Sonny Software

I just spent a few weeks playing around with Sente. It was missing basic features that I need but it had something extremely simple that turned out to make a huge difference. I've requested it before but now that I've seen it implemented I am more sure it would be a big help in Bookends.

The pull out window on the side in Sente can display a summary (citation+abstract), keywords, or notes). I almost always had it displaying notes. I know I can choose a bibliography format that displays notes automatically for browsing through my records but with a small screen plus the desire to browse abstracts as well, that's not really practical. My notes end up way down beyond the edge of the scroll bar. If notes were located in a pullout window, it is much easier to browse through my notes on different references.

Also, the notes window in the reference field is really small for actual note-taking. I type them elsewhere and copy them into the notes window but it would be nice to have more space.

jmir wrote:The pull out window on the side in Sente can display a summary (citation+abstract), keywords, or notes). I almost always had it displaying notes. I know I can choose a bibliography format that displays notes automatically for browsing through my records but with a small screen plus the desire to browse abstracts as well, that's not really practical. My notes end up way down beyond the edge of the scroll bar. If notes were located in a pullout window, it is much easier to browse through my notes on different references.

So you are asking for two drawers, is that it? The one at the bottom (it exists now) and one at the side, and they can independently show different information?

Also, the notes window in the reference field is really small for actual note-taking. I type them elsewhere and copy them into the notes window but it would be nice to have more space.

Just click on the Notes label -- it opens an enlarged view that is more convenient for adding/editing/reading notes...

Jon
Sonny Software

Jon wrote: So you are asking for two drawers, is that it? The one at the bottom (it exists now) and one at the side, and they can independently show different information?

To me it doesn't matter if you added a window or replaced the old one with a side window but I'm sure there are users attached to the bottom window so I think 2 is the way to go. A horizontal window is much harder on the eye for large blocks of text like notes and abstracts because there are too many words per line. In Sente it was easier to browse through my references because the notes were simply easier to read on the screen.

Jon wrote: Just click on the Notes label -- it opens an enlarged view that is more convenient for adding/editing/reading notes...

But it's really not meant for large blocks of text. It's like making a 4 character box for author. You wouldn't do that because everybody would be needing to expand the box to actually use it. I think the Notes box needs to be as big as the abstracts box.

That previous post was me again. I didn't fill in the username field.