PDF reader not really user friendly...

[Chas. Owens]

On Jan 26, 2008 1:16 PM, Eben Eliason <eben.eliason at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Yes, the page-up (O) and page-down (X) buttons should move to the
> > start of the next and previous pages not scroll a fixed amount.
>
> Could you provide some justification for this approach?  Paging
> exactly one screen height seems most logical to me, as there's no
> guarantee that a full page fits on screen.  Of course, when a full
> page does fit on screen, the techniques are equivalent.
snip

Scrolling within a page is done by the rocker/arrow keys scrolling
pages should be done by O and X/Page Up and Page Down.  The page
nature of the scrolling is in the name of the key.  On the web you
don't have "pages", so it makes sense to scroll screens instead, but
with PDFs you do have pages and it makes sense to scroll them.  The
square and check keys (currently mapped to Home and End), don't see to
be of much use to me, perhaps they could be retasked as scroll screen
keys.

snip
> > > Probably when the screen is rotated, the PDF reader should be set in a
> > > special full screen mode with per-page navigation mode.
> > > It is a minimum for a decent eBook reader.
> >
> > I can't disagree with this more.  Many of my PDFs have massive margins
> > that make the text unreadable if I try to fit the whole page on the
> > screen.  I will always need a custom zoom level.  You can get a full
> > screen view by pressing alt-enter (alt-enter also brings back the
> > menu).
>
> I don't see that the above suggestion is at all in conflict with your
> wishes.  Our current plans for the book reader do include entering
> fullscreen (note that you can't press alt-enter when in handheld
> mode...) automatically, to maximize the viewing area.  This doesn't,
> in my mind, require changing the current zoom level or other custom
> settings, which should remain.  Of course, we also intend to allow for
> simple scrolling, paging, and zooming features with the available set
> of buttons, which should make it easy to view any format without the
> need for the toolbars at all.
snip

I originally read "full screen mode" as "Zoom to fit".  If all we are
talking about is removing the toolbar on screen rotation, well, that
makes a lot sense.