Request: Icon for pdf text highlight comments

A place for users to ask each other questions, make suggestions, and discuss Bookends.
Post Reply
nicka
Posts: 226
Joined: Thu Feb 03, 2005 6:56 pm
Location: Oslo
Contact:

Request: Icon for pdf text highlight comments

Post by nicka »

As far as I can see, unlike Preview, the pdf viewer in Bookends doesn't add a comment icon to a text highlight when a comment is added to it (by right-clicking the text highlight and choosing 'Comment…'). They are really useful since they show immediately and clearly which highlights have comments associated with them. Could they be added?

Edited to add: Bookends for iOS has them.
Jon
Site Admin
Posts: 10048
Joined: Tue Jul 13, 2004 6:27 pm
Location: Bethesda, MD
Contact:

Re: Request: Icon for pdf text highlight comments

Post by Jon »

If you select a highlight with a comment, it will be outlined in red.

I don't see any indication in Preview that a highlight has a comment. Please post a screen snap showing what you mean (or send it to tech support).

Thanks,

Jon
Sonny Software
nicka
Posts: 226
Joined: Thu Feb 03, 2005 6:56 pm
Location: Oslo
Contact:

Re: Request: Icon for pdf text highlight comments

Post by nicka »

Sure: Here the first highlight has an associated comment; the second doesn't.

Here's how it looks in Preview:

Image
Attachments
Image 18-05-2023 at 1.52 pm.jpg
Image 18-05-2023 at 1.52 pm.jpg (236.46 KiB) Viewed 1578 times
Last edited by nicka on Thu May 18, 2023 8:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
nicka
Posts: 226
Joined: Thu Feb 03, 2005 6:56 pm
Location: Oslo
Contact:

Re: Request: Icon for pdf text highlight comments

Post by nicka »

Apparently the forum only displays one image per post. Here the Adobe Reader one (I hope):

Image

Edit: Sorry: I don't know why this isn't working. But the image from Preview above is enough.
Jon
Site Admin
Posts: 10048
Joined: Tue Jul 13, 2004 6:27 pm
Location: Bethesda, MD
Contact:

Re: Request: Icon for pdf text highlight comments

Post by Jon »

That's different. Preview is adding a Note annotation, not a Comment annotation. In the former, you have two independent annotations, which is why you see two separate clickable items. In fact Preview tells you that when you right click on it -- Add Note, not Add Comment. In the latter (Bookends)you have a a comment embedded in a Highlight. When you open such a PDF in Preview you do not see any indicator there is an associated comment. But if you click on it you'll see it in the sidebar. This may seem confusing, but there are a variety of different annotation types that are quite distinct programmatically and functionally.

So Preview/PDFKit doesn't show any indicator that a highlight has an associated Comment. Bookends will if you click on it (red outline). The only way to see there is a Comment (not an independent Note) is in the note stream. You're asking that it appear underneath the highlight in another thread, and I'll think about that.

Jon
Sonny Software
nicka
Posts: 226
Joined: Thu Feb 03, 2005 6:56 pm
Location: Oslo
Contact:

Re: Request: Icon for pdf text highlight comments

Post by nicka »

Thanks for this.

I see I'm confused about the names of these things, but I'm not the only one: things created in Bookends as text highlight comments are called notes in Preview. E.g. if you right click in Preview on a text highlight created in Bookends and with a comment associated with it also in Bookends the top two menu options are 'Remove highlight' and 'Remove note' (and nothing about comments).

Anyway now I have a question: How, in Bookends, do I create a note associated with a text highlight? If I right click a text highlight in Bookends I get these options: Colour/ Copy/ Copy link / Comment… //Delete

The fact that the contextual menu in Bookends shows Comment… (and nothing about notes) where Preview shows Add Note (and nothing about comments) is what confused me.
Jon
Site Admin
Posts: 10048
Joined: Tue Jul 13, 2004 6:27 pm
Location: Bethesda, MD
Contact:

Re: Request: Icon for pdf text highlight comments

Post by Jon »

Terminology for how annotations is not strictly defined. For example, when you enter arbitrary text, the annotation is called (internally, by PDFKit) "freeText". When the Bookends PDF viewer was initially written, we decided to call it a Comment, and when you use the Action popup menu you will see the option to "Make Comment".

Another kind of annotation in PDFKit is "text". These are typically represented as a moveable small square, and to read its contents you must click on it. Bookends (and most apps) refer to these as Notes.

Different apps can apply different words to describe these, so don't expect strict concordance between apps. It appears that Preview doesn't change the nomenclature in the contextual menu when you right click on a highlight, calling the associated text a Note, regardless of what it is internally. This makes sense -- users would consider specific wording to be a distinction without a difference, and thus confusing.

Bookends also allows you to add commentary to highlight and underline annotations. We added the ability to do this with a right-click in the last year or so, and used "Add Comment". This makes a lot of sense, but can be confused with the "Make Comment" mentioned above. Perhaps that should be changed to something like "Add Text" or "Make Text Annotation" (that kind of annotation is called simply "Text" in the Annotation menus of Preview and PDF Expert).

Hopefully this clears up some of the confusion, and you see that Bookends and Preview are using different ways add additional information to a Highlight. We are adding the text to the highlight object. It appears that Preview is adding a new annotation, a Note, and associating that with the highlight (I don't know how that's done, I'm hardly an expert in PDFKit).

With all that said, I'll think about it possible improvements.

Jon
Sonny Software
nicka
Posts: 226
Joined: Thu Feb 03, 2005 6:56 pm
Location: Oslo
Contact:

Re: Request: Icon for pdf text highlight comments

Post by nicka »

Many thanks for this explanation.

I wonder if Apple is just following Adobe's lead here, given that Adobe Reader seems to do things the same way. Notes associated with highlighted text are created and displayed similarly there (the contextual menu you get when you click on highlighted text in Adobe Reader calls them 'pop up notes') and ones created in each application open in the other.

In case it's useful: Adobe Reader also supports replying to such notes, which (as far as I can see) Preview does not. Preview displays replies of this sort, but as detached notecards.
DrJJWMac
Posts: 345
Joined: Sat Jun 22, 2019 8:04 am
Location: Alabama USA

Re: Request: Icon for pdf text highlight comments

Post by DrJJWMac »

I am also often confused by the variations in terminology --> comment, note, PDF note, and note card. We also have an option to "quote" selected text as opposed to selecting note card.

Respectfully for due consideration, as you think about possible improvements, I would have an easier time understanding what each selection is designed to do using the approach below.

Context Menu selecting a region of text in the PDF (the rearrangement and double lines are purposeful)
--
Highlight | Underline | Insert as PDF Note || Quote (to Notecard) | Capture (to Notecard) || Copy | Copy Link

Gear Menu from top left corner when PDF is displayed
--
Add Text
Add PDF Note

Context Menu selecting a highlighted or underlined region of text (the rearrangement and added line are purposeful)
--
Color >
Add Note (for consistency with Preview and Acrobat ... PDFExpert calls the note text a sticky note)
----
Copy
Copy Link
----
Remove Note (for consistency with Preview)
Delete

The fact that a Note (as a comment on a highlighted or underlined text) is hidden while a PDF Note is visible as an icon is consistent with Preview.
--
JJW
Jon
Site Admin
Posts: 10048
Joined: Tue Jul 13, 2004 6:27 pm
Location: Bethesda, MD
Contact:

Re: Request: Icon for pdf text highlight comments

Post by Jon »

Thanks for the input.

To your last point, and note is a note in both Bookends and Preview (it's annotation type "text", to be technical), and it's not hidden in either. Preview is seemingly using a Note to hold additional information about highlights, whereas Bookends is putting the additional information into the contents field of the highlight object. If you open a PDF in Preview in which content was added to a highlight in Bookends, you'll see it's invisible, too. That's the way PDFKit works. In both apps, you'll see the content in the note stream (Bookends) and the sidebar (Preview).

I don't intend to phenocopy Preview, but I'll make modifications where it makes sense. For example, I've already changed the action pop-up to use Add Text and Add Note instead of Make Comment and Make Note. I'll think about "PDF Note".

Jon
Sonny Software
DrJJWMac
Posts: 345
Joined: Sat Jun 22, 2019 8:04 am
Location: Alabama USA

Re: Request: Icon for pdf text highlight comments

Post by DrJJWMac »

I appreciate the clarification.

Changing Create Comment to Add Text really does help distinguish the action. Clarity will also be improved if the term “comment” is reserved solely for text that we can add (and remove) on highlighted or underlined phrases. The prefix “PDF” would then not be needed for actions to add or remove notes (ie just Note not PDF Note).

Text, Note, Comment —> Short and distinct
--
JJW
Post Reply