Request integrate library and journal

Two recent posts (borisb on annotation and fgruber on attaching journal notes) have me thinking about integration between the library and journal apps.

Specifically, for most notes on what I'm reading, emulating paper is not what I want to do: not only is margin space typically limited, but I like to make the text larger, effectively eliminating margins. And I don't want what I'm writing to obscure what's beneath it. Instead, I want the behavior that fgruber describes: compose my notes on blank paper, but have them automatically associated with the text.

Here's how I could see it working: in the reader, the highlight tool (or something like it) allows you to highlight a piece of text. Doing so would then automatically split the screen, keeping the highlighted text (perhaps with some additional context) on top, while opening a blank page below for notes. On closing the page of notes, it is automatically saved and attached to the original.

There are some obvious variations on this theme-- display the highlighted region on the lcd instead of splitting the e-ink display. Or instead of having a blank page for each note, keep a single journal open, which is then synchronized with the text. There could even be a display mode where a thumbnail version of a note is displayed in the margin alongside the highlighted text.

But what this gets away from, along the lines of borisb's suggestion, is requiring a graphical overlay (annotations) to interoperate nicely with a textual display, particularly involving reflowed text. Let each medium perform the job it excels at, without requiring them to be displayed on the same page, which is what seems to be the difficult part.

Exporting annotations would be simpler, too, since it would be easier for external tools to deals with one type of information or the other (pen strokes vs. locations within text). This ought to simplify zooming and rotating, too, since there's less coupling required between the graphics and text modes, which I think is what prompted borisb's comment.

The split-screen idea is novel. It would be like having a footnotes section at the bottom of the screen for text you want to annotate in the top half.

Having the notes (typed, or even "drawn" like you can in MaplePaint) on the LCD side is also an interesting idea, similar to the way making a Calendar entry on the LCD side opens a journal page for notes on the eInk side.

You can already do this using the "Note" Tool - it opens a window on the LCD side where you can name the note and then edit unlimited text (via keyboard). You get a corresponding Note icon in the right margin in your PDF/EPUB. MaplePaint (or an LCD version of Journal) would merely allow you to handwrite (and draw figures) rather than type.

These sound like really great ideas. I think many of us, however, really are trying to emulate paper. If the EE is really designed for the academic sector (students, faculty, and researchers), the major goal seems to be to eliminate the bulk of paper (books, note pages, and journal articles) while adding a little extra functionality. So, at least for me, I'd rather not have to tap on an icon to pull up a note, but, instead, I like the idea of scribbling all over my books/articles. Just my $0.02

I didn't know about the "note" tool-- that does seem much like what I want, but I'd like it to be pen-based rather than text. Thanks for the tip!

Dr T-- I meant that I only want it to emulate some aspects of paper, but not others. I scribble all over my papers, too, but part of that is because (1) I prefer scribbling to typing, and (2) it synchronizes my notes with the information on the page. What I don't like about it is that a physical page has limited real estate, and there's no reason that my notes need to be bound by that restriction.

I think it could be done in a way that's as unobtrusive as scribbling on the page-- it could be an alternative annotation mode. Currently, the annotation mode interprets any mark on the text as a line. Instead, an alternative default could be to interpret it as highlighting/selection, and bring up a new note.

I'm sure you've read fgruber's post in another thread, but I'll copy it here as it is a way to have full journal notes attached to an ebook, although admittedly more awkward than some of your proposals.

Originally Posted by fgruber

This is the way I do this:
Suppose you are reading a book on the eink screen and you find a problem or derivation in a page that you want to do. Then you can use the snapshot tool which will take a picture of that page and put it in the LCD (alternatively you can open the pdf on the LCD as well using pdf to go)
then change to journal on the eink and do your derivation. Make sure you save the journal.
then go back to the pdf on the eink side.
Then go to the library on the LCD and find the journal you just made. Press on the journal name and wait . This will bring a menu. Choose attach.
Then on the eink screen you need to select a text where you want the link to the journal to reside.
After this you will get an icon in the position of the document that you selected. When you click on it the journal will open.

It would be nice to have an automated way to do this procedure. Like a button to attach new journal in a specific spot in the document. This should automatically open an empty journal and after we save it it will show the link in the document.

Originally Posted by borisb

I'm sure you've read fgruber's post in another thread, but I'll copy it here as it is a way to have full journal notes attached to an ebook, although admittedly more awkward than some of your proposals.

Yes, that's why I linked to it. ;-)

It made so much sense as a way to enable really long annotations, while at the same time being a really laborious process, that it made me think about how something like this could be made easier. I thought about continuing that thread, but it's equally relevant to your posting about zooming and annotating, and it really is a feature request, so I started a new thread.

Anyway, I think it's especially important that annotation is smooth, because (1) each e-ink refresh takes time, and (2) the point of annotation is getting thoughts down quickly. Jotting directly on the displayed text has the advantage here that it's very quick, while my idea requires at the minimum highlighting some text and then blanking part of the screen as a prelude to writing, and then blanking the area again and redisplaying the text after annotating. Double buffering could help, and I think it could still be fairly fast if done well.

Originally Posted by nprnncbl

Yes, that's why I linked to it. ;-)

Old age creeping up on me I guess

make sure you make a feature request ticket on the support page.

Originally Posted by nprnncbl

Yes, that's why I linked to it. ;-)

It made so much sense as a way to enable really long annotations, while at the same time being a really laborious process, that it made me think about how something like this could be made easier. I thought about continuing that thread, but it's equally relevant to your posting about zooming and annotating, and it really is a feature request, so I started a new thread.

Anyway, I think it's especially important that annotation is smooth, because (1) each e-ink refresh takes time, and (2) the point of annotation is getting thoughts down quickly. Jotting directly on the displayed text has the advantage here that it's very quick, while my idea requires at the minimum highlighting some text and then blanking part of the screen as a prelude to writing, and then blanking the area again and redisplaying the text after annotating. Double buffering could help, and I think it could still be fairly fast if done well.

fgruber-- thanks for the reminder. I filed a request.

Okay, so, again, I'll remind everyone that I'm a biologist... not a computer science type of guy. That being said, nprnncbl's comments made me wonder why there's a limitation to the width of the PDFs/ePubs on the eInk screen. What I mean is, presuming we can get zoom/annotation working, couldn't a tool such as "Space Maker" (in the journal app) be used to make more horizontal workspace? That way, you could just expand the margins to fit your particular needs, annotating and doodling to your heart's content! I imagine this could potentially cause problems during export, but that seems like it could be worked around...

Sorry if this idea is crazy and/or stupid.... that's how we bio-nerds roll

I could see that working, but then the problem becomes constant panning and zooming to alternate between reading and annotating. Also, there's still the problem of keeping annotations in the right place with respect to reflowable text. This isn't really an issue for PDF, which usually have a fixed layout, but it is an issue for epub.

If the journal could be displayed alongside text, and synced up, that would be neat, too. This is an issue of the annotations consume a lot more vertical space than the text. If the annotations are linked to specific parts of the text, then when a piece of text is selected, the corresponding annotation is displayed beside it. That might require scrolling the journal differently from the text itself.

Also, consider going back and annotating some text between two previously annotated chunks. If the annotations are separate from the text, but anchored in it, then it becomes easy to insert a new one.

(Also, Dr T-- where in MD are you? It's my home state.)

Ah, I see. I hadn't considered the reflow, as this tends to wreak havoc with my journals. Maybe we need a third screen with eInk. Seems like that could solve the problems

As to your question, I'm in Baltimore.

Cool ideas. I know that I tend to just use a Journal file to correspond to a pdf if I'm going to do more writing that just marking up the page. And in theory, if I felt the need, I could just open the pdf on the LCD side and just have Journal open on the eink side. But usually I like to have the LCD for web stuff (looking stuff up or my twitter stream) while I'm "working" on the e-ink side, and I just use the button to switch between book and Journal.

But the horizontal split sounds both cool and useful!