| 2013-04-23 10:48:56 |
Ari |
description |
Hi there,
qpdfview's PDF search is one of the fastest I've encountered on linux. That and the fact that the search bar is persistent across different tabs and doesn't just close as soon as it loses focus makes qpdfview my favorite PDF viewer to search through documents. With that said, I think there still are a few points that could be improved. I have taken the liberty to compile a small list of improvements that I think could make qpdfview's search even better than it already is.
(I hope you don't mind me posting these in one central bug report. If you want me to split the requests up into several reports I'll gladly comply.)
### 1.) Add a pause button ###
## Overview ##
Especially with larger documents sometimes you want to only search through a limited number of pages and highlight the results without having to go through the whole document. Right now you can either let the search process the whole document or quickly search and abort while leaving the results unhighlighted. I think a middle ground in form of a "pause" button would serve qpdfview very well. This is important when handling large 100+ page documents.
## Suggestions on implementation ##
I could imagine a small button in the search bar positioned in front of the "cancel" button. This button would be grayed out if no search was in progress or paused, change into a "pause" button as soon as a search is engaged and transform into a "continue search" button as soon as it's pressed. Pausing the search would restrict the result list to the hits found up to this point and "find next" and "find previous" would allow you to jump between them. Reengaging the search would not search through the document anew but start right where you left the search and continue until either the document end is reached, the pause button is pressed or the search is cancelled.
### 2.) Cache most recent search(es) ###
## Overview ##
When working with documents you will often find yourself searching for a term and then absentmindedly closing the search as soon as a hit has been found, only to then realize that it wasn't the hit you were looking for. This is even more important when working for numerous documents and a large number of tabs. Every time you search for a different phrase in another tab the results in the previous document are lost.
In all of these cases you would have to reengage a search and waste precious time and CPU cycles on processing that has been done before. Wouldn't it be neat if the last search was cached?
## Suggestions on implementation ##
It would be great if there was a way to remember the most recent search for each tab. As long as the newly entered term matches the previous one for a specific document, the cache is used - even if the user decides to close the search bar or the term is replaced by switching the tabs around and searching for other phrases
### 3.) Change search result highlighting mode ###
## Overview ##
I think qpdfview's result highlighting method feels a bit unnatural. Matches are currently overlaid with a transparent blueish box that makes the text under it hard to read. It's not dramatic by any means but I think a highlighting by "shading" the text background would be both more readable and easier to locate on a page.
## Suggestions on implementation ##
I know you aren't particular fans of comparing qpdfview to other PDF viewers but I think it's not bad practice to take good implementations in other pieces of open-source software as an example. That's why I've attached a comparison of the highlighting methods in qpdfview and Okular. I think the screenshot showcases that the "shading" method is a bit easier to read and overall more pleasant.
Thank you very much for taking the time to read this bug report.
Cheers
-- Ari |
Hi there,
qpdfview's PDF search is one of the fastest I've encountered on linux. That and the fact that the search bar is persistent across different tabs and doesn't just close as soon as it loses focus makes qpdfview my favorite PDF viewer to search through documents. With that said, I think there still are a few points that could be improved. I have taken the liberty to compile a small list of improvements that I think could make qpdfview's search even better than it already is.
(I hope you don't mind me posting these in one central bug report. If you want me to split the requests up into several reports I'll gladly comply.)
### 1.) Add a pause button ###
## Overview ##
Especially with larger documents sometimes you want to only search through a limited number of pages and highlight the results without having to go through the whole document. Right now you can either let the search process the whole document or quickly search and abort while leaving the results unhighlighted. I think a middle ground in form of a "pause" button would serve qpdfview very well. This is important when handling large 100+ page documents.
## Suggestions on implementation ##
I could imagine a small button in the search bar positioned in front of the "cancel" button. This button would be grayed out if no search was in progress or paused, change into a "pause" button as soon as a search is engaged and transform into a "continue search" button as soon as it's pressed. Pausing the search would restrict the result list to the hits found up to this point and "find next" and "find previous" would allow you to jump between them. Reengaging the search would not search through the document anew but start right where you left the search and continue until either the document end is reached, the pause button is pressed or the search is cancelled.
### 2.) Cache most recent search(es) ###
## Overview ##
When working with documents you will often find yourself searching for a term and then absentmindedly closing the search as soon as a hit has been found, only to then realize that it wasn't the hit you were looking for. This is even more important when working with numerous documents and a large number of tabs. Every time you search for a different phrase in another tab the results in the previous document are lost.
In all of these cases you would have to reengage a search and waste precious time and CPU cycles on processing that has been done before. Wouldn't it be neat if the last search was cached?
## Suggestions on implementation ##
It would be great if there was a way to remember the most recent search for each tab. As long as the newly entered term matches the previous one for a specific document, the cache is used - even if the user decides to close the search bar or the term is replaced by switching the tabs around and searching for other phrases
### 3.) Change search result highlighting mode ###
## Overview ##
I think qpdfview's result highlighting method feels a bit unnatural. Matches are currently overlaid with a transparent blueish box that makes the text under it hard to read. It's not dramatic by any means but I think a highlighting by "shading" the text background would be both more readable and easier to locate on a page.
## Suggestions on implementation ##
I know you aren't particularly fond of comparisons of qpdfview to other PDF viewers but I think it's not bad practice to take good implementations in other pieces of open-source software as an example. That's why I've attached a comparison of the highlighting methods in qpdfview and Okular. I think the screenshot showcases that the "shading" method is a bit easier to read and overall more pleasant.
Thank you very much for taking the time to read this bug report.
Cheers
-- Ari |
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