D15580: [WIP] New annotation toolbar

Tue Oct 22 22:43:35 BST 2019

simgunz added a comment.

  In D15580#552362 <https://phabricator.kde.org/D15580#552362>, @ngraham wrote:

  > This is super fantastic.
  >
  > I have a few more observations from use:
  >
  > - When using one of the quick annotations, the Quick Annotations button should have a checked state so you can tell that one of its tools is active

  When an annotation is selected its annotation toolbar button is checked and Browse Mode is checked, exactly as in the current Okular version. 
  When you select a quick annotation tool what happens is that the corresponding annotation action gets checked. In a sense a quick annotation is just an alias for an effective annotation with a specified set of settings (color, etc.). For this reason the quick annotation cannot have a checked state. 
  This however has a quirkiness in the case the annotation toolbar is hidden. In that case we are in Browse Mode and an annotation tool is active but we do not see the corresponding checked action in the hidden toolbar. This can be "solved" by showing the annotation toolbar when a quick annotation is selected, but I think it is going to become frustrating very soon.

  > (otherwise the previously-active toolbar button still looks checked despite not being active)

  This should not happen. Probably you are referring to Browse Mode that doesn't get unchecked, but that is the intended behavior and match that of the current Okular version.
  What happens should be:

  Example 1:

  - Text Selction is checked
  - Select Quick Annotations > Green Highlighter

  Results:

  - Browse Mode action gets checked
  - Highlighter action gets checked

  Example 1:

  - Browse Mode is checked
  - Ellipse is checked
  - Select Quick Annotations > Green Highlighter

  Results:

  - Browse Mode remains checked
  - Highlighter action gets checked

  If we make the quick annotation checkable we have the following problem:

  - The Quick Annotation won't display a `edit-draw` icon with the text "Quick Annotation" but it will display a specific action, i.e. "Green Highlighter" which might be confusing for the user, given that Quick Annotation would be never displayed. Exactly what happens now for the Stamp annotation (in this case you see "Approved" by default).

  Bottom line: unless there is a clever way to make the actions checkable but display the Quick Annotation button, I think that the current implementation is the the less worse situation. Regarding browse mode, we can also uncheck it when an annotation is selected, if there are no side effects.

  > - Maybe add a new menu item at the bottom of the Quick Annotations menu saying "Show all" that will open the full toolbar That's a good idea. It would be: `[ ] Show Annotation Toolbar` (menu items need to start with action verbs). And then the menu item in the Tools menu would be the same. probably the same QAction would just used for both; then they would both keep track of state properly.

  Yes, but I do not know how to do it. See https://phabricator.kde.org/D15580#544534 for the details of the problem.

  Actually this exact action already exists in Settings > Toolbars Shown > Annotations Toolbar but I do not know of to access it and if it available when we set up the actions.

  > - The menu item that says, "Configure annotations..." should probably say "Configure quick annotations..." since it applies to the annotations in the quick annotations list, not all annotations more generally. Or even just "Configure..."

  I thought about this, but I decided to leave "Configure Annotations" given that in the same KCM module the user can configure the "annotation identity", which is not related to "Quick Annotations" but to "Annotations" in general. 
  Changing it to "Configure" won't work either. This is a standard action that will appear in the "Configure Toolbar" and "Configure Shortcuts" dialog. If you call it "Configure" it will become ambiguous for the user.

  > - I would add text to the Keep the active annotation button active after use toolbutton, since otherwise it's a bit hard to tell what it does. Maybe "Keep active" or "Keep active after use" (maybe that's too long)?

  Currently the action name and thus the text is "Pin". You mean I should change "Pin" to "Keep Active"?

  > - Maybe don't have the Keep Active button checked by default. In testing, it feels more natural to have to click on an annotation's button after each use.

  I agree with @davidhurka here regarding having it on by default. I cannot figure out a use case where a user wants to add a single annotation or keep reselecting it each time.
  My typical use case is: I am reading a paper/book and I check the highlighter to highlight the text multiple times while I read, so I want it always active. The highlighter is a common use case, think at e-readers which have only highlighters and notes.
  Another one is to fill in multiple forms with the typewriter.
  What real-world use cases do you have in mind where you do not need it always active?

  > - Now that we have a way to add stamp annotations using this new method, we need to show the message that stamp annotations are an experimental feature so that users know that they can't necessarily rely on it. Currently they only see this in the annotation settings window

  Where would you show it? In the action tooltip? e.g "Approved - Stamps are an experimental feature"

  -------------------

  The things from here and below are very interesting but also quite complicated to implement and time-consuming. I would implement them in following revisions, or we won't ever terminate this one while trying to make the toolbar perfect. Release early, release often.

  > - When an existing annotation is selected, it would be really nice if the controls for choosing the color, line thickness, opacity, font details etc. became active again and allowed you to change that annotation's appearance after the fact. You can already edit it by right-clicking and going to Properties, but it would be even nicer to be able to do this in a more direct manner IMO

  I agree

  > - It would be nice if highlight, underline, squiggle, and strikethrough annotations were mouse-selectable while the annotations toolbar is open. That way it would be more obvious how to delete them, and you could change their properties using the above method

  Well at this point even the other annotations, so you can change their properties.

  > - It might be nice if hitting the [9] key multiple times cycled through the items in the shape annotation menu
  > - The [0] key could do the same for the stamp annotation

  Rather difficult to do. It means that everytime the shortcut is triggered we need to reset the shortcuts of the actions in that list. This should be implemented upstream in KSelectAction, so that a shortcut could be assigned to it possibly.

REPOSITORY
  R223 Okular

REVISION DETAIL
  https://phabricator.kde.org/D15580

To: simgunz, #okular, #vdg
Cc: trickyricky26, simgunz, ltoscano, cfeck, aacid, davidhurka, knambiar, ngraham, tobiasdeiminger, okular-devel, johnzh, andisa, siddharthmanthan, maguirre, fbampaloukas, joaonetto, kezik, tfella, darcyshen
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