Bug 306886

*** Bug 306844 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Biggest problems... :)
a) how shall we call it?
b) what icon?

Suggestion (however involves future modifications as well):
- Make Text/Browse tool the only tool
- Make selection and table selection and scroll tools "toggle button"-modes, which
 a) automatically exit once a corresponding operation has been performed (or aborted).
 b) or: make them stay in that mode until Esc is pressed (would mean removing the Esc binding to the table tool, which though should not be a problem - it can be easily replaced by clicking outside the area). The same "remain in that mode until esc is pressed" approach could also be used for annotations (currently, it can be annoying to always have to reselect the annotation mode).

Hmmmm, looking at the competing products (Adobe Reader and evince) it seems neither of those has a merged tool both both selection and scrolling.

Adobe has two separate tools, with text selection being the default one and scrolling being an optional one.

Evince does not seem to have a "hand" mode.

Thinking about it, it may not even be always possible to know if you want the "hand" behaviour or the "select text" behaviour.

Maybe we should keep them separate but going into Adobe Reader's direction?

What are other people's opinions here?

I think it is definitely possible: currently, when you are in text selection mode and click an empty area (without text), nothing happens. In those cases, we would use scrolling behavior, otherwise the text selection behavior.

That was my original thinking, but i fear that there might be some huge letter as a kind of watermark and then it works as text selection only...

Anyway let's see what you can do :D

About the name, i'd call it the imaginative name of "Browse/Select" and maybe rename the selection tool to be "block selection" or something similar

About the " it can be annoying to always have to reselect the annotation mode", you should be able to double click to pin it.

Ok - btw, in evince the hand mode is the middle button (which okular uses for zoom)
Since okular also accepts the common ctrl+scroll for zoom, the middle button might be an option to consider.

And the reset annotation mode: yeah, I should rtm before complaining :)

I know that this bug has been inactive for quite a long time, but I agree with the comment of the original author. I started recently to use Okular in order to replace Evince and I love everything in Okular except the browsing/selection tool.

I find very annoying to have to change between the two modes every time. I feel that the strategy adopted by Evince is much simpler: middle button to browse, and left button to select. We find this behaviour in other softwares (Firefox for example), and in general the left button is reserved to selection (text editors).

I understand that merging the two tools could be a prejudice for those who are accustomed to them, but having another mode would be very useful.

Hear hear!

This issue is another example of a broader problem in the Okular UI in the over-use of modes, and inconsistency in the operation in different modes. This is particularly annoying when you need to switch often between modes. I raised earlier this year some problems of inconsistency in the Okular UI https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/okular-devel/2016-February/022421.html I have also submitted a trivial review request that without breaking any currently working function eliminates one annoying inconsistency between selection modes: https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/127496/ I've had zero response to the review request.

How do people feel about starting a broader discussion about these issues in the Okular UI? Even a working group perhaps? I'd certainly be keen to get the ball rolling.

See also Bug 155563  in this context.