iPadOS UI Bug: Highlighting Visual Vibration

nbabarskis
edited 28 days ago
I am experiencing a peculiar visual jiggle/vibration when highlighting text in the iPadOS app. I experienced this issue while using an apple pencil to highlight text. As I drag my pencil to highlight text there is a noticeable “vibration” in the bubble that zooms in on the text that is being highlighted. A recorded a video of my display and can share if needed.
  • mvasilak Zotero Team
    Please share the video here or by mail to support@zotero.org and mention this thread.
    Please also let us know which version of the Zotero app you use, which iPadOS version, which iPad model and pencil. Is this happening with a PDF or ePub/HTML item?
  • mvasilak Zotero Team
    Hey @nbabarskis, thanks for the video, we can reproduce the issue. As you corrected in your email, this only happens with active highlight tool, when selecting with a finger, not with a pencil. The pencil is accurate enough, but with the finger the selection sometimes may jiggle to the next line.

    This is part of a third part library we use, so we are going to forward it to them and wait for their feedback.

    Keep in mind that selecting without an active tool, and then selecting e.g. highlight from the selection menu, seems to not produce this jiggle.
  • nbabarskis
    I experienced the giggle when using an apple pencil with the active highlight tool selected. No jiggle when using finger or pencil with the active highlight tool deactivated.
  • mvasilak Zotero Team
    Sorry about my confusion. In my tests, I saw the jiggle when highlighting with my finger, but not when highlighting with the pencil. Since you witnessed it also with the pencil, this might be file specific. Does this happen with all files, or just specific ones? Can you share the file that you recorded the video with by mail?
  • nbabarskis
    I think you might be right. i tested the apple pencil on an epub and on a dissertation pdf file (not as complex typesetting as a journal article) and had no jiggle. I sent an email with the attachments for the files that do have a visual jiggle.
  • mvasilak Zotero Team
    Just to further clarify, is the vibration/jiggle the one that is happening when the selection jumps to the next/previous line, or do you refer to something that could appear even i changing selection within the same line, and never selecting fewer/more lines?
  • nbabarskis
    It is happening in both those conditions - basically, anytime you drag the apple pencil over a line of text in a pdf, selecting more text or reducing the amount of text selected. It does not happen as frequently if highlighting text with finger instead of pencil.

    The pattern I have observed over a couple different instances is that the jiggle is most likely to happen the first time I open Zotero every day. It has generally improved as my daily use continues.
  • mvasilak Zotero Team
    The feedback we got so far from the third party is this:
    "This is actually expected behavior. Since moving between lines happens while normal motion of the hand triggers the selection jump.
    This of course can be more drastic for documents where the text is tighter than other documents."

    I'll ask for further clarification, as you mention that this even happens when pencil just moves horizontally.

    In the meantime, just to be thorough, if you open such a PDF document that displays this issue in another app, such as Preview, and you try to highlight the same text there, do you witness similar issues?
  • nbabarskis
    edited 7 days ago
    I think I can understand-in theory-the response from the third party. The zoomed-in bubble contributes to the perception of a jiggle as the highlight is dragged across the text.

    I tried to replicate the visual issue in Preview and Safari. The Preview app pencil does not work the same way, when I use a highlighter it is like drawing something over the text it doesn’t select the text in the same way that Zotero does. When I use my finger in Preview it does not select text letter by letter it will select a whole word after I drag my finger across it.

    In Safari I get a closer match to what is happening in Zotero. There is a slight visual jiggle when I drag the Apple Pencil across text and a similar jiggle occurs when I use my finger to adjust the length/amount of highlighted text. It is exacerbated a bit by the bubble that shows a Zoomed in sample of text, and websites that had tighter/thinner font made it more noticeable. However, in Safari even in those cases where the jiggle happened it still felt a bit smoother than what can happen in Zotero. I do think how noticeable the jiggle is depends on the font of the text in Zotero as well.
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