iRex Forum

[daudi]

Hi there,

I read a lot of scientific articles that are usually set out in two-column format. I have tried using fullscreen mode to read whole pages and, while it is possible, after several hours I get a headache because the fonts are too small (or my eyes are too old---take your pick).

Zooming and panning seems to be the way to go for me and I am still working on getting my technique right so that I don't need to make too many strokes of the stylus. There are two things that could help me.

i) A way of telling ipdf that a document is set out in two-column mode so that ipdf knows how to navigate through the 4 quarters of a page in logical order. This would mean that I would not need to use the stylus. Please forgive me for going on about this as I've mentioned this a few times in other posts, but for completeness I thought it should come here.

ii) The second approach I've just hit on today is to mark the center of the page with a cross with a circle around it, like a target. This makes it much easier to zoom to the correct depth and then to pan around the page without getting lost. I can do this manually by adding a scribble to each page, but I was wondering how easy it would be to have a built-in way to do this, i.e. display a target that marks the exact centre of a page.

Thanks.

Daudi
_________________
My thoughts as I considered whether or not to buy an Iliad and things I've learned after getting one: http://davepublic.pbwiki.com/Great+expectations

[daudi]

Well, I don't know how to modify the code for the ipdf, but I do know quite a bit about latex so I have created a little script that adds a center target to each page of a PDF file so I don't have to scribble by hand. Probably a nasty hack, but it's the best I can do for now.

Now to see if this really works for me.

Daudi
_________________
My thoughts as I considered whether or not to buy an Iliad and things I've learned after getting one: http://davepublic.pbwiki.com/Great+expectations

[wpd]

Hi Daudi,

I have the same itch, but a different approach: I modified ipdf-svn23-rjenhanced070612 to have an columnadvance function on the toolbar. It works like this:
- select continuous mode
- zoom in on the column
- toggle columnadvance on toolbar (I nicked the start_reading icon)
- mark column width with stylus
- use flipbar to advance
- both columnmode and width are saved in the manifests

I whipped this up quite quick and there is a lot I don't like at this point:
- renderThread will throw the page you are looking at away because it is the oldest in the cache
- cpu throttling seems unaware of renderthread actions
- zoom on the column and mark the column should be one action, but the zooming makes the columnwidth imprecise
- algorithm to determine if there is another column or not has too many knobs in it still - doing the right thing is hard without actual column detection. portrait works ok, but landscape is "hard to enjoy"
- portrait and landscape algorithm should be merged (they are equivalent)

Code, patch against ipdf-2.10-rjenhanced and stripped arm exe for 2.10.2 are at http://www.xs4all.nl/~wpd/iliad/20070904/. Note that the exe syslogs columnadvance debugs - which is painless if you do not have syslogd running.

Ideas, bugs and fixes are much appreciated.

[daudi]

wpd,

This is exactly the sort of feature I am looking for! I'll see if I can get time tonight to try it.

Thank you!

Daudi
_________________
My thoughts as I considered whether or not to buy an Iliad and things I've learned after getting one: http://davepublic.pbwiki.com/Great+expectations

[tribble]

This sounds very interesting. I will have to try this out. Thanks for your work.
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offizieller iRex Reseller in Deutschland

[jharker]

Very nice work... I'll check it out when I've got a second! My usual approach to reading articles (which I do often) is to use fullscreen/landscape mode. But this could be better!

Another improvement for your "to-do" list might be a three-column mode, as some medical journals (and others?) use three columns...

I wouldn't spend too much time on unifying the landscape/portrait code, as tempting as it is. I believe iRex is supposed to be working on a unified backend document displayer that will allow "plugins" for viewing different file types. So ultimately, much of the pdf viewer will be replaced anyway, I think...