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I've just noticed something very strange when viewing PDF documents using Touch HD's built-in Adobe Reader LE 2.5: When zoomed into a document and scrolling horizontally by dragging with the stylus, the scrolling just doesn't stop and continues until the view hits the edge of the document! Is anybody else experiencing this?
Here's what I'm seeing in more detail: I zoom into a document (any document, textual or map-based) far enough that the document more than fills the available viewing area both vertically and horizontally. Then I tap and drag the document horizontally. At this point, after stopping dragging and until I lift the tip of the stylus, the document stops scrolling. But, as soon as I lift the tip of the stylus, the document restarts scrolling in the direction I just dragged it and just doesn't stop until it reaches the edge of the document in the scrolling direction. Trying to "catch" the document with the stylus during the scrolling in order to stop it is of no use.
I think I've also noticed that the first couple of attempts at scrolling immediately after opening a new document works fine. The problem sometimes only shows up in subsequent attempts.
This doesn't happen at all when scrolling vertically by dragging. It happens any time the dragging is "mostly" horizontal, but never when I drag "mostly" vertically.
Scrolling around using the scroll bars (by tapping the scroll bar or arrows, or dragging the scroll bar) works just fine.
Could one of you try this out and let me know if you're seeing the same thing?
Some more insights:
The size of the document doesn't seem to make any difference. Small documents or large, it happens every time.
I've played around with "non-linear" dragging. If I drag in an "L-shaped" motion, it appears that the problem only applies when the horizontal portion of the "L" is longer than its vertical portion. Dragging in circles and other jumbled motions produces mixed results.
I came across a map with "bookmarks", where a little "tab" appears near the top of the viewing area in Adobe Reader. When I click the tab, the window splits into two panes, with the top pane showing the bookmark list and the bottom showing the document. When in this mode, the problem disappears. Scrolling by dragging in either direction works perfectly. (And a little faster, oddly.) After I close the top pane, the problem returns. This is the main reason why I think this is an Adobe Reader bug, rather than a side effect of some other software or a setting change that I have on my Touch HD.
I used several other Windows Mobile devices before this one, and on all of them, the software I used for PDF documents was "Adobe Reader for Pocket PC 2.0". (This includes even my AT&T Tilt running WM 6.1.) This "Adobe Reader LE 2.5" is new to me. I wonder if there would be any adverse effects if I tried the 2.0 reader on my Touch HD. I'm worried it might clash with the built-in reader in some bad way. In fact, I'm sure the "Pocket PC 2.0" version of the reader doesn't support VGA (and higher) resolution screens. (I used to use a utility called "Real VGA" on my only other VGA PDA on which I used the Adobe Reader for Pocket PC 2.0 earlier, in order to get it to display documents at the right resolution.) Does anyone here have any experience related to this?
The whole issue evokes an attempt at "inertial scrolling" (not sure if that's what it's mostly called), where, if you "flick" the document with the stylus, the scrolling continues for a little while longer in the same direction after it slows down and stops. If that's what Adobe Reader is trying to do, it's certainly a failed attempt, because there's no sign of a slow down, it never stops, and this happens every time I scroll horizontally by dragging; i.e., even when I did nothing like a "flick".
Anybody have any relevant experiences?
No PDF users around??... Could I really be the only one here who views maps using the built-in Adobe Reader LE 2.5?!
Got something similar happening with PIE, not that that helps ya much!
When in desktop view, any drag continues until the screen is tapped again.
Hmmm... I don't use Pocket IE at all, but that's an interesting clue. Thanks.
I've noticed the issue with the scrolling on PDF documents that require a lot of rendering (note that "lots of rendering" reflects complexity of the document, not size).
It seems that the processor is too busy rendering the document to detect when you stopped dragging the screen (but funnily enough, not too busy to detect when you started).
The solution for me was to scroll using the scrolling bars, as opposed to just dragging the entire document. Either that, or scroll veeeryyy slowly .
milan_ns said:
I've noticed the issue with the scrolling on PDF documents that require a lot of rendering (note that "lots of rendering" reflects complexity of the document, not size).
It seems that the processor is too busy rendering the document to detect when you stopped dragging the screen (but funnily enough, not too busy to detect when you started).
The solution for me was to scroll using the scrolling bars, as opposed to just dragging the entire document. Either that, or scroll veeeryyy slowly .
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Thank you for your feedback.
I had thought of the same thing about "the CPU being too busy to detect the end of dragging" too. To experiment with that, I tried waiting for the rotating "wait cursor" to disappear before lifting the stylus from the screen after a drag. It didn't change anything.
I must also state that I see the issue even with a 190 KB (i.e., small) PDF document with nothing but text in a table in it. I don't even see any delay or a "wait cursor" at any point when I'm interacting with this document. But, when I'm zoomed into it and I drag to scroll, it causes the same "neverending pan" behavior.
The point about the scroll bars is valid. I was just trying to check first whether the experience was common, or if it might be due to something goofy that I might have done myself. I guess it's the former...
If you press on the screen and then swipe your finger while maintaining pressure and then stop at the point you like, wait for a moment and then release your finger, you will have full control over the distance scrolled.
However, if you really want to make PDF reading a positive experience, intall diamond acrobat reader le cab that enables reflow on the documents that are not even tagged. It is available on this forum.
sproxy said:
If you press on the screen and then swipe your finger while maintaining pressure and then stop at the point you like, wait for a moment and then release your finger, you will have full control over the distance scrolled.
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Nope. Doesn't work for horizontal scrolling. It resumes scrolling in the same direction as soon as I lift my finger and doesn't stop until hits the edge of the document, no matter how long I "wait for a moment".
sproxy said:
However, if you really want to make PDF reading a positive experience, intall diamond acrobat reader le cab that enables reflow on the documents that are not even tagged. It is available on this forum.
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Click to collapse
Not a bad idea. I might give that a try. Thanks.
Staying on topic about PDFs.
Does anyone know how a good software for the HD to read PDFs?
I went through Team Ones to PocketXPDF and they all had problems.
Team Ones was the best but it didn't seem to display the whole PDF at all, cutting parts at the end and it was heaps slow.
The Adobe one is just shocking.
Want one that wraps the text to fit the screen no matter what zoom, the Team One did this very well.
Do we have any solution for this? Reader 2.5 LE, with reflow mode enabled (needs a change in the registry) is just PERFECT to read eBooks, except for the horizontal scrolling issue. Because of that, I'm reading books in vertical mode.
does any body know how to disable the touchFlow for the reflow in the adobe reader 2.5?
True. It seems Reader 2.5 LE with reflow hack appears to be the best among all. But reflow can be very bad for certain documents..
What I think would be a perfect companion for Reader 2.5 LE would be a scroll hack app..
What the app should do?
1. User inputs the % he/she zoomed the given page for comfortable viewing.
2. Support tapping the 6 spots on screen see attach.(when the reader is running).
3.Scroll accurately the document into one of the 6 positions.
One input may be sufficient for a multipage documents with same lay out.
May be some more flaws in my idea... but seems possible --- anyone??
Too bad that I don't know prog for PPC.
Any way don't fire this newbie
montag09 said:
Do we have any solution for this? Reader 2.5 LE, with reflow mode enabled (needs a change in the registry) is just PERFECT to read eBooks, except for the horizontal scrolling issue. Because of that, I'm reading books in vertical mode.
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I'm very pleased with my HD2 overall, but there's one area where it comes up short in comparison to the iPhone imo: in the default zoomed out browser page view, if you click on a link (which is small, but it does briefly change colour so you know the press has registered), nothing happens - I have to zoom in (with a pinch or double press) before it will work. This is the case in both Opera and IE.
Is there by any chance a config hack to sort this? I'm new to Windows Mobile, perhaps it's a known weakness? Because the link does highlight it makes me think this is more of a software issue than a hardware one, so ought to be fixable/hackable?
Thanks,
Andy
AndyGarton said:
I'm very pleased with my HD2 overall, but there's one area where it comes up short in comparison to the iPhone imo: in the default zoomed out browser page view, if you click on a link (which is small, but it does briefly change colour so you know the press has registered), nothing happens - I have to zoom in (with a pinch or double press) before it will work. This is the case in both Opera and IE.
Is there by any chance a config hack to sort this? I'm new to Windows Mobile, perhaps it's a known weakness? Because the link does highlight it makes me think this is more of a software issue than a hardware one, so ought to be fixable/hackable?
Thanks,
Andy
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when i go to google.nl and its zoomed out, i click on the right upper side to log in/sign in, so for me this aint no issue.
Just one bump in case anybody else has any thoughts (I appreciate that this isn't an issue for the poster above, but it is for me ).
You can search the forum for a solution (it was posted dozens of times across the place). You'll need to change zoom settings to achieve what you want.
Just note that you'll lose something as well. The current behavior allows you to activate onHover events (stuff that websites do when you move your mouse over an element). With default settings you get popups/menus activated without firing the link action (an option missing in the iPhone browser).
Yes, I'm having the same problem from time to time. Sometimes I can hit tiny targets and sometimes I have to zoom right in to hit a link. I guess it's just a matter of getting used to the capacitive screen.
mrturq said:
when i go to google.nl and its zoomed out, i click on the right upper side to log in/sign in, so for me this aint no issue.
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Thanks, I found the registry setting (software,opera,info,az_overview_threshold), reduced it to 32 and haven't noticed any obvious side effects yet. This makes a big difference for me, especially when I set the minimum font size to medium in the menu settings.
Just noticed that NewspaperDirect have shipped their first version of PressReader that's specifically intended for tablets:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/pressreader/android/prweb8616121.htm
I've actually started using PressReader myself, and although it's a bit more expensive than subscribing to the website of the paper I want to read (South China Morning Post), it's also more convenient in that I can read it offline and in the same manner as the real paper.
Here's hoping that Asus upgrades the existing version to the tablet one in their next firmware update. I'd definitely prefer to have a Honeycomb-specific version, but if I want it right now, I'll end up with two PressReader installs on my tablet.
I'll be talking to the PressReader folks in a few days when I upgrade to a paid account, so I'll see if they can tell me anything about whether Asus will be shipping an update at the same time... Fingers crossed!
Misread .. Doh but HoneyComb PressReader is way better now, the layout is so much user friendly.
Haven't installed it yet as I didn't want to risk it not coexisting with my existing subscription. What did they change, specifically?
the interface is ok but it really bugs me that i have to choose a country everytime i want to browse newspapers.
it would be better to be able to set a default and then browse other countries if required.
also, it seems pretty expensive. i've subscribed at the moment but i'm not sure that i can justify the cost ... i love reading the latest newspapers on my transformer though.
Granted...the shelf is different. But other than that..when actually viewing the papers I don't see much/any difference from the version that was already on our 3.1 Transformer. Maybe they just launched it with Asus first before bringing it to the app store? Do you notice any differences?
BTW. Although I like clicking on a headline to get just that story on one page.. I think it should include all the pictures associated with the story. Many times it's just text...sometimes one out of 3 pictures is included.
sbliner said:
Granted...the shelf is different. But other than that..when actually viewing the papers I don't see much/any difference from the version that was already on our 3.1 Transformer. Maybe they just launched it with Asus first before bringing it to the app store? Do you notice any differences?
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Took a look myself, and what they've added is a new view mode accessed with a button near the right end of the top menu bar while viewing a paper. It gives you a supposedly more newspaper-like arrangement where you see (other than the front / rear covers) two pages side by side, with a faint darkening towards the division between the two pages, to mimic the look of an opened newspaper.
It's cute I guess, but only really of use if you tap headlines to read stories, which I don't. Except for the headlines, the font is too small to be readable even on a tablet.
What I'd much rather see PressReader add is a view that would fit the page to the screen width, which would make for a very readable paper in landscape orientation on a tablet. (Drag up / down to read the page, flick side to side to change pages). Right now, their default view choices are either zoomed (which requires 2D panning), single-page (with loads of wasted space around the edges), or double-page (with loads of wasted space around the edges).
Anybody else noticing lockups with Press Reader's tablet edition? I've found a few bugs, but this seems by far the most severe. It's specific to the tablet edition; never had anything similar with the standard edition that's bundled on the Transformer.
It's happened to me four times now, always while I'm panning around a page that's been zoomed in to 100% by double tapping on the page.
The symptom is that the tablet stops responding completely. Not only is Press Reader locked up, but so is Honeycomb's System Bar -- the Home, Back, Menu, and Apps buttons, and the status section at the right end of the bar all don't respond if tapped. Nor does holding the power button bring up the "Power Off" dialog. If I close the tablet screen on the dock and reopen it, the screen won't come back on.
Honeycomb itself *isn't* locked up, though, just its user interface. If I tap the power button, the tablet goes to sleep, and a second tap wakes it up properly. Also, the most recent time it happened to me, as luck would have it, I had a live radio feed playing on TuneIn Radio, and it kept playing for a couple of minutes after the Honeycomb UI had locked up.
The only way to fix the problem is a cold boot, by holding the power button in for ~10 seconds or so until the screen goes off. On rebooting, Honeycomb and Press Reader work correctly again. It's a bit alarming that whatever the Press Reader bug is can lock up the entire Honeycomb UI, though!
Other bugs I've found:
* When zoomed in 100%, sometimes the graphics in the newspaper appear on the wrong places in the page and/or extremely blurrily. Zooming out and back in again corrects the problem.
* Also when zoomed in 100%, sometimes part or all of the text on the page doesn't re-render, and stays unreadably blurry.
* When downloading new issues of newspapers, the status bar showing the download sometimes stays at zero and/or a thumbnail of the newspaper never appears even though the download has completed, but if I double tap on the incomplete status bar the paper will open, or if I exit and reenter Press Reader the paper's thumbnail will generate and the status bar will vanish.
* I've also had one issue lock up during downloading, and the download wouldn't complete despite working wifi until I rebooted the tablet.
* I also have problems with images seeming to be more compressed on the tablet version, or perhaps not rendering correctly. Comparing the same newspaper, which has a small comics section, the tablet version is blurry enough that I can barely read the text on the comics, while the standard version is much sharper and the same size comic text is very easily readable.
Considering all these together, the tablet version of the app is simply not ready for prime time. Asus didn't upgrade the bundled version of Press Reader on their just-released OTA update, and I'd say that's a damned good thing!
Hopefully NewspaperDirect can fix these issues, and add a "fit page to screen width" viewing mode, which would also require better quality font rendering at lower zoom levels. (Right now, when you zoom out a bit, text rapidly becomes blurry when it should be easily readable, just because the rendering is very poor; this problem applies to both tablet and standard versions, though.)
Obviously the most important bug is the lockup issue, and if anybody else is experiencing it, I'd really like to hear from them...
Hey all, I like using the phone one handed and zoom buttons are essential. I also like being able to zoom with just a tap, as opposed to more convoluted methods (xScope/Naked Browser, I'm looking at you...). But the stock Android zoom buttons are ugly and less functional than the ones I had way back when on 2.2 (Bionix for the Samsung Vibrant).
Could anyone tell me where in could find the images for the Zoom buttons? I'd like to replace them with the ones from an older ROM, mentioned above. Think it would be somewhere in the SystemUI.apk?
If anyone is curious, the buttons I would prefer are transparent circles with a black outline. They're a good bit easier to press and you can see elements that would otherwise be obscured.
I'm the developer of Naked Browser. Naked Browser has the option to enable/disable the zoom buttons. It also has the option to enable/disable one-finger zoom. It also allows zoom with just a double-tap. Am I missing something?
aminaked said:
I'm the developer of Naked Browser. Naked Browser has the option to enable/disable the zoom buttons. It also has the option to enable/disable one-finger zoom. It also allows zoom with just a double-tap. Am I missing something?
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Oh snap. No, it's just that one-finger drag zoom has poor performance (just isn't as smooth as it is on xScope). But I love your browser. It's why I mentioned it specifically. My niggle isn't to do specifically with Naked Browser or any other app, it's a system conflict. I think the stock zoom buttons are ugly and I want to swap them out with the zoom buttons I used on a different browser. It's easier to tap a round circle than it is to hit a little tic-tac. Also, the zoom buttons sometimes obscure elements in the bottom right and I have to wait until they fade out, so the transparent zoom circle buttons I mentioned in the first post would solve both of these issues. Rather than having you bloat up your fantastically minimal app, I'd prefer to do my own tinkering and fix the zoom buttons across my system.
I just wanted to say, your browser is fantastic. I found out about it just randomly perusing the big Android Themes and Apps forum and gave it a try. It's my default browser now. While I have your attention, if I could make a suggestion: you know how you have the swipe-from-edge toggle so the menu bars don't appear with unexpected frequency? It works great for making sure the bookmarks bar only opens with deliberate swipes. However, if you could provide a separate toggle for the address and tab bar, that'd be great. I never had a problem with the top bars appearing unintentionally. It's not much of a nuisance. However, in one-handed use, I have to reposition the phone in my hand and then swipe from the top to bring down that bar. On a big phone like the Nexus 4, you can understand how that extra little bit of effort adds up over a long browsing session.
Very cool. Thank you very much.
Let me address what you brought up:
One finger zoom in Naked Browser isn't as smooth as it is on xScope because:
- xScope is for newer devices. Naked Browser supports Froyo and newer and so far I've found that that kind of zooming isn't easy on older devices. That's really not much of an excuse because I could work on it. However, it could take days to figure out. I'm focusing on other features and bug fixes right now. Furthermore,
- I haven't used xScope in a long time but one finger zoom seems to work good enough in Naked Browser (no?). For comparison, it seems to work like crap in Google Maps, last I checked.
Regarding changing the zoom button pix, I use a smaller screen than you so I don't like the +/- buttons in a browser. I pinch zoom and I do it with one hand: small phone / big hands. Regardless, I'm adding your request to my list of items for the pro version.
Regarding adding the separate option for the menu gestures, I added those options (double swipe & swipe from edge) as afterthoughts. I feel that an experienced user of Naked Browser should turn both of these off because they've developed a feel for the menus, knowing instinctively how to avoid opening the bookmarks sidebar and top menu. For me it took about a week to get comfortable with it. Now, I think it is very efficient.
That being said, I may have messed up the gesture settings for larger screens as I don't have a tablet. What do you think about all this? Is it very hard to avoid opening the bookmarks menu? Tell me more about it, please.
Anyway, I hope you have luck changing the +/- on your devices and I do appreciate your feedback on Naked Browser. You're one of the few people I've seen mention stuff like this. Got my attention!
This is hijacking your thread for my app, so if you want to PM me or join me in the xda naked browser thread the feel free.
Thanks again, man. :good:
Hey, you've got a great app and I certainly don't mind helping it get more exposure. I know it's not a priority for you right now, but if it gets really popular, I'm sure you'll add a ton of lightweight features. That's how xScope became the best browser on Gingerbread!
On my Nexus 4, I've found that the bookmarks menu shows up by accident much more often than the URL/tab bar, and it's much more obtrusive when it does. It'd be nice to disable the bookmarks bar. I actually use the bookmarks menu a ton, so perhaps a better option would be to incorporate the menu button menu with the the bookmarks menu.
Also, I'm not sure if my options are causing it or its an inherent behavior, but it's inconvenient to have to scroll all the way to the top to bring up the URL/tab bar. I really wouldn't mind if it appeared every time I made any downward swipe. Maybe to accommodate other users, make the top half or quarter of the screen a zone that can pull up the URL/tab bar when the user swipes down from that region.
I basically want the navigation features of xScope but with the minimal, clean appearance of Naked Browser. I stopped using xScope because it's so bloated and unstable now. Naked Browser is 90% perfect for me. The 10% is just the menu behavior and tab navigation. xScope, for example, uses double tap and left/right to navigate between adjacent tabs while double tap and up/down to zoom. But if this decreases performance as it did on xScope, I'm happy with Naked Browser the way it is.
Maybe I need to optimize the swipe sensitivity for devices like the Nexus 4. I need to check one out, but for now the next update will reduce sensitivity somewhat. Regarding the separate gesture options, I had thought about adding them but I was resistant because I don't want to clutter the options view. However, I think it is the right thing to have and you've convinced me of how sorely it is needed. The next update will have them! I've tried it out and I like it.
If you press the device menu key it should show the top menu from anywhere on the page. Devices without a menu key should have 3 dots in a row that act as the menu key. Making it appear for every downward swipe is an interesting idea. I think that this would be more suited for larger screens though. I will make a note of this idea. There already is an option to start gestures from the screen edge for both URL bar and sidebar.
I haven't used xScope in years and it doesn't run on any of my devices. I think that if you give Naked Browser some time (about a week) you'll start to become accustomed to the menus. If you can get past the frustrating phase I think that you may find that the menus are very efficient. Of course, if the gesture sensitivity is wrong for your device then that's a different story. I really need to check this out.
Double-tap and swipe to change tabs shouldn't cause much of a performance problem (although I'd have to try it out to know for sure). I was going to allow customizations of this sort of thing in the pro version. For example, double tap and swipe to go quickly to the very top or bottom of the web page. The volume buttons could be used in the same way.
Thank you for the feedback. I appreciate it!
I figured out where the zoom buttons are. They're in framework-res.apk/res/drawable-xhdpi.
I use Chrome Remote Desktop to log into my computer at home and I've noticed that controlling the mouse arrow has been pretty difficult. When I move the mouse (by swiping around the screen on the phone) and then lift up, the arrow would jump slightly off center. This makes it hard to precisely select text or even clicking links.
I tried TeamViewer and it seems to work better but it's not as precise as my OnePlus One ironically (notorious for touch screen issues).
Give it a try, I'm curious if anyone else notices somethign similar.
tracerit said:
I use Chrome Remote Desktop to log into my computer at home and I've noticed that controlling the mouse arrow has been pretty difficult. When I move the mouse (by swiping around the screen on the phone) and then lift up, the arrow would jump slightly off center. This makes it hard to precisely select text or even clicking links.
I tried TeamViewer and it seems to work better but it's not as precise as my OnePlus One ironically (notorious for touch screen issues).
Give it a try, I'm curious if anyone else notices somethign similar.
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Same issue here, and I also came from a OnePlus One. I have to tell you it is really annoying.
I find that using the tip of the finger (pointed straight down instead of at at angle) will have better results but it's still not precise. No touch screen issues with using the phone otherwise for other stuff.
Glad to know I'm not the only one who noticed this problem.