[Tips & Tricks] In-Book Colours, Warmth, and Extra Dimming

[kguil]

I've posted a tutorial about setting up colours, page warmth and extra dimming in books that you might find helpful. The major difference between M3 and Classic in this regard is that now settings are stored on a per preset basis rather than a global one.

You can check it out here.

[democrite]

Thanks.

[Faterson]

A major flaw in Marvin 3 is that the gesture (two-fingered swipe up or down the screen) to adjust screen warmth has been removed, compared to Marvin 2, without explanation. Sorry, Kris, but there is no excuse for this. Please add it back (along with the 3-fingered horizontal swipe). Upgrading software should never result in the loss of supremely useful features.

[Apocalypto]

Originally Posted by Faterson

A major flaw in Marvin 3 is that the gesture (two-fingered swipe up or down the screen) to adjust screen warmth has been removed, compared to Marvin 2, without explanation. Sorry, Kris, but there is no excuse for this. Please add it back (along with the 3-fingered horizontal swipe). Upgrading software should never result in the loss of supremely useful features.

With night shift is the color warmth behavior even useful anymore? Seems like an opportunity to simplify; almost anyone who wants a warmer white point is going to want to do it system wide.

[democrite]

It's possible night shift is enough, particularly with iOS 10 coming and I think the ability to adjust it from Control Center. It's possible an in-app adjustment would also likely conflict, for instance if one set it in Marvin, went to another app and changed Night Shift, and then back to Marvin. So it seems best left out, unless iOS provides the ability to adjust night shift, which may not be the case, and could even be frowned upon or rejected.

As for this or that feature, calling something a flaw doesn't really help. Kris is not dumb and is quite aware of what he wants to bring back. M3 is a complete rewrite, and if you unzip the app, you'll see I believe it's written in a new language. He had to learn a new language, even if it's simpler than Obj-C, and possibly the use of new and different libraries. Consider the time between the last M2 and M3; Kris eventually had to decide between what is good enough for an initial release, and how long users were waiting, particularly since he may not have wanted to continue with M2 fixes and switched completely to 3.0. Does Kris have a so called responsibility to be completely open with this process? No.

Consider the history of any complex design, a building, a car, a cockpit engine; if nothing was ever taken out, re-designed, or decided that it shouldn't be in there, what would we have? M3 was and is the chance to reconsider every detail and every element. Good design will take as long as needed, rather than just adding everything back in at once. M3 is many aspects already leaps above M2. As for specific features like gestures, Kris is very possibly deciding among all possible uses of them, if they might conflict with something else, if they should be used, and what for. For example, pinch could be used for font size, but is it a good idea? I don't know. That, as well as any other detail, should undergo long consideration. What I hope for is that Kris continues the re-design so that perhaps eventually, everything without exception is beautiful and pleasurable to use, that everything takes from the very best of iOS design, and perhaps somethings are eventually so great that others, and who knows, maybe even Apple, copy from him. If M3 becomes the premier app that shows what can be done with a reader, that shows it to everyone and everyone that makes eReaders, then perhaps it can be called perfect.

[Cesca]

Thank you for the tutorial. I had missed the dimming and warmth settings somehow. Love it! My eyes are very sensitive to light and these extra settings are a huge help, especially on my mini which doesn't have Night Shift (even using iOS 9.3.2) This is not a redundant feature. I for one, need it!

[kguil]

I still think that warmth has its place, especially now that it's on a per preset basis. Nightshift is a system-wide setting that I never use (I don't like it).

[Faterson]

Sorry, Apocalypto and Democrite, I'm not buying that. You call the removal of useful features "simplification"? No, thanks. Marvin needs no simplification – it sorely needs even more features (fundamental features) than it currently has. Yes, you can simplify access to those features – I'm all for that; but removing useful features is inexcusable for high-end e-reader software.

Even Kris as the Marvin developer is not using the system-wide "night shift", so its availability is no justification to remove the two-fingered gesture.

As to gesture conflicts, I have long argued that Marvin should allow us to customize what each gesture does. (See AVPlayerHD for an example of software that allows you to customize every common handheld-device gesture.) That way, no conflicts can arise, because if you find that a particular gesture interferes with something, you can just completely disable it on your own device.

But to remove a gesture from the software completely – that is unacceptable to me. I don't need the two-fingered warmth gesture all that much (although it would still be useful for me occasionally), but I very much need the 3-fingered gesture (which I used in Marvin 2 to flip 5 pages back or forwards). I'm missing that particular gesture every single day in Marvin 3. Again, my hope is that Kris will restore all these lost gestures/features from Marvin 2 soon.

PS: I had to laugh at reading "the best of iOS design". What an oxymoron! I can't really imagine more execrable software design than that typical of Apple. Apple software looks terrible (all those awfully dull shades of grey...), and it's dumb like hell as a rule. If anything, Kris should strive to keep Marvin as far removed from Apple's "let's-dumb-down-everything" and "let's-not-give-users-any-choices" software pseudo-philosophy as can possibly be managed to not get thrown out of Apple's (again, incredibly crude and dumb) App Store.

[kguil]

@democrite For what it's worth, Marvin is written in Obj C.

[Apocalypto]

Originally Posted by kguil

I still think that warmth has its place, especially now that it's on a per preset basis. Nightshift is a system-wide setting that I never use (I don't like it).

You can set the colors per preset, why wouldn't you just adjust all aspects of the color there? I assumed it was for the same purpose as f.lux or night shift where the theory is that automatically warming the white point at dusk helps to not disrupt sleep patterns caused by staring into a blue screen.

But the point is really moot as I forgot that older devices don't get night shift so it should be kept in Marvin, but I'd encourage advanced users to check out side loading something like f.lux or goodnight if they want warmer colors at night.

Faterson it's probably not worth engaging you but try to understand that what you find desirable might not be the same as everyone else. It's easy to throw 80 million preferences and behaviors into an app to try to accommodate everyone but it makes it harder to Kris to develop and maintain, and harder for users to wade through all the options trying to get it to do what they want. We've tried your way, the move to first GUI, and now touchscreen devices is the reaction against that needless complexity.

[slantybard]

Is there any way you can specify the colour of a swatch in M3 SxS? For example, I like a background of 80% black (#333333 or RGB 51, 51, 51) in my night mode. I tried to find a way to get this colour as a background, but couldn't find a way to do so in M3 SxS within the in-book colours options - all I can choose from are predefined swatches.

[Faterson]

Originally Posted by Apocalypto

Faterson it's probably not worth engaging you but try to understand that what you find desirable might not be the same as everyone else.

You're not reading my posts carefully, which is par for the course on MobileRead, naturally. What I'm arguing for is exactly the reverse of what you're suggesting above: do not shove the same preference down the throats of all Marvin users, but give every Marvin user the freedom to select the preference that suits him or her best. That's what makes software smart, and that's why Apple software is dumb as a rule, because it practically never offers that freedom. It's to be hoped that Marvin will be very different from typical Apple software.

Originally Posted by Apocalypto

It's easy to throw 80 million preferences and behaviors into an app to try to accommodate everyone but it makes it harder to Kris to develop and maintain, and harder for users to wade through all the options trying to get it to do what they want.

Ridiculous line of reasoning. What can possibly be "confusing" about the availability of a two-fingered gesture that existed in Marvin 1 and Marvin 2 for 5 years? If you don't want to use the gesture, don't use it. No one is holding a gun to your head, forcing you to use features you're not interested in. Kris can disable the two-fingered gesture by default, for all I care. The important thing is for the gesture to remain available in Marvin 3.

Once again, the basic principle: upgrading software should never, ever result in the loss of trusted and useful features from the previous software version. That's a big no-no and, unfortunately, Marvin 3 violates it in quite a few ways currently. We can only hope that everything lost from Marvin 2 will be restored in Marvin 3 soon.

Also, any other advanced settings can be conveniently hidden in an "Advanced settings" section, and disabled by default, so that they can't ever possibly confuse anyone. That line of reasoning of yours is, typically, a false cop-out and lame excuse used by developers when they're unwilling to accommodate user requests for improvement of their software.

Originally Posted by slantybard

Is there any way you can specify the colour of a swatch in M3 SxS? For example, I like a background of 80% black (#333333 or RGB 51, 51, 51) in my night mode.

It currently isn't possible, but I've been requesting this from Kris for years now. For example, my favourite shade of red is #990000 and I'd love to use it in Marvin, but because we can't input those hexadecimal (or other) codes directly, it currently isn't possible.