Highlighting with the same color/option

Member Posts: 58 ✭✭
edited November 2024 in English Forum

The highlighting feature is great, but it is rather cumbersome when every time you want to highlight something the highlight window pops up with all the options for highlighting.  Often when highlighting I choose one highlighter - let's say 'yellow highlighter - highlighter pens' and will use that type of highlighter for a while. 

Is there any way to continue using a chosen highlighter without the selection window popping up every time.  I can understand this happening when you want to be given the option to choose a new highlighter, but every time?  The way it is set up highlighting gets in the way of reading. 

Many other electronic reading apps allow continuous highlighting of this sort.  When you want to change highlighting simply highlight in the chosen color and then edit the highlight.

 

Seems simple.  Any plans to do this?

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  • MVP Posts: 36,523

    Is there any way to continue using a chosen highlighter without the selection window popping up every time.

    Sorry, no.

    Many other electronic reading apps allow continuous highlighting of this sort.  When you want to change highlighting simply highlight in the chosen color and then edit the highlight.

    Others have asked for this as well… I personally like the current system, because I use many highlighting styles + change note files regularly. Perhaps there could be an "easy highlight" switch which the user could turn on?

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  • Member Posts: 1,093 ✭✭✭

     Often when highlighting I choose one highlighter - let's say 'yellow highlighter - highlighter pens' and will use that type of highlighter for a while. 

    Is there any way to continue using a chosen highlighter without the selection window popping up every time

    You can assign a hotkey to a highlighter.

    I often use the yellow highlighter and square brackets, so I assigned hotkeys to them. Now, whenever I want to highlight yellow, I click and drag the cursor across the text, then press Y and it becomes highlighted with yellow.

    Do set this up, choose Tools > Highlighting.

    Scroll down to the highlighter you want. You will see a blue circle with a triangle.

    Click the triangle to see choices.

    Click the "down" triangle for the shortcut key and select the key you want.

  • MVP Posts: 33,247

    Hi Jack

    You can assign a hotkey to a highlighter.

    This isn't available in the iPad app

    Graham 

  • Member Posts: 58 ✭✭
  • Member Posts: 58 ✭✭

    Yes, I like the current system with the multitude of choices for highlighting and marking up a text, but when the highlighting system gets in the way of reading and marking, it does get bothersome.  Once I've checked a highlighter color and format and I know I'm going to be using that same one for a while, I don't need to be confronted over and over again with making a choice about which highlighter I want to use.  It's just really cumbersome!

  • Member Posts: 58 ✭✭

    Thanks, Jack.  Yes, I'm aware of this for the desktop application, but was referring to the Ipad or mobile app.

  • MVP Posts: 36,523

    Will it ever be available on IOs devices?

    jack's solution won't be available on mobile because it requires a keyboard. [;)]

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  • Member Posts: 2,272 ✭✭✭

    I don't know enough about touch APIs on iOS or Android, but I can think of a nice and intuitive way to do this if it were supported.

    • Select text.
    • Tap on "Highlight", but instead of releasing, drag downward.
    • On dragging down, a menu of the last 5 highlighters could be shown.
    • Selection follows your finger across the menu items.
    • Upon releasing, the highlighter under your finger is selected.

    Otherwise, taping on "Highlight" (and releasing on "Highlight"), behaves as it does now.

    Just not sure how easy that is to implement. Basically a drag-n-drop, but with a menu popping up in the correct place to receive the "drop", making the selection.

    Is that possible?

    (Note: I'm much more familiar with the way the Android app currently behaves than the iOS app, so I may be way off.)

  • MVP Posts: 36,523

    Randy - A number of people have suggested a desire for a real simple & easy highlighting solution… and they frequently point to the Kindle app. With the Kindle app, you just select the text and it highlights automatically… no menus pop up at all. It might be possible for Logos to do this, but it would need to be an option that you turned on.

    There is another problem with this method, however. The note file structure makes large note files difficult to deal with. This can cause highlight delays of a minute or more… Highlights aren't the simple things they are on Kindle… so creating a "kindle like" solution might not be a good idea.

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  • Member Posts: 3,421 ✭✭✭

    alabama24 said:

    There is another problem with this method, however. The note file structure makes large note files difficult to deal with. This can cause highlight delays of a minute or more… Highlights aren't the simple things they are on Kindle… so creating a "kindle like" solution might not be a good idea

    The ideal situation is as was suggested above. The highlight box could offer as the top choice in the box the last used highlight style and document. Then offer the custom solutions below that. Wouldn't add much to the highlight popup and makes an easy highlight quick and simple. Then when I change the kind of content I'm highlighting I can chance the highlight style and document.

    I"m guessing most people use one highlight the same way most of the time as they read a book.

    Dr. Kevin Purcell, Director of Missions
    Brushy Mountain Baptist Association

    www.kevinpurcell.org

  • MVP Posts: 36,523

    The highlight box could offer as the top choice in the box the last used highlight style and document. Then offer the custom solutions below that.

    How is that different than the current behavior? Or by "below," do you mean in a new menu?

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  • MVP Posts: 36,523

    Kevin - Here are two screen shots. Do you mean add a button to the first screen shot menu, or something on top of the second screen shot menu?

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  • Member Posts: 2,036 ✭✭✭

    alabama24 said:

    With the Kindle app, you just select the text and it highlights automatically… no menus pop up at all.

    This isn't correct. Originally, the Kindle app presented a small menu as to whether you wanted to highlight or make a note. If you clicked highlight, it was over and done. The new Kindle app, as of a month or two ago, includes 4 - 5 highlight colors in the menu that appears after selecting text. Touching one of those colors completes the highlighting.

    Donnie

  • MVP Posts: 36,523

    This isn't correct.

    I beg to differ. I wish I could post a video cast. Perhaps there is a setting… but I just have to select text and it highlights. If I touch the highlight, I can change colors. The "new" color remains as the color of choice until I change it again.

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  • Member Posts: 2,036 ✭✭✭

    alabama24 said:

    I beg to differ. I wish I could post a video cast. Perhaps there is a setting… but I just have to select text and it highlights. If I touch the highlight, I can change colors. The "new" color remains as the color of choice until I change it again.

    That's interesting. I've been highlighting in Kindle books on my iPad as recently as yesterday. Are you doing it in the Kindle app on an iPad, too (which I assumed based on the forum)? Or is it a Kindle device?

    Donnie

  • MVP Posts: 36,523

    Are you doing it in the Kindle app on an iPad, too (which I assumed based on the forum)?

    Yep. I wonder why the difference? I am using a 3rd gen iPad. What are you using? I'll check my phone out too.

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  • MVP Posts: 36,523

    If I select a word, then slide my finger (without releasing pressure) to select a phrase, the highlight is automatic and no menu pops up. This is true on my phone as well. If I select a single word (rather than a phrase as described before), the menu pops up automatically.

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  • Member Posts: 2,272 ✭✭✭

    Here's another, more sane, stab at this. Forgive the crudity of the image below; it's a two-minute hack job from <fluidui.com>.

    It's still not as simple as the highlight only mode where every selection is a highlight, but it would allow one-click access to (most used or user-selected) pen highlighters. It also offers the benefit of removing a lot of clutter from the popup selection menu which is getting very crowded on smaller devices. All the basic note & highlighting commands are transferred to an overlay menu bar at the top (Add Note, Pen1...PenN, Clear Highlights, More Highlighting Options). And the selection menu gets more room to add more cool features.

  • Member Posts: 2,036 ✭✭✭

    alabama24 said:

    This is true on my phone as well. If I select a single word (rather than a phrase as described before), the menu pops up automatically.

    That's got to be the difference. I always select a word and release, then move the sliders (usually just the right one) to select the whole phrase I'm interested in highlighting. Once I've completed that selection action, the menu appears.

    Donnie

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