Upgrade StorageiPad multitasking causes duplicated annotations
iPadOS 16.7.12 (old iPad, can't update to anything newer)
Zotero 1.0.54
Sometimes I use iPad's multitasking to open 2 views of the same PDF, to look at the references section while reading the main text.
In this state, most highlights that I make end up duplicated in the list of annotations. If the list is not displayed this is hard to notice, because sometimes the display doesn't update to show both, or if it does it looks like the highlighted color is somewhat off - because one highlights overlays the other, resulting in e.g. a highlight that is a darker green than the normal green. It's more noticeable if you try to change the color of an existing highlight, because only one of them changes, and the resulting overlayed colour is clearly wrong.
If looking at the list of annotations in a synced device, the duplicate annotation is visible immediately.
I guess there's a possibility that this only happens in this old version of iPadOS, so maybe someone can confirm this problem?
I have a screen recording showing the problem happening, but looks like I can't post videos here.
Zotero 1.0.54
Sometimes I use iPad's multitasking to open 2 views of the same PDF, to look at the references section while reading the main text.
In this state, most highlights that I make end up duplicated in the list of annotations. If the list is not displayed this is hard to notice, because sometimes the display doesn't update to show both, or if it does it looks like the highlighted color is somewhat off - because one highlights overlays the other, resulting in e.g. a highlight that is a darker green than the normal green. It's more noticeable if you try to change the color of an existing highlight, because only one of them changes, and the resulting overlayed colour is clearly wrong.
If looking at the list of annotations in a synced device, the duplicate annotation is visible immediately.
I guess there's a possibility that this only happens in this old version of iPadOS, so maybe someone can confirm this problem?
I have a screen recording showing the problem happening, but looks like I can't post videos here.
In the video, I open 2 times the same PDF in Zotero using iPad's multitasking. I start interacting only with the left side of the screen. On the right we see the same PDF, but showing the annotations sidebar; the PDF itself is visible as a stripe, opened on the same page as the left.
0:05: On the left, I make an annotation. It appears duplicated on the right's sidebar. Note that the highlight doesn't appear on the PDF text.
0:10: On the left, I change the annotation's colour to yellow. On the right, only one of the duplicates receives the change.
0:19: On the right, I pinch to zoom into the PDF text. When I release the pinch, a green highlight appears, instead of the yellow seen on the left.
Steps to reproduce:
- Open Zotero, and open one item/PDF
- With the iPad in landscape orientation, click on the tree dots on top, select "Split View"
- Select Zotero as the other app, and open the same item/PDF
- On the right, click to show the list of annotations
- On the left, activate the annotation toolbar, and start highlighting, selecting a region spanning multiple lines.
- On the right, I see the annotation listed duplicated.
- If on the right I now activate the annotation toolbar (keeping the listing/display of annotations), and highlight another multiline region, it also shows duplicated on the list of annotations.
Displayed highlights on PDF not in sync
The highlights displayed in the PDFs on the left and the right are not always in sync. If one continues highlighting on the left, one can flip from having them in sync to having the right display fewer highlights than the left.
Deduplication
- If I continue selecting regions on the left, on the right list of annotations, the previously duplicated regions disappear, leaving only one single annotation (and leaving as duplicated only the last marked region). In other words, what appears as duplicated is only the last marked region.
- If on the right I now activate the annotation toolbar I also see the duplication and deduplication behavior.
- The "deduplicate previous duplications" holds across screens. In other words, if I last highlighted on the left, I see that last highlight duplicated. But now, if on the right I highlight something, that last hightlight is the duplicated one, and the last highlight on the left is deduplicated.
- The "deduplicate previous duplications" does not hold if one closes and reopens and repeats the splitting and highlight. Whatever was left duplicated when closing, remains duplicated.
Quadruplication
- If I reopen a document that contains any duplicated annotation, and repeat the steps above, highlighting multi-line regions leads to quadruplicated lists of annotations.
- As above (Deduplications), if I continue doing this, the previously quadruplicated annotations are de-quadruplicated, so for previous quadruplications only a single annotation remains in the list of annotations; the only quadruplicated entry is the last highlight.
- (Nope, I could not get past quadruplications to octuplications :-) ).
Crashes
While trying to reproduce and isolate the problem, Zotero crashed several times. For example, crash log report IDs 1948363247, 1010797563, or 2013873018 (there were others, but I did not write them down). I haven't reported them as such, because I can't specify the specific steps that led to the crash.
In fact, in a future update that will add support for multiple open items in the same window, you won't be able to open multiple windows of the same document. So my question is, what are you trying to achieve with this use, instead of just having one window and keeping the sidebar open? The goal you actually want to accomplish, may be better served with other improvements that we lack currently, which could be of value to more users.
Looking to here your feedback, to determine how we should prioritize this.
I am not the OP, but I can answer why for me opening multiple windows of the same document can be very important. Two main cases:
1. I am reading a paper, on the left side is what I am reading, on the right the bibliography (the references section). This allows me to highlight, on the right, the references I would like to check; seeing both the text and the full bibliography pages is important to decide whether to check (and highlight) the reference: the context where it is cited on the left, the title, journal, authors, etc, of the reference on the right. The alternative, going back and forth between text and references section, can be much more cumbersome and removes context (surrounding text, other references, possibly by same authors, etc).
2. I am reading a paper, where a figure and the text that discusses the figure are in different pages. Opening the same document in multiple windows allows me to see both at the same time and, if needed, make annotations in the text and the figure. This case also applies to situations like checking comments in the discussion against the actual results in the results section several pages back, etc.
Case 1 is, I think, the scenario that the OP referred to.
I also use 1. and 2. routinely in the desktop version of Zotero ---more in the desktop, since splitting is more comfortable in a larger screen.
So I would please, please, please request that multiple windows of the same document are not disabled (neither in the mobile nor in the desktop versions of Zotero, of course). Without a doubt, I prefer to live with the occasional glitch of the duplicated entries than to not have the option of multiple windows of the same document.
I am willing to bet that cases 1. and 2. are not uncommon.
(Though to my mind there's no real difference between those cases: it all boils down to the need to see and annotate 2 different pages of the same document at the same time. E.g., I could be annotating plain text in e.g. Chapter 4 while reviewing plain text or annotations in Chapter 2. My usage of Zotero desktop is like this 90% of the time.
Given the current trouble, at times I work mainly on the iPad and use the laptop or phone as the 2nd view; which works but is obviously less than ideal)