Screen not advancing on tap in scroll view.

Since updating to latest version of Android app I can no longer advance screen by tapping the margin when in scroll view. This functionality was available in earlier versions.

I reported a bug from the app, but got no acknowledgement or response.

Stephen.

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Comments

Kevin Byford (Faithlife)

Since updating to latest version of Android app I can no longer advance screen by tapping the margin when in scroll view. This functionality was available in earlier versions.

I reported a bug from the app, but got no acknowledgement or response.

Stephen.

This "feature" was actually a bug and should never made it into the app, so it was removed.

Fr Devin Roza

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/802281#Comment_802281

I was actually about to file a bug report on the forums about this no longer working, and saw this thread.

Please bring it back.

I always read using this feature, and simply loved how it worked, being able to seamlessly choose to either turn the page or just scroll. Plus, the page turns were very fast.

Stephen Harper

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/802281#Comment_802281

This "feature" was actually a bug and should never made it into the app, so it was removed.

You're kidding, right?

Tom Philpot (Faithlife)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/802381#Comment_802381

You're kidding, right?

No, we did consider it a bug and removed it. Unfortunately, what we think is a bug, others find a useful feature.

We're going to put it back in an upcoming release because we'd rather not take away "features".

Fr Devin Roza

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/802427#Comment_802427

We're going to put it back in an upcoming release because we'd rather not take away "features".

Thanks! [Y]

Stephen Harper

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/802427#Comment_802427

Thank you.

The world seems a saner place this morning, having just updated to the latest release. [:D]

Tom Philpot (Faithlife)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/802306#Comment_802306

I always read using this feature, and simply loved how it worked, being able to seamlessly choose to either turn the page or just scroll. Plus, the page turns were very fast.

Fr Devin et al,

I am curious as to this is so useful? In my mind, it would be more confusing to a new user than delightful as it breaks all kinds of expectations about how the app should behave in scrolling mode and it's far too easy to trigger by a misplaced screen tap.

Is it because scrolling is too slow? Or paging mode scrolling is too slow? Did you know that you can two finger scroll up/down in paging mode to accomplish scrolling while in paging mode? (Or perhaps, you *should* be able to: https://community.logos.com/forums/t/102986.aspx). I tend to use either scrolling mode on iOS or paging + two finger scroll when necessary. It seems like those should be sufficient on Android as well.

I'd understand what makes this feature useful and see if we can meet those needs in some other way (like fixing two-finger scrolling in paging view) and remove this potentially confusing tap to page behavior in scrolling view.

I realize every change will break someone's workflow: e.g. https://xkcd.com/1172/ but I'd like us to provide a consistent alternative on both platforms that is accommodating for power users and less confusing for new users.

Tom

Fr Devin Roza

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/803476#Comment_803476

I am curious as to this is so useful? In my mind, it would be more confusing to a new user than delightful as it breaks all kinds of expectations about how the app should behave in scrolling mode and it's far too easy to trigger by a misplaced screen tap.

I'm pretty sure this feature has been on your Logos Android app basically since you introduced scrolling to Android, or very shortly thereafter. I for one haven't heard or seen any complaints.

On Android one of the most popular ebook reader application is Moon+ Reader, which works exactly like Logos does currently. You can tap on the sides to turn pages, or you can scroll with one finger, and you can switch seamlessly between the two, by default.

I have not had problems with misplaced screen taps in this mode in Verbum or Moon+ Reader... you mention it being easy to misplace taps, but I'm not sure why it would be any easier to misplace taps in this mode than in the mode in which you can only tap to turn pages? I find the app understands very well if I want to scroll or turn pages.

I find the feature useful because I read quite a bit with the app, but the reading is oftentimes not just reading a book, but studying. It is surprising to me how often I go back and forth between wanting to scroll and wanting to tap to change pages when I use the app to study. When moving around a lot or reading short amounts, I tend to favor scrolling. When reading for more extended periods, I tend to favor page turning. But when I'm studying I'm constantly going back and forth between moving around and reading, and thus between scrolling and tapping.

If I were just simply reading books it wouldn't be so important. I would almost always tap. But for studying, sometimes having the screen split, etc., being able to either tap or scroll give a great deal of flexibility which adds a lot to the usefulness of the program for me.

Additionally, I find the ability to switch between the modes particularly useful on the phone, where I can hold the phone in one hand and still either scroll or switch pages.

One finger scrolling speed is very good. Page turning at times is slow when in page turn mode. However, when in scrolling mode, page turn performance is excellent.

I am aware of the option to do two finger scrolling, and use it at times when in page turn mode (which I normally only use when I need to see footnotes on the screen). Performance is a little poor with two finger scrolling, but is sufficient for basic use. I have yet to understand why two finger scrolling is preferable to one finger scrolling.

I normally use Android, but when I used the iOS app recently for the first time a bit, the only real feature I missed from Android was the scroll mode. But, I just figured that it was fair that Android have at least one feature advantage over iOS.

This could also be an iOS vs Android culture thing as well...

If you do think for some reason it's important to offer a scrolling only mode, please simply add a third "combo" mode with scrolling and page turning enabled.

Kevin Byford (Faithlife)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/803507#Comment_803507

I for one haven't heard or seen any complaints.

Well, I wish you could see all of the hundreds of customer support emails we've gotten related to the confusion between scrolling view and paging view (after we added the former). Most of these were related to iOS and the fact that many of our customers are not power users like yourself (and might not even know how to open settings). Many thought we "took away" paging mode and reported this as a bug. Those hundreds of reports vs. the two reports here (by you and Stephen) make me wonder if "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"? Should we add a "feature" for two people so that potentially thousands more can be confused? That can be expensive over the long run.

Confusion already abounds over those two settings and I personally see this as an added complication because it's inconsistent with what an average user expects to happen. (Also, please remember that the vast majority of our customers don't even know this forum exists and so it's not a good basis for determining the number of customer complaints).

I have not had problems with misplaced screen taps in this mode in Verbum or Moon+ Reader... you mention it being easy to misplace taps, but I'm not sure why it would be any easier to misplace taps in this mode than in the mode in which you can only tap to turn pages? I find the app understands very well if I want to scroll or turn pages.

This may be true for you, but it nonetheless complicates the expected app operation for the majority of our customers who want a single view setting - either Scrolling View (all the time) or Paging View (all the time). If they choose Scrolling View and tap too far to the right/left and the page flips, in their mind that's a bug... especially if they're in church when it happens.

I normally use Android, but when I used the iOS app recently for the first time a bit, the only real feature I missed from Android was the scroll mode. But, I just figured that it was fair that Android have at least one feature advantage over iOS.

Scrolling View was present on iOS before it was on Android and we strive for parity (in fact, there are a bunch of existing parity cases to add features to both of the apps to achieve the goal of consistency across platforms). If by "scroll mode" you mean the bug in question, I don't expect it will be added to iOS (it's not my call).

In any case this is just my 2 cents in order to explain that this issue will likely be a cause of confusion in the future unless we either remove it or add a setting and leave it off by default. I'm not in the position to decide any of this but as a regular observer of both the mobile customer support emails and the forums I have to often explain things to customers here on the forums and why things are the way they are. (I joked with Tom earlier wondering if you and Stephen would be willing to take support calls from our customers that use Scrolling View on Android but all of sudden the page "jumped" to somewhere else - and then maybe you could explain why we decided to override a customer setting (i.e. "I turned Scrolling View on, so why did the page turn? This is broken!")

I'm not trying to be a critic but just trying to convey that consistency and customer expectations is something we have to handle for *all* customers, not just a select few, and the average mobile customer is not a power user that understands every aspect of the apps.

Fr Devin Roza

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/803535#Comment_803535

Well, I wish you could see all of the hundreds of customer support emails we've gotten related to the confusion between scrolling view and paging view (after we added the former). Most of these were related to iOS and the fact that many of our customers are not power users like yourself (and might not even know how to open settings).

How many customer support emails have you received from Android users about page turns on the scrolling view? I find it telling you don't mention Android customer service reports about scrolling view, just iOS.

Most of these were related to iOS and the fact that many of our customers are not power users like yourself (and might not even know how to open settings). Many thought we "took away" paging mode and reported this as a bug.

These customer service reports of iOS users sounds to me like they were expecting the software would work like the Android app. They wanted paging mode to work even when they turned scrolling on, and it didn't. This is not a problem on Android, where it works perfectly, and I believe always has (for how long now - a year and a half since you introduced scrolling on Android in a stable build?).

The fact that you only are discovering this after a year or longer with it working that way in the Android App is indicative that there in fact have NOT been customer complaints about how the Android app works in this regard.

If you have not received many, or maybe any, customer service questions about the Android scrolling mode, but have received hundreds of emails and calls about the iOS mode, I would suggest you reconsider the iOS settings.

But please don't change the Android setting to one that has won you hundreds of customer service calls for iOS.

I joked with Tom earlier wondering if you and Stephen would be willing to take support calls from our customers that use Scrolling View on Android but all of sudden the page "jumped" to somewhere else - and then maybe you could explain why we decided to override a customer setting (i.e. "I turned Scrolling View on, so why did the page turn? This is broken!"

Given Android has had this feature for a year and a half or so, and you don't mention customer service calls about Android, just iOS, regarding scrolling view, I doubt you've received any or many calls like that, or that you ever will.

But I would be glad to make a training video about this feature in Android you could send someone to if they had that problem, if it were necessary to keep this feature.

Kevin Byford (Faithlife)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/803581#Comment_803581

These customer service reports of iOS users sounds to me like they were expecting the software would work like the Android app. They wanted paging mode to work even when they turned scrolling on, and it didn't.

Actually this is not the case; the majority of our customers want it to work one way or the other (and not both). We've also received complaints we took away scrolling view and changed it to paging (when they didn't want paging view).

I understand you strongly believe that both scrolling and paging settings should be on by default and so I can see where this is going, but I'm not going to argue with you about it. It's up to others (and not me) whether or not your passionate pushback over keeping a quirk in the app will be enough to keep it.

Fr Devin Roza

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/803653#Comment_803653

These customer service reports of iOS users sounds to me like they were expecting the software would work like the Android app. They wanted paging mode to work even when they turned scrolling on, and it didn't.

Actually this is not the case; the majority of our customers want it to work one way or the other (and not both). We've also received complaints we took away scrolling view and changed it to paging (when they didn't want paging view).

I understand you strongly believe that both scrolling and paging settings should be on by default and so I can see where this is going, but I'm not going to argue with you about it. It's up to others (and not me) whether or not your passionate pushback over keeping a quirk in the app will be enough to keep it.

Thanks, Kevin. And, for the record, I don't care if it works this way by default (I tend to think the paging view, not scrolling, should be on by default), but I would like to at least in some way have the option to have the scrolling view continue to work as it has for over a year since it was initially released on Android. And, I think the most natural response would simply be, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

I also wanted to make clear that, at least from what you've mentioned, including in this post, the impression that I have continues to be that to the date you have received 0 negative feedback and 0 customer service requests specifically about the way the Android scrolling option works by also allowing page turns - even the example you mention in this post speaks to other issues.

I also am sure you are right that customers ask for either one or the other when call customer service asking why scrolling doesn't work when they want page turning, or vice-versa. But sometimes a lack of customer service requests speaks far more loudly than what customers ask for when they call. The fact that you and your team had no idea the Android app worked this way for over a year speaks volumes as to how happy your customers are with it working that way!

So, if you do decide to change Android to work like iOS, just please don't say you did it to avoid customer service calls. [;)]

And, thanks again for all your hard work on this app. I know whatever Faithlife decides is not your call...

Tom Philpot (Faithlife)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/803507#Comment_803507

I'm pretty sure this feature has been on your Logos Android app basically since you introduced scrolling to Android, or very shortly thereafter.

I'm also convinced it's been there since we introduced scrolling on Android. We never intended the scrolling behavior to work this way. We didn't catch the bug until recently and we decided to fix it.

One reason more people haven't reported this is that paging is the default on all Android devices. We recently made a change on iOS to make scrolling the default on phone sized devices because we found that new users expected and preferred this behavior. We plan to make this change on Android as well for phones. As part of that change, we're going to be removing the tap to page bug from scrolling view on Android because we think leaving it in will be confusing for new users that default to the scrolling behavior on new app installs.

If you do think for some reason it's important to offer a scrolling only mode, please simply add a third "combo" mode with scrolling and page turning enabled.

We debated adding a setting but we don't feel like there's a compelling reason to support tap to page in scrolling view.

I do feel bad for saying we wouldn't take "features" away a few days ago and then reversing course on that decision. Know that the decision to remove the feature was primarily mine to make and I didn't expect that it would engender such a strong response. That said, I think making our apps' interactions consistent with other mobile apps (e.g. Kindle, browsers) is the best decision long term.

Respectfully,

Tom

Stephen Harper

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/803772#Comment_803772

I must admit that I was unaware of the two-fingered Scroll option in page-view mode, so I am glad to learn about that.

Ironically though, the tap to page "bug" in scroll view seems to work better for me then the regular tap to page function in page-view mode which was principally why I was using it.

If the normal functionality worked better I could happily settle with it, given two-fingered scroll facility.

Learning! Thanks.

Stephen

Fr Devin Roza

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/803772#Comment_803772

Thanks, Tom.

FWIW, I, like Stephen, also tend to prefer the page turning of the scrolling mode to the current page turn mode, which with certain frequency takes 2-3 seconds to turn a page.

Because of that, I tended to only use the "official" page turning mode when I needed to see the footnotes on the page, even when I wanted to read for extended periods using page turning. Nexus 7 (2012) and S5 mini.

Tom Philpot (Faithlife)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/803871#Comment_803871

FWIW, I, like Stephen, also tend to prefer the page turning of the scrolling mode to the current page turn mode, which with certain frequency takes 2-3 seconds to turn a page.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll check with our Android devs and see if we can improve the page turning speed. Does disabling notes improve the speed?

Fr Devin Roza

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/803874#Comment_803874

Thanks for the feedback. I'll check with our Android devs and see if we can improve the page turning speed. Does disabling notes improve the speed?

Yes, disabling notes seems to help quite a bit at reducing the delays, both in frequency and duration. I hadn't been keeping that in mind, so that is a good tip.

It might be worthwhile considering turning notes off globally by default, and/or offering a global option to turn them off by default. From what I can tell they seem to be on by default in all resources, and can only be turned off resource by resource. I will definitely be turning them off now.

Tom Philpot (Faithlife)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/803879#Comment_803879

Yes, disabling notes seems to help quite a bit at reducing the delays, both in frequency and duration. I hadn't been keeping that in mind, so that is a good tip.

We've got some changes that should speed up notes in the pipeline that should reduce the need for this.