Highlighting Request: The old circle and arrow trick

I had requested this way back in the early beta days, but today seemed a good day to bring it out for public consumption and feedback....

I have a feeling this would work best in conjunction with the reverse
interlinears but even so one of the most used markups in my paper bible
is the old "Circle to arrow" markup.  (see the image).

I can conceive of this markup being tied to (a) the surface text as well as (b) the underlying interlinear text.  So that it would be available in all interlinear based bibles, including Greek/Hebrew.

It's not a very good example of how I would use the markup, but it demonstrates the markup.

Problem is there would need to be a way to mark "origin" and then
"destination".  This would definitely be a two step markup procedure.

1. Highlight "not"
2. Click Markup (or ctrl+k if last used)
3. Highlight "Double tongued"
4. Click something else or perhaps Ctrl+k to finish the markup.
5. Repeat for each additional arrow destination(?).

In that same thread, Bob responded...

Bob Pritchett said:

I like this, but it creates some difficult UI problems.    It's "modal". Once you select the origin, you're in a "mode" where the next highlight is destination. How do you know you're in the mode? How do you get out of it if you want to cancel? How do we represent the origin if you haven't picked a destination? How do you use the same origin three times, as in your example -- by repeatedly selecting destination? Do we need to have a standard markup key, but when your markup was a "two-parter", use a different markup key for a destination?    What if you do two arrows from your origin, then come back tomorrow and want to add a third destination. How do you reselect the origin?    These aren't unsolvable problems, but they are complicated and do need answers. We can work on them, but I'd also love to hear your suggestions....

Bob Pritchett said:

I like this, but it creates some difficult UI problems.

I agree, but I think a workable sollution can be had.  I do not have
a problem with it being Modal.  In know that you're trying to get away
from that in L4 but this makes great sense to me. 

Here's a possible non-modal setup (for a related example see how Jing draws arrows).

1. Select the circle and arrow markup from the list
2. Click the first word which should have the circle around it (The circle appears and the pointer changes to an arrow)
3. Drag (stay clicked)  the arrow to it's destination word.  The arrow
   should "snap" to each word it contacts so that it's easy to lock it in
   by simply releasing the drag.

That solution is not modal but has a few faults:

• It's limited to ONE word, not a phrase, and sometimes I'm going to want phrases - on one or both sides of the link.
• if the areas I want to connect are not  in the same screen, I have
  to be able to scroll - that's not easy.  It can work with a wheel
  mouse, but what about a touchpad? 
• There is no cancel, it's just like every other markup.  You can highlight it and remove it though, just like any other markup.
• It's also limited to only one arrow per markup.  So multiple arrows
  as my other example shows would require doing this three times.  IMHO
  that's not really a burden for me.

A modal solution could solve some of those faults but potentially
introduces some additional complexity from the user's standpoint.

1. Select the circle and arrow markup from the list
2. Click the first word and drag to highlight the word or phrase that should be circled.
3. The UI will "fade" or an overlay would appear, perhaps a tooltip that says, "click on arrow destination or ESC to quit"
4. ESC would cancel the process.
5. now you can scroll as far as you want (gen to rev if you care to)
   to locate the next phrase.  Note that when hovering over any text the
   arrow should appear to follow your progress as the above modeless method indicates.
6. Click and drag over the destination word/phrase to anchor the arrow.
7. the UI remains faded and says, "point to more text and ESC when
   finished." and continues to show another arrow.  In this manner you can
   perform a link like the one I've shown with three arrows.

Some observations to the modal method:

• It's modal and L4 isn't really like that.  (But I think it's clear enough for even aunt Gertrude).
• It works with touchpads.
• um... I wish I could think of something else to say - but don't worry someone will.

Further suggestions:

• The arrows should have a slight curve which "tries" to stay out of the way of other text.
• The arrows should have some translucence so they don't block text.
• I'm not concerned perhaps about varying line widths but the
  addition of a few colors would be great, red, yellow, green, puce (ok,
  well maybe not puce).  
• If this was tied to interlinear data than the same arrows would
  appear in every version with interlinear data (ESV, NA27, NASB etc.) 
  That would be useful.

I can "see" both of these examples in my head and like them both, I
wish I could figure out how to do a video mockup, but alas I'm left
hoping my description is clear enough.

All of that presented, I'm bringing it here in hopes that the collective minds might come up with a good solution. 

Ideas?  Comments?