Reading View: Improve show/hide toolbars
Steven Wilson
Member Posts: 3
Yesterday I opened the Logos Mobile App on my iPad to find that it had automatically updated to version 10. Although I know that a lot of work has gone into this release, I am afraid that I must express significant dissatisfaction with the two changes described below:
1. It is now no longer possible to hide the top toolbar. Why is this important to me? Although I appreciate the plethora of features available in the Mobile App, I tend to use these mostly on the Desktop App. The main thing that I want to do with the Mobile App is simply READ. So, what I liked best about version 9 was the elegant and distraction-free experience of seeing ONLY my reading material, and having everything else completely invisible until I wanted it.
Granted, the only thing on the minimized top toolbar in version 10 is the title of the book. That doesn’t seem like much, but I really don’t need or want to see it all the time. Besides, the toolbar wastes space on the screen. So, being unable to hide it is an irritation to me. I would therefore greatly appreciate it if you could offer this as an option in the near future!
2. It appears that the bottom toolbar is accessible only by tapping the top toolbar. So it will seem to many users, anyway. In fact, this is precisely what I thought at first, and so I was despairing at the dismal prospect of having to jump through this additional hoop every time I wanted to get at the bottom toolbar! But then I happened upon your answer to another post about a month ago, in which you explain that both toolbars will be displayed in response to a quick scroll or “flick.” This helps considerably, especially since it works anywhere on the screen.
Unfortunately, however, I fear that many users will miss this trick. It doesn’t seem very intuitive to me, anyway. I don’t know of any other apps that make specific use of a quick scroll or “flick.” Further, I discovered your advice only by looking very carefully for relevant posts on FaithlifeFeedback, for this point is not covered on the support page https://support.logos.com/hc/en-us/articles/360035659011-Get-Started-with-the-Logos-Bible-Mobile-App. If you find it necessary to make a feature dependent on a lesser-known or not-quite-so-intuitive gesture, then you really should provide an explanation in some easily accessible location.
To come to the point, may I suggest a solution that should be technically feasible and intuitive for the user, without sacrificing the additional features added in version 10? Why not allow the user to: (1) hide both toolbars, and (2) display them not only by a quick scroll or flick, but also by tapping the top or the bottom of the screen? Although I am not a developer, I suspect that these changes shouldn’t be too difficult to pull off, based on my user experience with ereader apps such as Kindle. Or at the very least, it should certainly be possible to let the user hide both toolbars, however they are to be accessed.
Cordially in Christ,
Steven E. Wilson
1. It is now no longer possible to hide the top toolbar. Why is this important to me? Although I appreciate the plethora of features available in the Mobile App, I tend to use these mostly on the Desktop App. The main thing that I want to do with the Mobile App is simply READ. So, what I liked best about version 9 was the elegant and distraction-free experience of seeing ONLY my reading material, and having everything else completely invisible until I wanted it.
Granted, the only thing on the minimized top toolbar in version 10 is the title of the book. That doesn’t seem like much, but I really don’t need or want to see it all the time. Besides, the toolbar wastes space on the screen. So, being unable to hide it is an irritation to me. I would therefore greatly appreciate it if you could offer this as an option in the near future!
2. It appears that the bottom toolbar is accessible only by tapping the top toolbar. So it will seem to many users, anyway. In fact, this is precisely what I thought at first, and so I was despairing at the dismal prospect of having to jump through this additional hoop every time I wanted to get at the bottom toolbar! But then I happened upon your answer to another post about a month ago, in which you explain that both toolbars will be displayed in response to a quick scroll or “flick.” This helps considerably, especially since it works anywhere on the screen.
Unfortunately, however, I fear that many users will miss this trick. It doesn’t seem very intuitive to me, anyway. I don’t know of any other apps that make specific use of a quick scroll or “flick.” Further, I discovered your advice only by looking very carefully for relevant posts on FaithlifeFeedback, for this point is not covered on the support page https://support.logos.com/hc/en-us/articles/360035659011-Get-Started-with-the-Logos-Bible-Mobile-App. If you find it necessary to make a feature dependent on a lesser-known or not-quite-so-intuitive gesture, then you really should provide an explanation in some easily accessible location.
To come to the point, may I suggest a solution that should be technically feasible and intuitive for the user, without sacrificing the additional features added in version 10? Why not allow the user to: (1) hide both toolbars, and (2) display them not only by a quick scroll or flick, but also by tapping the top or the bottom of the screen? Although I am not a developer, I suspect that these changes shouldn’t be too difficult to pull off, based on my user experience with ereader apps such as Kindle. Or at the very least, it should certainly be possible to let the user hide both toolbars, however they are to be accessed.
Cordially in Christ,
Steven E. Wilson
31
Comments
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@Steven Wilson Thank you for your detailed request about showing and hiding the toolbars. We appreciate and value your opinion. I've slightly edited your post, so that others can easily read it and vote.
Ali Pope | Logos Desktop and Mobile Program Manager
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I am not a fan of the flick. Since tapping anywhere on the display is selecting text on L10, whereas it would hide/unhide the menu bars on L9, I much prefer being able to tap the thin title bar at the top rather than having to do a flick.0
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I am also not a fan of the flick. It's just not natural or intuitive for me. Although many reading apps use the scroll/flick to show their tool bars, there's no consistency, e.g. some will show toolbar on up-flick, some on down-flick, some on either flick, some on a longer flick but not on a quick flick, etc.
In addition to what Steven suggested, may I also strongly request that *tapping in any empty space* (where there are no words showing) will also show the bottom tool bar? Reasons for this suggestion:
1) Brings it closer to pre-L10 behavior;
2) It is just plain annoying that when there's a section break, with a short section heading, and I tap on the blank space between the two sections, and the app just randomly still selects the nearest sentence or section heading. If I want to select that sentence or section heading, I will tap ON it, not NEAR it. I don't like it when apps try to do the thinking for me!0 -
When I read on my iPad, I often do so with iOS native "read aloud" feature. Now, with the title being up at the top, every new page reading begins with reading the title. It is very annoying. Please provide an option for the book title to disappear in Full Screen.0
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I agree with the original post and the last post from Michael. The new header on the app takes up space and when I want to have my phone read me a passage it now repeats the title of the book on each page turn. There should be an option to hide the heading since i know what I’m reading and don’t need it displayed on all the time. Really trying to figure out who thought that would be a good idea.0
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@Ali Pope will you do anything to fix the issues we all present on this board?0
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@Jonas Raabjerg We are always working hard to improve the app and we will take your feedback into consideration for future improvements.
Ali Pope | Logos Desktop and Mobile Program Manager
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Yes very important (and hopefully easy) one to change0
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Same issue here. I am using IPad and find it a little sensitive. Palm rejection supporting would be helpful in this case if we are using Apple Pencil or larger device.0
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@Tom Goldie If you tap the title bar at the top you can bring back the toolbar.
Ali Pope | Logos Desktop and Mobile Program Manager
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Yes! One of my pet peeves with Logos. It really slows down navigation speed. Please fix this for android. Add view setting for it to be kept or and/or a way to make it reappear using the bottom of the screen. (this makes a big diference in daily user experience. <span class="mention">@Ali Pope</span>0
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@Ali Pope It is too much movement for such a used feature. It should (also) be at the bottom, so you can activate it using your thumbs.0
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Agree the current method of showing the toolbar by tapping on the title bar should be improved. The titlebar is very thin, and the touch target is too small. It usually takes several taps to get the toolbars to show up, which can be frustrating. It would be better if there was a gesture that could reliably bring it up. For example, right now, if you swipe to the left or right with two fingers, it moves to the next/previous resource. That works very reliably, and is easy to do. Currently, swiping up or down with two fingers does some sort of page turning thing -- I can't tell what exactly it's doing, but whatever the behavior is supposed to be, it's not very useful. Why not repurpose the two-finger swipe down to bring the toolbars in? That would make the toolbars accessible from anywhere on the screen. Maybe the swipe-up could go into the resource switcher directly.0
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We have made changes to touch gestures in version 32.0. It is now available on the beta app. See this forum post for more details: https://community.logos.com/forums/p/220704/1284492.aspx#1284492
Ali Pope | Logos Desktop and Mobile Program Manager
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I see that somebody from Faithlife has flagged my initial suggestion as “Done.” However, I need to point out that it has NOT been done completely. There were two issues in my original post. The second one had to do with the clever but not-very-intuitive quick scroll or “flick” to display or maximize both toolbars. Fortunately, this touch gesture has since been abandoned, and now a simple tap will do. Thanks and God bless you, Faithlife.
The first issue in my original post, however, has not changed. I want the top toolbar to be hidden completely, just as the bottom toolbar is (this used to be the case prior to version 10). Hidden completely, I say, and not just minimized, because I neither need nor want to see the title of the book that I am reading at the top of each page. Surely the people at Faithlife don’t think that we users are so absent-minded as to continually forget which book we are reading! So why won’t they let us hide the top toolbar completely?0
