Feature idea: Split view/floating window in PDF reader for simultaneous viewing of text and figures

FlorentLM
edited May 22, 2024
Hey there,

Clicking on a hyperlink to a figure in a pdf and using the reader's back arrow is quite nice, but it would be game changer to have the figure open in a dedicated panel instead, allowing one to keep reading the text while also having the figure it references at the same time.

Many pdf readers have the back arrow button, but none that I know have anything close to a dedicated figure panel like that.

Cheers
  • dstillman
    This is coming in Zotero 7.
  • FlorentLM
    No way!! That's awesome

    Out of curiosity, how will it look / be implemented roughly?

    Thanks
  • dstillman
    Figures will show in a popup when you hover over the link. It sounds like you're asking for a persistent floating window, which isn't the current plan, though you can always right-click on the PDF and trigger split view and then follow the link to see the figure while continuing to read the other pane.
  • FlorentLM
    I see.

    Yes I was thinking something similar to eLife's web reader with their "Side by side" view (example https://elifesciences.org/articles/66039/ > click "Side by Side" and then Figures )
  • DirkStratmann
    edited 2 days ago
    I would like to have the same feature requested here, as the popup in zotero 7 is nice, but not sufficient:
    - for figures the popup shows the whole page, where the figure is. But the figure appears too small in it, as a figure rarely occupies the whole page.
    - the size of the popup is smaller than the second panel in split mode
    - the popup hides the current text, so you cannot continue to read while looking at the figure in the same time.

    It should be simple to trigger a jump in the document, once you click on a figure link, on the second view in split-view instead of the current view. This would allow us to continue to read the main text, while looking at the figure at the same time.
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