Bug 334735

Summary:	Okular review/annotation tools lack basic text tools (delete/insert/replace text)
Product:	[Applications] okular	Reporter:	Sergio <sergio.callegari>
Component:	general	Assignee:	Okular developers <okular-devel>
Status:	RESOLVED NOT A BUG
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	aacid
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	0.19.1
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	unspecified
OS:	All
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Sergio 2014-05-14 08:17:41 UTC

The review/annotation tools that are currently available in okular are not sufficient to make it up to the task of supporting 'standard' review practices used for editorial activities.

Essential missing features are those normally marked as review/comment 'text tools' in competing programs such as foxit pdf reader.

1. Delete text
2. Insert text
3. Replace text

Note that

1. Can be worked around. To this aim, it is sufficient to manually configure the annotation tools, adding a new annotation tool named 'Delete text' with type 'text markup' and appearance type 'strike-out', and appearance color 'red'. Yet, it would be much better not to need any configuration activity and directly have such a tool pre-configured in the default palette of annotation tools.

2. Appears to be completely missing. This should insert a little graphical object, shaped like a caret ^, typically blue, pointing at the place where the reviewer recommends the insertion of some text. The text to be inserted should go in a pop-up note associated to the shape.

3. Is also missing, but once 2 is in place should be easy to implement. In fact, this is just a shorthand to do the strike-out operation and the insertion of the caret at once, placing the caret right after the end of the text block that has been stroke-out.

For further details, see what other competing software does. Foxit pdf editor for windows is a good example to test and can be easily tried in Linux since it runs fine with wine.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1 Albert Astals Cid 2014-05-14 08:24:50 UTC

Please one bug/wish per bugzilla entry, otherwise managing stuff like this becomes impossible to manage, two reasons amognst many:
 * You can't close something when you've implemented it, since the bug is a kitchensync that includes other 99 things
 * People read a bug called "This is not real-word" and then they started adding their own "real world" use cases, and you end up with an infinite amount of unrelated requests in the same bug.

So please open single itemized requests in bugzilla for any of the things you want improved.

Thanks for caring about Okular :)

Comment 2 Sergio 2014-05-14 08:55:18 UTC

As the feature request was already detailing, standard editorial practices require that a reviewer is able to: (i) mark parts of text that need to be deleted; (ii) provide text that needs to be inserted, together with an insertion point; (iii) mark parts of text that need to be replaced and the replacement text. I do not know how to say it, but this in my view is *atomic*.  None of the points makes great sense without the others.

So, would it be OK to simply rename the feature request avoiding the dangerous 'real-world' keyword to have it valid? Something like

"Okular review/annotation tools lack basic text tools (delete/insert/replace text)"

As a matter of fact, also the changes that are actually asked for in okular are tightly interconnected

1. Put a red strikeout in the default palette of annotation tools as 'delete text'. This is readily available. It only needs to be pre-placed in the palette, so that the user does not need to configure it himself.
2. Pre-define a little 'caret-like' geometrical shape and put it in the default palette of annotation tools as 'insert text', so that the point of the caret goes where the mouse pointer is at click time. Geometrical shapes are readily available, but only ellipse and rectangle are actually there. The caret needs to be provided.
3. Put in the default palette a shorthand to do 1 and 2 simultaneously and call it 'replace text'.

How the things are not independent one from the other should be evident from point 3.

Comment 3 Albert Astals Cid 2014-05-14 09:04:53 UTC

1 and 2 are are independent, 3 is dependent on 1 and 2. Please file 3 separate bugs.

Comment 4 Sergio 2014-05-14 09:34:11 UTC

Done for 2. Will post feature requests for 1 and 3 if 2 sees implementation, since there is really no need for them without 2.