asked 2015-04-20 10:54:57 +0200

Damien Caliste
6535 ●105 ●139 ●161

https://github.com/dcalis...

updated 2015-10-01 12:27:34 +0200

• 2015-10-01 : added the optional feature to remember last open page position and zoom level for PDF documents, see below.
• 2015-05-28 : final proposal before sending a pull request upstream, see below.
• 2015-05-20 : updated implementation for in-document search, see below.
• 2015-04-23 : updated implementation for page selection, see below.

Toolbar developments

I would like to discuss here some improvements that can be done to the document application of Jolla. This application is free software and thus be modified / adapted by ourself. Specificaly speeking, I would like to address these issues for PDF documents :

• access to current page number ;
• jump to a given page not in the table of content ;
• search in documents ;
• not easily discoverable table of content page as can be seen in the comment complains in the shop.

I propose as a solution to have a toolbar that is displayed when the document is scrolled up and hidden when document is scrolled down, like in the browser. This makes the applications more consistent together. I've implemented this and I join a screen shot :

The code is visible in my github (toolbar branch). I've implemented on the left a page indicator, in the centre the space will be used for the search action (to be implemented later) and the icon on the right send to the table of content. What I would like your opinion on is :

• how to make the page indicator easily seen that it is sensitive to tap and that it can open a page selection dialog ?
• how to make the page indicator a bit more eye candy than just the document icon and numbers ?
• general comments about the design and possibilities of such a toolbar.

Page navigation

2015-04-23 : after several trials, I've decided to put the capability to jump to a given page in the already existing Index page. This makes sense in my opinion since one use this page already to go to a specific page available from the table of content. I've thus added a "go to pag" text input at the bottom of the page, see below :

I'm wondering if it's clever to have a single page and three entry points for this single page :

• the tap and swipe to the right ;
• the page numbers from the toolbar ;
• and the table of content icon from the toolbar.

Any comments ?

In-PDF search interface

2015-05-20 : I've an initial implementation of in-document search for PDF files (search in documents). The search field is inside the toolbar. When tapped, it expand in all the toolbar and the user can enter a text to search for. Text is indeed search for after pressing the enter key. Then the two 'next' and 'previous' buttons appear to go to next or previous search match. There is an animation to highlight the next or previous match.

I need to add a feedback on search waiting time for long documents and a way to display the number of matchs. After that, I'll submit a pull request for this complete work on the toolbar. As mentioned before, the code is visible in my github (toolbar branch).

2015-05-28 : feedback has been added, and also a label to display the number of matching items. Also, as @Rolfa suggests, when searching, the first matching string is automatically scrolled to.

Any remarks ?

Testing

Before I send a pull request upstream, one can test this by installing an RPM compiled by me, available in my github. This is a non official RPM, so one should know what he's doing when installing it. One can return back to stock version typing 'pkcon install sailfish-office'.

Last page position developments

2015-10-01 I've developped a patch to add the possibility to remember last page position and zoom level for PDF documents. This feature is optional, and controlled by a entry in the settings (see the applications menu en the setting app). The way it works is quite simple, when leaving a PDF document (returning to the menu or quiting the application), the current page index, the position in the page and the zoom level is saved in a local database. When the same PDF document is open again, the view is immediately set at the saved position.

Before I send a pull request upstream, one can test this by installing an RPM compiled by me, available in my github. This is a non official RPM, so one should know what he's doing when installing it. One can return back to stock version typing 'pkcon install sailfish-office'.