Hi. Today I used the new version (1.11.0) and I got shocked by the great UI changes at the annotations interface. English is not my first language, sorry if my text sounds rude. I love to make my annotations using the old sidebar with "quick annotation tools" that I predefined. Has the sidebar annotation tools gone forever? With the new UI: - I need to navigate in a drop-down menu "Quick Annotations" using two clicks instead of one to access a predefined tool. (I tried to define a shortcut to this menu but it doesn't work.) - The actual selected "predefined annotation tool" is less visible and I can't peek at the "old" sidebar to see the shortcut by the "always present" ordered icons. - If I use the new "Annotation bar" to try to perceive what predefined tool I'm using ... I have to look at a gazillion of icons to infer (type, color, etc.) ... and this bar steals vertical space. At my use case, I don't need a bar to configure each new annotation with new colors and etc. I just need a practical way to access predefined tools (if possible, without stealing vertical space) ... with a good UI to alternate between them and see what is selected. I don't know if my "use case" is an esoteric one ... but I'm feeling a bit disappointed. Am I missing something about how to use the new UI correctly?
We thought the new toolbar was great. You are the second one who complains. As a quick suggestion, I would add another toolbar which holds just the quick annotation tools. These tools could be triggered by clicking, and then the button is checked until the tool is disabled. Then we need to figure out when and where to show this toolbar. I will add this to BoF.
Ow, I didn't expect an answer so fast! I'm anxious to test the modifications. :) I'll be using the 10.3 while I'm waiting for these changes. I'm not averse to innovations at UI (I like to use Fedora and Flatpaks to get the most recent versions). But I'm a little obsessive with annotations at my PDFs ... I like to use 4 or 5 different colors to markup any text (different colors for different importances or themes) besides other kinds of annotations. And the old sidebar with a visual hint of the selected tool and simple shortcuts (`1`, `2`, `3`, ...) were incredibly productive (and I didn't need to memorize the shortcuts ... just give a peek to the order of icons).
Hi Felipe and thanks for the feedback. I'll try to reply to your points > - I need to navigate in a drop-down menu "Quick Annotations" using two clicks instead of one to access a predefined tool. True > (I tried to define a shortcut to this menu but it doesn't work.) Well, this seems a bug. > - The actual selected "predefined annotation tool" is less visible and I can't peek at the "old" sidebar to see the shortcut by the "always present" ordered icons. I guess you mean looking at the order of the icons of the old toolbar, because I think that the shortcut was not visible on the toolbar. > - If I use the new "Annotation bar" to try to perceive what predefined tool I'm using ... I have to look at a gazillion of icons to infer (type, color, Well, actually only two icons: type and color. The old toolbar did provide only these two pieces of information. > etc.) ... and this bar steals vertical space. You can move the toolbar on the left or right side of the window and save vertical space. Though when moved to the left it will be to the right of the sidebar. > At my use case, I don't need a bar to configure each new annotation with new colors and etc. I just need a practical way to access predefined tools (if possible, without stealing vertical space) ... with a good UI to alternate between them and see what is selected. I think we should try to keep a better compatibility with the old toolbar to avoid breaking the users habit. To sum it, I think that to solve your issue we need to: - create a new quick annotation toolbar that could be kept always visible - assign a shortcut to show/hide this toolbar What do you think? I think that the main advantages of the new toolbar is that it make easy to change the annotations configuration on the fly, and make some previously hidden features more visible, e.g. continuous mode.
> I think that the main advantages of the new toolbar is that it make easy to > change the annotations configuration on the fly, and make some previously > hidden features more visible, e.g. continuous mode. Considering Okular is not a drawing application, there are probably users who have developed their review workflow, and have enough tools defined for their needs. So they don’t need to change configurations. Which additional buttons should we provide in the Quick Annotations toolbar? Close, Continuous, Configure tools? It could quickly become an Annotation toolbar.
(In reply to David Hurka from comment #4) > > I think that the main advantages of the new toolbar is that it make easy to > > change the annotations configuration on the fly, and make some previously > > hidden features more visible, e.g. continuous mode. > Considering Okular is not a drawing application, there are probably users > who have developed their review workflow, and have enough tools defined for > their needs. So they don’t need to change configurations. > > Which additional buttons should we provide in the Quick Annotations toolbar? > Close, Continuous, Configure tools? It could quickly become an Annotation > toolbar. Alternatively, you could consider providing an expanded 'quick annotations' item that can be added to the existing annotations toolbar. This would essentially be a very wide widget (like the 'page number' one on the main toolbar) that shows all the configured quick annotations without requiring an additional click. People who don't need the 'extra' features in the new toolbar could simply configure the toolbar to show only this widget.
Thank you for your work, I would also prefer the old way of accessing quick annotations. I know from my experience and many other people in my group that is extremely useful to have access to all quick annotations for example when reading and reviewing papers. Having the quick annotations visible all the time is a great time saver and really reduces the distractions when reading. Maybe allow a toolbar in the style of the old one just for quick annotations?
> I guess you mean looking at the order of the icons of the old toolbar, because I think that the shortcut was not visible on the toolbar. Yes, I mean looking at the order of the icons of the (always present) old toolbar. This is useful because the default shortcuts are the number keys at the same order of the icons. So, with just a glance ... I recognize the selected tool and the order to use the correct shortcut to select another. But, anyway, if I pass the mouse over the icon ... it shows the name and shortcut (e.g.: `Pop-up Note [1]`, `Inline Note [2]`) > Well, actually only two icons: type and color. The old toolbar did provide only these two pieces of information. The new UI seems disruptive/distracting to me because: - I can't look just at the predefined tools that I care about. - I have to search amid other icons the values "color" and "type" just to know what I'm using. The old toolbar is cleaner because it only shows me the predefined tools that I care about. And it "shows" (by icon order) the shortcuts to access then. > You can move the toolbar on the left or right side of the window and save vertical space. Though when moved to the left it will be to the right of the sidebar. Thanks for the information! The only caveat is that the old was a floating bar ... so it doesn't take horizontal space of the document. The horizontal space is useful when you use half of the screen to Okular and the other half to LibreOffice. But, I'm happy to know that I can keep my vertical space. > I think we should try to keep a better compatibility with the old toolbar to avoid breaking the users habit. To sum it, I think that to solve your issue we need to: > - create a new quick annotation toolbar that could be kept always visible > - assign a shortcut to show/hide this toolbar > What do you think? The only "big" feature that I would miss is that with the old bar the default shortcuts to my "predefined tools" were the brutally simple number keys. These tools are used many, many times in a few minutes ... and clear and simple default shortcuts of just 1 key is very useful. The new UI reserve, by default, these "number keys" shortcuts to peruse among the configurations of the annotation tools and demands the combination "Alt + number" to alternate between the "predefined tools".
(In reply to David Hurka from comment #1) > We thought the new toolbar was great. You are the second one who complains. > > As a quick suggestion, I would add another toolbar which holds just the > quick annotation tools. These tools could be triggered by clicking, and then > the button is checked until the tool is disabled. Then we need to figure out > when and where to show this toolbar. I will add this to BoF. I would prefer if the interface had not been changed too. I had a small set with all annotations I typically used very handy on the sidebar. Now all I use is the "Quick Annotations" dropdown and all other buttons just occupy space for me.
Hello, The new annotation UI seems like a regression to me. I use annotations heavily for my work - which is academic PDFs. The current implementation doesn't make the "quick annotations" part obvious, in addition to being much more obtrusive. I would strongly recommend adding in an option to atleast go back to the old way of doing things.
(In reply to David Hurka from comment #4) > It could quickly become an Annotation toolbar. This seems the right path; an Annotation Toolbar with plenty of options, and a Quick Annotation Toolbar with presets. Maybe the user could add a preset from the current annotation configuration? The new UI improved the annotation customization workflow. The old customization workflow was hard to spot and use. Kudos on fixing that! However, the actual annotation workflow became harder. On the old UI, an annotation was a click or a keystroke away. Besides that, the visual feedback was familiar to anyone who ever annotated a paper (the icons could improve, for sure).
Yesterday during the Okular BoF, it was decided on a solution to fix this bug and provide a way to have a quick annotation toolbar as it was before. The proposed solution is in the description of: https://invent.kde.org/graphics/okular/-/issues/20
I'm excited to see these changes :D Will be available mockups or a preview? If there is a nightly flatpak channel (or something like that) I'm a happy tester. Okular is a essential tool to a lot of students and researchers. Ah, and the shortcuts ... will be swapped (the shortcuts of the built-in annotations with those of the quick annotations)?
I'll share a preview once we reach that point. The shortcuts have been already swapped, should see it in 1.11.2. Now the quick annotations have shortcuts 1, 2, 3, ... as it was in Okular < 1.11.
A possibly relevant merge request was started @ https://invent.kde.org/graphics/okular/-/merge_requests/305
*** Bug 433949 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
A possibly relevant merge request was started @ https://invent.kde.org/graphics/okular/-/merge_requests/414
Git commit 0fb2058e2ad8f0436ccba9bdff8c277b849dfdaa by Simone Gaiarin. Committed on 10/05/2021 at 05:36. Pushed by gaiarin into branch 'master'. Make quick annotation tools checkable M +26 -7 part/annotationactionhandler.cpp https://invent.kde.org/graphics/okular/commit/0fb2058e2ad8f0436ccba9bdff8c277b849dfdaa
Fixed by Simone Giarin with https://invent.kde.org/graphics/okular/-/merge_requests/305
Actually this is not completely fixed, to make everyone happy we still need: https://invent.kde.org/graphics/okular/-/merge_requests/414
Git commit 8837a1138fcc1a090d67fab1a4ffd058d184aad8 by Simone Gaiarin. Committed on 13/08/2021 at 21:28. Pushed by gaiarin into branch 'master'. Add quick annotation minibar action Related: bug 425598 Fix #20 M +1 -0 CMakeLists.txt A +131 -0 part/actionbar.cpp [License: GPL (v2+)] A +38 -0 part/actionbar.h [License: GPL (v2+)] M +20 -9 part/annotationactionhandler.cpp https://invent.kde.org/graphics/okular/commit/8837a1138fcc1a090d67fab1a4ffd058d184aad8