Some feature requests

A place to discuss Bookends for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.
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mk7
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Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2018 11:08 am

Some feature requests

Post by mk7 »

Hi, I’m a recent transport from Papers 3 and am so far enjoying the Bookends experience. I have some questions/gripes/requests for iOS and thought I’d offer them here:

- While reading a PDF, include a pop up button on highlighted text that will allow you to search the web with that text (this already exists for Wikipedia ). this would be wonderful for me, as I'm often looking up articles while reading.
- Make importing of references more intuitive. If I create a new reference without a PDF, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to then attach a PDF.
- For references that already have a PDF but don’t have the correct citation info, it’s also very difficult to add that. There’s an option ‘Autofill from internet,’ but that only works with OCRd text, and even then seems to only scan for doi not title or author. It seems like it’d be best to include a similar search function as already exists—so that I could search using author/title/etc and then autofill reference information that way.
- Include an option to export notations (highlights, notes, etc)--this is key for my workflow
- option for two page view when reading PDFs (and book view, that leaves the first page as the cover)—also key for reading on iPads
- One search bar that could be used to search all relevant sites online (instead of having to search one site specifically)

Do other people have similar issues or requests?
Serge
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Joined: Sat Oct 22, 2011 1:09 pm

Re: Some feature requests

Post by Serge »

Thanks for the suggestions. With regard to importing PDFs, if the reference has a url just push the full text button and navigate to the PDF for this article in the internal browser. When the pdf will be downloaded it will be automatically attached to this reference. If you want to attach some pdf from external app such as Files.app just do “Open In” -> Bookends -> Find reference to attach.
mk7
Posts: 30
Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2018 11:08 am

Re: Some feature requests

Post by mk7 »

Thanks for the reply.

A quick clarification, often my references don't have URLs, in which case there's really no option to find the reference online. And even if they do have one, I've found that clicking on the full text button often returns a page that just says Wrong URL. It's unclear why that it, because if I copy and paste the URL into a browser it works just fine. Could there be a way of searching via title/author/etc to find and download the PDF

For importing PDF's, I meant that if I import a NEW pdf which doesn't have a reference already in the library and isn't OCR'd (so bookends can't automatically scan it), there's also no way to search for the reference online.

Essentially, it seems the problem is the same: whether for a reference that doesn't have a PDF or a PDF that doesn't have a reference, include an option to search online via author/title/etc that will autofill that information or attachment.
mk7
Posts: 30
Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2018 11:08 am

Re: Some feature requests

Post by mk7 »

I want to bump this up if possible. Specifically, if I copy a PDF to Bookends and can’t immediatley find a reference (because there’s no doi or it’s not scanned properly), we need the option to autofill from internet based on searchable terms. So the workflow would be: copy pdf to bookends, use search terms (author, title, etc), fill in the reference.

As it stands now, there doesn’t seem to be any way to do this, unless one first creates the reference, then goes back and copies the pdf to it, which seems opposite to how one would find and import PDFs.
Jon
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Re: Some feature requests

Post by Jon »

You have the option to import to a new empty reference and use Autocomplete Paper to do exactly that.

Jon
Sonny Software
mk7
Posts: 30
Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2018 11:08 am

Re: Some feature requests

Post by mk7 »

Yes, but this never works if I’m importing anything other than a journal article with a doi that can be read by bookends. What I think is desperately needed is to be able to autocomplete via search. Right now, if Bookends can’t find anything to autocomplete the paper, you have no other option except to fill it manually. What I’m looking for is the ability to search for other fields (like title and author) and use autocomplete that way? Does that make sense?

Note, this feature already exists if you’re just trying to create a new empty reference. I can easily tap on the google scholar option and search for a book by its author and import the reference. I just want this option to exist when I import a PDF as well.
Jon
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Re: Some feature requests

Post by Jon »

If you add an attachment by drag and drop, say, and there is no DOI, the attachment dialog as the option

Attach this file to a new reference and autocomplete

Moreover, you can ALWAYS do an autocomplete paper on any reference that has an attachment by selecting it and using the Refs menu option.

In Autocomplete Paper you can search by title, authors, whatever, from any online source Bookends knows about.

Please see the User Guide section on "Autocomplete Paper"

Jon
Sonny Software
mk7
Posts: 30
Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2018 11:08 am

Re: Some feature requests

Post by mk7 »

I think you are talking about Bookends on Mac whereas I’m talking iOS.

If you see the first attached screenshot, when I add a PDF (and this one even has a doi!) the only options are to “attach to new empty reference” and “find a reference to attach”—neither gives you the option to autocomplete the reference. And again, once the PDF is in there, I cannot find any option to autocomplete the reference. The only way is to do it manually.
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Jon
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Re: Some feature requests

Post by Jon »

You're right. Sorry. I forgot which forum we're in. I'll ask Serge to comment.

Jon
Sonny Software
Serge
Posts: 339
Joined: Sat Oct 22, 2011 1:09 pm

Re: Some feature requests

Post by Serge »

if the pdf has a DOI but BOT can’t recognise it please send it to support@referencesontap.com for a test.
We don’t have Autocomplete via search feature in BOT yet, but we're looking into it.
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