Transparent (desktop) or smaller (iOS) comment icons

warwickmm
edited January 8, 2023
Would it be possible to make the icon that indicates the presence of an annotation comment transparent? As currently implemented, the opaque icon can obscure text and make the document difficult to read.

https://postimg.cc/Z0nRWNVH
  • warwickmm
    I should have clarified that the above was the desktop app (6.0.12 on Linux). I noticed that the icons don't appear in the iOS app, which is a little inconsistent but fortunately nice for this specific case.

    https://postimg.cc/HjZn0wkV
  • warwickmm
    Sorry for the bump. I was just wondering if the opaque icon is causing issues for anyone else.

    Is it as simple as modifying the svg path element here?

    https://github.com/zotero/pdf-reader/blob/21b8597f9d0d233823d1ad7cad86584b2eec1814/src/components/icons.js#L16
  • warwickmm
    The comment icons have now been introduced in version 1.0.5 on iOS and also obscure the text. Would making these icons transparent interfere with usability in any way?

    https://postimg.cc/pmJjZMgt
  • dstillman
    (The missing comment icons on iOS was a regression. They showed in a previous build.)

    I think most people just aren't highlighting math equations like this in a way where this is much of a problem. For normal text, the icon is pretty small and unobtrusive, and we place it in a way where it's usually mostly between lines.

    I think 1) most apps use opaque icons, 2) most apps use much larger icons than we do for this, but 3) some apps do try to place the icon off to the side, outside the text. It's possible we could do something like that.
  • warwickmm
    Thanks dstillman. If my use case is not common, then perhaps this isn't a critical issue.
    However, I noticed that the icon in the iOS app (1.0.6) obscures more text than the desktop app (6.0.15 on Linux):

    iOS: https://postimg.cc/GBGW4yYW
    desktop: https://postimg.cc/xq0wdqdZ

    Would it be possible to make these consistent, preferably by reducing the size of the icons in the iOS app?
  • wrcstewart
    For what its worth, as I am very much a newbie, I think low opacity on the icons in all versions of the apps would be v. useful and I would have thought fairly easy to program. At the moment they don't position automatically off the text but obscure it.
    (Mac app)
  • woixt
    This problem has also brought me a lot of problems, and comments after highlighted text will also obscure the text.
  • warwickmm
    Sorry for the bump, but if transparency is not feasible, would it be possible to shrink the comment icons in the iOS app? As of version 1.0.8, they are still much larger than the desktop app and can obscure a lot of text. The placement of the icon in the iOS app also appears slightly different.

    iOS: https://postimg.cc/GBGW4yYW
    desktop: https://postimg.cc/xq0wdqdZ
  • effortking
    May I ask if you solved the problem of the annotation icon obscuring the text? Like any way to shrink the icon or adjust the opacity?
  • warwickmm
    Unfortunately, not yet.
  • warwickmm
    If I can make an additional request, it seems that the way the note icon scales with zoom level is different between the desktop and iOS apps.

    In the desktop app, the note icon (yellow) gets larger as you zoom in so its proportion to the annotation comment icons remains the same:

    https://postimg.cc/5j9zmJx0

    In the iOS app, the note icon (purple) remains the same size as you zoom in. As such, it becomes much smaller than the annotation comment icons when zoomed in:

    https://postimg.cc/rdv4JRw2

    As an aside, I'm not sure why the note icon is yellow in the desktop app and purple in iOS. It was created in iOS.
  • warwickmm
    The transparent icons in beta 58 are a huge improvement for me. Thank you!

    I just wanted to bump the same request for iOS, where the problem is worse due to the larger icons and different placement (in the desktop app, the bottom-right of the icon overlaps the highlighted region while in iOS there is no overlap).

Sign In or Register to comment.