Comments
- Using the Highlighting Feature create a New Palette (Name it something: Bookmark Reading).
- Add a New Style to that Palette and add formatting that really stands out (ugly large red letters with a purple box around it and even add the text: “BOOKMARK” to it or something). Name the Style something: Bookmark. There might be other beneficial options like Labels, etc. but I am not a Highlighting expert.
- Add a Shortcut key to this style. I use “Z.” So a single letter adds this style.
- You can close the Highlighting tab. You don’t have to have it open to use this feature.
- Now open a book you are reading.
- Select a word or chapter title where you want to add the bookmark.
- Type your shortcut key: “Z”
- The bookmark style is added to that word. You can see the bookmark clearly with the ugly formatting.
- Of course you can’t get back to that Bookmark with a shortcut key like the other option but here is how you can do it that is better in some ways.
- When you want to go to a bookmark, you can search for that style and it will bring it up. There are a couple of ways of doing that.
- If you have the book open you can move from one Bookmark to the next by setting to Annotations in the upper right corner and using the arrows. Of course if your book is filled with highlights, notes, etc. then this is not effective.
- I like setting up a Basic search of All Text in All Resources and search for: {Highlight Bookmark} where Bookmark is the name of your Style.
- I save this search as a shortcut on the top bar.
- When I run this search it shows all the places where I have applied this style. If I have it sorted by resource then all the books which contain a Bookmark are listed and I can open and see where the bookmarks are and on what page. You just click on the bookmark location and it opens the resource to the bookmark.
- To make a favorite, tap on the action menu icon (i.e., the vertical ellipsis) in the top right and select "Add to Favorites."
- To view your favorites, tap on the location picker icon (i.e., the staggered four-line icon directly to the left of the vertical ellipsis icon) and switch to the Favorites tab (the fourth one).
Bookmark “solution” using Styles until they add the real feature.
The advantage of this method is you can search for all your bookmarks and you can visually see the bookmark in the book. The disadvantage is having to search for the bookmark (see shortcut below) and removing them is a pain unless someone knows of an automated way. This method is probably most effective if you want bookmarks in 10+ books and you don’t get back to reading those books routinely.
Here is an option that I found that comes pretty close to an easy bookmark feature. Once it is setup it is pretty easy to use. It probably is no better than the shortcut key bookmarks but I will let you decide….
I don’t know that all this works on the mobile app where it is probably most desired so someone else who is more familiar with the mobile app might can help.
If you just reopen the book after closing it, then it will come back to the same place but at least you can see the ugly bookmark.
There are down sides. In order to remove the Bookmark you must select the text in your book and right click and choose Remove Annotations. Someone might know an automated way to remove all of a particular Highlighting from a book, etc.
Thanks for your feedback and suggestions. I'd love to understand better your use cases and the ways the current system doesn't address them.
If you just want to open a book to the last location, that should happen automatically. We sync your last location across all devices and open to it by default. Are you happy with this behavior? Are there ways we can make it better (e.g., if you're in multiple locations on different devices, should we prompt you and let you choose which last location you want)?
We also show your history in the scroll bar with subtle horizontal lines, so you can quickly jump to recent locations within the book. Is that useful? How could it be better?
We're exploring integrating history and favorites into resources, so you could quickly see your previous and favorite locations in each book (similar to what we do on our iOS and Android app). We'd also make favoriting a location more prominent. We could also allow you to navigate to next and previous favorite. Would that meet your needs?
How important is it that you can navigate by keyboard shortcuts? Would these keyboard shortcuts need to be unique, allowing you to open a specific resource to a specific location, or could they be the same for each resource, where you could navigate to a particular location in the active resource?
Are bookmarks and favorites different? If so, how?
How else can we meet your needs in the space of finding important locations within resources?
We could also allow you to navigate to next and previous favorite. Would that meet your needs?
Yes. When I am reading a resource, I do most of that reading on a mobile device. So, the ability to navigate back to favorited locations and having a record of them would be very desirable. So, you get my vote to implement this adaptation ASAP.
Meanwhile, Jesus kept on growing wiser and more mature, and in favor with God and his fellow man.
International Standard Version. (2011). (Lk 2:52). Yorba Linda, CA: ISV Foundation.
MacBook Pro MacOS Sequoia 15.4 1TB SSD
When I am reading a resource, I do most of that reading on a mobile device. So, the ability to navigate back to favorited locations and having a record of them would be very desirable.
We already support this on mobile.
Does this meet your needs?
Where does the book that I click on favorites go. It says add to favorites but when I go to view favorites I can't find the book anywhere. When I click to make a favorite should is not give me an option of what folder to put the book into?
Phil,
Wow. Thanks for the reply....sorry to create so much work for you. It has been a while since I reviewed all the options which I should have done before posting. So to clarify...
The Favorites on Android mobile looks good. Being able to view all your bookmarks in multiple books is an advantage over Kindle bookmarks. The only thing missing but probably unimportant for most people is being able to "see" the bookmark on the page.
These Favorites come over to the desktop well so you can also see them there. Again it might have been a while since I reviewed this with all the updates but this did not seem to work well in the past. Looks great now.
The only question is if there is a shortcut key option on the desktop program to add to Mobile Favorites without opening the Favorites tab? Or is there even a way to add to the Mobile Favorites from the desktop?
So the only advantage of my suggestion is that it leaves a visual mark at the place where you are reading and you can search for those Highlighting "bookmarks." The shortcut key to add the Highlighting bookmark without opening Highlighting is nice. My option is really painful in removing the highlighting “bookmarks” unless there is some different way to remove highlighting easier.
Like you say, reopening a book to the last location works great. I don’t use the history in the scroll bar often but this is some helpful location information. History is great and is useful.
Like you suggest, making favoriting a location more prominent would help and moving from one favorite to the next like moving from one Annotation to the next I think would be appreciated. The keyboard option to go to a favorite would be good but I think it is only needed for the open resource. I think most would open the favorites if they are looking to see which books they are reading.
Thanks. My convoluted post was not to be taken as a critique but a special option to do those couple of things that I listed. And again it was done before reviewing the most recent updates and that is my fault.
We sync your last location across all devices and open to it by default. Are you happy with this behavior? Are there ways we can make it better (e.g., if you're in multiple locations on different devices, should we prompt you and let you choose which last location you want)?
No, I'm not happy with the feature. There are categories of books where I don't want sync behavior - I want the book to open to the last place it was opened on the device. As I said in the Mobile Readers forum a while back, the device *is* a use case. The good news is that it's rare that the "last location" sync'ing feature works. The resources usually open to the last place I had them open on the device.
We also show your history in the scroll bar with subtle horizontal lines, so you can quickly jump to recent locations within the book. Is that useful? How could it be better?
I disabled that feature shortly after I installed L4. At the time, the feature was incomprehensible. Now it's just not useful - how many horizontal lines do I have to click to find the location I care about? Do you collect telemetry on how often people click a horizontal line to go to a resource location?
Are bookmarks and favorites different? If so, how?
Yes. Bookmarks are for resuming reading and move as the reading location progresses (though I could see how the sequence of bookmarks created while reading a resource could be useful). Favorites are for returning to locations repeatedly and are fixed. I'll have to re-check the iOS apps (which I use ***a lot***) to see if favorites are resource-specific, as they should be.
My $.02. Thanks for asking the questions.
Donnie
While waiting for this are you aware of the keyboard shortcuts for bookmarks?
very limited and cumbersome never use it for that very reason.
When I use that keyboard shortcut - nothing happens. It retains my old bookmarks. How is this "supposed" to work?
I use favourite as bookmarks, one problem I find is favourite always save the page number and chapter
Then I have to remember where in the text to start from
I have a custom markup with a paper clip icon which I use to mark
my location in the text,
I first go to favorites than click on the book, than the page number
When this resource opens up to the right place, then l look for my paper clip icon for
my last reading location
Mick