be able to respond to every request, I will certainly be reading and considering each and every one of them. Of course, I cannot promise that each request will become a feature.

Thanks. Consideration is all one can ask.

[Kumabjorn]

+1 to that. Having them organized in one thread should also give @kguil a better overview.

Twitter is to communications as haiku is to literature.

[democrite]

Others may have seen, Amazon Page Flip. Indeed, for some cases like reference and non-fiction, or just referring to other pages, I and perhaps others haven't found digital as convenient.

https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-eBooks...de=13632018011

I'm not sure what I think of their implementation. No doubt if such a thing gets added, it won't be for a while, but it's perhaps worth starting to think about if the design could be difficult.

[Faterson]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Having them organized in one thread should also give @kguil a better overview.

I believe the exact opposite. Having all sorts of issues in a single thread is supreme chaos. Yeah, it's good for chatting, but bad to actually get some work done. The proper approach is definitely the GitHub one, with one thread per one issue, with all duplicates removed:

https://github.com/kguil/Marvin-Roadmap/issues

Now that is clarity, and that is overview. The issue either is or isn't resolved – no way to wriggle out of it. Whereas here on MobileRead, everything just gets submerged sooner or later in the general babble. I'm not saying MobileRead isn't useful – it's very useful, but in terms of providing a clear overview of issues to be taken care of, it just can't compete with a professional tool like GitHub.

[democrite]

Another reason for minimum side margins besides using them for annotation icons and tap to turn: it is difficult to activate slide over without a page turn. Perhaps swipe to turn should be limited to the content area.

[medrin]

When I go to download new books from my dropbox folder I can choose very many ways to sort the books in that folder which is nice! (I prefer to sort by newest, since, well, it's usually the newest books I'm after). I saw that one of the ways to sort books was by 'Downloaded at the end' which is a nice feature especially since it is less visually obvious which books are already downloaded compared to the previous version. But the secondary sorting criteria for that option is sort by filename which unfortunately makes the feature useless for me.

So my suggestion is that 'Downloaded at the end' should work as a filter so it can be combined with all the other sorting methods and make it useful for everyone.