calibre 5: Beta testers needed

[nixsee]

Originally Posted by thiago.eec

Try changing the color, AFTER the note was already created:
a) Create a Note like you described above and save it;
b) Double-click it;
c) Click the paintbrush icon;
d) Change the color;
e) The highlight remains, but the text you typed is gone.

It happens every time here.

I get this same problem

[nixsee]

Originally Posted by thiago.eec

For me, highlights keep vanishing. I still can see then in "Browse annotations", both in main calibre and the Viewer. But they vanish from the rendered text. Check the attached picture.

Likewise, as mentioned in one of my comments above. I just closed calibre and reopened and the highlights are listed in the browser, but some have disappeared from the text.

[kovidgoyal]

@nixsee and @thiago: Does the vanishing only happen after changing colors on a highlight? Or just generally after adding a highlight. If the latter, I need some specific set fo steps to reproduce, as I cannot. The changing color causing notes to go missing bug will be fixed in the next release.

@nixsee: Highlights are stored in the book file already (if it is epub) so you can share them with other people by simply sending them the book.

If you want to streamline the experience, use the keyboard shortcuts. Steps are:

1) Select text
2) Press ctrl+h
3) click the pencil
4) Type your notes
5) press esc when you are done editing the notes
6) press enter to save the highlight

In the above, I can further streamline it by adding keyboard shortcuts to open the notes. So you dont have to click anything at all after the initial selection. Edit, now you can press the n key to start editing notes.

Types and user restrictions only make senses if you have bookmarks as wel as highlights and more than one user creating highlights (via the content server).

As for colors, I am open to better palettes,these are just initial placeholders I have cobbled together.

As for Esc, it is standard for closing dialogs. It clears search only in the main window, because its not a dialog and so esc is available there.

@thiago: Thanks for the sample file I will look into it. Can you give me a sample of the moving highlight as well?

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by thiago.eec

The thing is: this is the same mouse I've been using for months, including calibre. It always worked fine before. Also, I tested another mouse (both Logitech mice) and it failed too.

This happened after 4.20 (I know that it had some fix for scrolling with touchpads, maybe that's what broke things).

P. S.: Can you point me a simple way to test the the event signal my mouse is sending with the scroll wheel?

Yes, in 4.20 wheel event handling was changed to accomodate touchpads. They send pixel scroll events for even the slightest movement, which makes them unusable for turning pages, since they turn too fast. Look in paged_mode.pyj in the onwheel() function there it tests if the mode is pixel scroll and requires enough pixels to accumulate before actually scrolling. You can add print(evt.deltaMode) and run the viewer as calibre-debug -w file.epub from a console to see the print output.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by thiago.eec

This happened with many notes, on may books. One example is the one attached. I highlighted two passages, the first, on "Letter 4":



The second on the end of "Chapter 1":


Then, in main calibre, I open "Browse annotations". Select the highlight and click "Open in viewer". For the first highlight, the Viewer will open at the beginning of "Letter 4", not showing the highlight (which is on the next "page"; note that I am using Paged Mode).

For the second highlight, it works fine (for this example). It opens right at the spot.

I have fixed the issue with the viewer not jumping to the correct location for some highlights. The vanishing hihglights I still need a way to reproduce. Can you attach an EPUB file that has vanished highlights? i.e. the highlights show up in the browse highlights panel in the viewer but are not visible in the text.

[democrite]

Doesn't launch on macOS Big Sur. Fine starting calibre or the viewer from the command-line. I can't tell yet from comparing logs if any what is the difference.

As for annotation controls, many phone/tablet apps have some contextual menu, much like for text selection, appearing near the selection. Perhaps some eReaders also have such. Possible? Would be useful too such as as many apps act, selecting text shows some menu for copy, highlight, lookup (if one word), etc. Taping/clicking a highlight too will show the menu to edit or remove, without confirmation. For those used to heavily annotating text, I think better.

For the control, maybe something similar to this, without the menu:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/...s-in-menu-pyqt

[kovidgoyal]

@democrite you can already double click or long tap an existing highlight to show its notes and also edit it easily. As for a hovering menu when selecting text, that's a possibility, though personally I dont like the idea, but am willing to be convinced if lots of people do.

[democrite]

Such is very much like contextual menus, e.g. right click. Having to go to some main menu, either from some other app, or here the viewer menu, I think is extra noise and delays user choice. Contextual menus were invented for a reason.

As for the double click or long tap, it seems that if one selects text, or single clicks on a highlight, it is likely one wants to act on it in some way, thus all apps I know of behave as suggested.

btw, unsure what happens if one renames the file. In calibre itself, changing metadata, I assume records change. Outside of calibre, maybe some checksum is stored such that on EPUB load, it verifies if it's been renamed and could migrate highlights to linked file? If not, maybe a good idea.

another note, concerning a previous request to more quickly prepare epubs for viewing. If a file has changed but location is the name, any harm in unzipping with only changed files? It'd be quicker. I'm not sure what happens with new files, and deleted may need to be verified. But the cache is refreshed eventually so maybe little harm. Unzipping takes a long time, and I'm constantly editing with viewer window and PDF side by side, or using the viewer to proof and then correct.

[democrite]

another thing I hope you can consider. As you may have been more exposed now to dark mode, generally body text color isn't as bright as it is in the calibre viewer. See various examples, too Facebook, Stack Overflow.

[thiago.eec]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

@nixsee and @thiago: Does the vanishing only happen after changing colors on a highlight? Or just generally after adding a highlight. If the latter, I need some specific set fo steps to reproduce, as I cannot. The changing color causing notes to go missing bug will be fixed in the next release.

No, it is not only after changing colors. Actually, most of my highlights ends up vanishing. I will PM* you with a book that has 2 highlights. The first one is not visible on text, although present on "Browse annotations". The second one is displaced (the same one I sent you the screenshot).

*The book is copyrighted.

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

@nixsee: Highlights are stored in the book file already (if it is epub) so you can share them with other people by simply sending them the book.

Great! I thought it was only on DB.

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Types and user restrictions only make senses if you have bookmarks as wel as highlights and more than one user creating highlights (via the content server).

Could you please give me more details, or point me to a guide, on these two options?

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by thiago.eec

Could you please give me more details, or point me to a guide, on these two options?

Create bookmarks in the viewer and they will also show up in the browse annotations tool. Then you can filter on highlight/bookmarks/both.

For users, run the calibre content server and create highlights in books with the in-browser viewer and then you will be able to filter by user in the browse annotations tool.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by thiago.eec

Great! I thought it was only on DB.

No, the highlights (and bookmarks) are stored in three places. In the DB, inside the ebook file (which you can turn off in the viewer preferences) and in a separate settings file which is useful if you use the viewer for books not in a calibre library.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by democrite

another thing I hope you can consider. As you may have been more exposed now to dark mode, generally body text color isn't as bright as it is in the calibre viewer. See various examples, too Facebook, Stack Overflow.

You mean the dull gray on black look?? calibre currently uses #eee I can change that to #ddd which is about as dull as I'm willing to go.

[thiago.eec]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Yes, in 4.20 wheel event handling was changed to accomodate touchpads. They send pixel scroll events for even the slightest movement, which makes them unusable for turning pages, since they turn too fast. Look in paged_mode.pyj in the onwheel() function there it tests if the mode is pixel scroll and requires enough pixels to accumulate before actually scrolling. You can add print(evt.deltaMode) and run the viewer as calibre-debug -w file.epub from a console to see the print output.

This is what it outputs:

INFO: userscript:viewer.js:24: 0

This line appears for every increment on my mouse wheel (backward or forward).

[thiago.eec]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

@democrite you can already double click or long tap an existing highlight to show its notes and also edit it easily. As for a hovering menu when selecting text, that's a possibility, though personally I dont like the idea, but am willing to be convinced if lots of people do.

I think it would be great.

1) The menu would pop-up when you select a text.
2) Then you have the options: copy, search, highlight, note, etc.
3) If you click highlight, it give you the options for colors and notes.
4) If you click note, you can start typing right away (and the text is automatically highlighted with the standard color).

This is how it works on iBooks, for example. For touchscreens, as the iPad, it also lets you highlight by long press and then moving you finger.