Easier way to page down
Sun, 06/07/2009 - 21:13 — bwoods
I would like an easier way to page down. Like many other document readers on the iPhone platform, perhaps a touch zone at the bottom that would pull up the next page. Or a button. Something. The speed verse feature is great. The tilt scrolling is really great as I use this most of the time. But I still long for a way to just press a button or tap a zone to get the next page instead of flicking.
Thanks,
Brad
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Terry, any thoughts about
Terry, any thoughts about this? I use the Scriptures app everyday and recently bought the Historical Docs app as well. I saw the other offerings in the store and would love to buy those but the one thing that holds me back is having the option to simply tap once while reading to move the page up or down one page. Do you think you'll ever get to this? Is it even a good idea? My Palm worked this way and I miss how simple and easy it was. It's the easiest way to lose oneself in the reading, much like turning a page of a book, imho.
I do like the idea, and we've
I do like the idea, and we've already been thinking about it and how to implement it. It's definitely a feature we could leverage across all of our apps.
In the scripture app, the solution would only work in the autoscroll mode of the app though, but I presume that's fine. For the other apps where we don't use links (eBooks, Historical Docs, others), we could probably have it work from the main reading screen as tapping to scroll wouldn't interfere with tapping to navigate to a cross reference or footnote.
Any thoughts?
The swiping up or down to
The swiping up or down to scroll the page up or down is great eye candy but it is slow and like a slot machine, you never know where it will stop. And you cannot select anything until it stops or is stopped. Could you put in an option in the setup that selects the standard eye candy scroll or a mode where the swiping up instantly moves the bottom line to the top line or swiping down moves the top line to the bottom line. The latter function would be more productive and would solve the next page button problem.
I would like to see flicking
I would like to see flicking to the left to move to the next page (down one screen), just like turning a real book page, and flicking to the right to move back a page. It is fast and wouldn't interfere with tapping to navigate to a cross reference.
We actually had the swiping
We actually had the swiping code working around a year ago, but we never added to the app as we wanted to use it for another feature at the time. I think there's even an old post on the forums related to it somewhere should you desire to search for it.
One thing you be surprised by is the number of people who find the swiping gestures confusing. Every time we add a feature that uses them, we get a lot of complaints from users about how much they don't like them and can't get them to work correctly.
I think it is time to revisit
I think it is time to revisit the act of swiping to turn the page. It may have been confusing in the past but since every major eBook reader now uses swiping to turn the page, you now have an app that is confusing because the page does not turn when you swipe. Kindle uses swiping to turn the page, iBook uses swiping to turn the page, etc.
We can look into that now. To
We can look into that now. To use Apple's approach would require users to have version 3.2 of later of the iPhone OS installed, but I presume most users have that now.
Thanks, it will be a welcome
Thanks, it will be a welcome improvement to your great product.
It is disappointing to hear
It is disappointing to hear that, after you writing about "the number of people who find the swiping gestures confusing" you introduce so many swipe features in the 2.6 release and that the new swipe to delete is not consistent with the very good "edit" to delete feature. I would love to have the "edit" feature consistent thru the app so that I could also order tags, etc. And swipe to turn pages would be good, but now it would be confusing and think you could delete what you are reading by the swipe action.
Well, this thread turned into
Well, this thread turned into something else. I just want to reiterate that I want a simple way to tap the screen and get the next or previous page of scripture. I agree that Apple's eye candy is inefficient. But I still want a way to just get the next page or previous page without having to swipe or scroll.
I'm with bwoods on this. I
I'm with bwoods on this. I think a swipe right or left to bring up another page would be okay, but tapping zones, to page up or down, or even double tapping, would be great. Love the 2.7 update, by the way. This has been one of my best app purchases. Thanks!
Brian
The reason the swipe to
The reason the swipe to delete was added almost everywhere is because it's the common way Apple supports deleting items from the views where you have a list of items. When we added the ability to delete content from My Library using the swiping gesture, it was confusing to users as nothing else supported it either, but at least this way it's all consistent now.
There are a lot of design issues we take into account and one of those is that the Edit button takes up valuable real estate on the screen. For example, in My Library, to add an edit button would mean adding a toolbar at the bottom of the screen just for that button. I'd only want to add a toolbar if several features were added at the same time and could really justify it. In the end, sadly, I can't keep everyone happy.
How about swipe to bring up
How about swipe to bring up the "Edit " button or edit button functions, so we do not lose all the edit options with just a swipe to delete, and you will not need space for the edit button.
Tap zones work well for
Tap zones work well for reading a book (I like eReader Pro) where you start at the beginning and read to the end. Flicking and Verse Slider are much more conducive to the back and forth, ebb and flow of studying, highlighting, bookmarking of scriptures.
If such a feature were to be introduced for "reading" purposes it should be an option selectable from preferences.
TERRY, PLEASE READ. I
TERRY, PLEASE READ.
I wouldn't mind it being an option as long as I do have the option.
While I agree with you to certain extent about flicking and verse sliding, when you are scanning a chapter for that phrase or section you highlighted or whatever you may be looking for, paging up or down is a much more efficient and faster way of browsing. Flicking is slow. That is one thing I've noticed about Apple OS. User really like the eye candy and wow factor stuff. And while it is eye candy and has wow factor, it is slow and inefficient, plain and simple. Flicking vs. paging up or down...flicking loses by a mile. I can skim through a chapter up or down way faster with page up or down.
Verse sliding is a very quick way to get to a specific verse. It CAN be used to page up or down, sort of. But it isn't as user friendly. Try it. When on a page, try to verse slide to the next page. Yeah, see? A little difficult to get exactly where you need to go. Your brain has to see what verse is the last one on the page and then try to get to the first verse on what would be the next page. (Or reverse if you were paging up.) Now try it with a verse or paragraph the runs over into the next "page." Can't verse slide that, can you? Verse sliding only takes you to the beginning of a verse or paragraph but not to a middle. For that you have to flick. Ah, back to that slow problem again. You see, paging up or down really has its advantages.
I'm coming from a Palm OS perspective. On the Palm platform, most established reader apps (including MarkMyScriptures, iSilo, etc.) even had the option of paging up/down and repeating the last/first line of the screen so your eyes could read without interruption while paging. Again, I'm just trying to duplicate the highly efficient way I've been using a PDA for over 11 years to study the scriptures.
[New paragraph. 'Cause this is not about the feature request. Well, sort of.] Stuff like flicking and spin menus are cool and may have its efficiencies in some areas, but they are not the most pragmatic and efficient way to do things. That's why I love how this application has the books and chapters and verses in grid style because it is way faster. Other scripture apps force you to use the iPhone way--flicking a spinner bar to choose your book, chapter, and verse is much, much slower. That's one thing I HATE about the built-in calendar, clock, alarm clock, etc. of the iPhone/Touch. It's a slow way to do things, but hey--it's cool, right? Another example is how when you close one app to go to the other, the eye candy of the screen shrinking/disappearing looks cool, but it is slow. On the Palm (and WinCE, I believe) when you choose another app or go to the menu, it was near immediate. Eye candy takes time to render. I find that most Apple-loving users love this eye candy stuff, but it drives me nuts. Unfortunately, I really do not have much of a choice these days.
Some of the eye candy stuff is fun. Like when deleting an email, the trash can opens up and sucks in the screen of the email. That's fun and I don't mind the time it takes to do that so much. Some of the touch navigation stuff is truly inventive, like the pinching in or out to zoom in/out. Flicking sideways in some apps to get the next picture in the album or the next month in the calendar is very useful.
I would also very much like a
I would also very much like a way to tap the bottom half of the screen to page down and the upper half of the screen to page up rather than flicking or dragging. Please consider this in a future update. I do consider this app to be very impressive and highly usable, so thanks. I use it to show my friends who don't own iPhones why I love mine and it's convinced many of them to buy one.
Brian
Instapaper, one of my
Instapaper, one of my favorite apps, has implemented this quite nicely in the most recent version. Are you familiar with it? Check it out for some inspiration. By far, the two most used apps on my iPhone are Instapaper and Scriptures, and if Scriptures implemented pagination as well as Instapaper did, I'd be quite happy. I hope you'll consider it in addition to the autoscrolling. Instapaper has both options but I have autoscrolling disabled. I don't find it to be a natural way to read. With books in the iPad and the Kindle implementing turn-the-page reading, I think this is something people would get used to and appreciate very quickly.