Accordance 1.3

[Guntis]

1) Try to tap-and-hold Gen 1:1 to highlight this verse. Almost impossible as Search button's touch-sensitive area is too large at the bottom. And if you manage to highlight Gen 1:1, try to select reference again. It took me almost 1 minute to select it again to open a user note.

 

2) Regarding highlights — can you use Apple iBooks highlighting style? iBooks highlights look way more natural, like real highlighter was used on the paper. Yours is too mechanical. It does its job, but doesn't feel organic...

 

3) By the way why can't I open user notes by tapping on the red dot? That's what I do in Accordance 9.4 for Mac — to open a user note I double-click the red dot. Here on the touch-controlled device the same red dot suddenly has no touch interface at all... Very confusing!

 

4) It would be logical if you would swap top right button (open resource split window) with the bottom left button, because split window is at the bottom of the screen, but Open Library mostly concerns the top part of the split screen. That way they would be placed closer to their respective "place of influence".

 

5) Black toolbars look so much better!!! THANK YOU! If only I could hide them completely when I don't need them... ;-) 5-6 extra lines of text would become available on the screen. On the small iPhone's screen it's really paramount. One tap in an empty place (place on the screen where there is no touch-sensitive links) to hide them, one tap again to show them.

 

6) Maybe you could show split window's adjustment's handle at the bottom of the screen all the time? Just dim it, when it's at the bottom of the screen. Whenever I'd need the split window, I'd just pull it up again, with the same resource selected and opened. Often I close the split screen to enlarge Bible text area, then have to open EBC or ESVSB in the split window again for another verse, but in order to do that I have to tap on the top right button, then search for the tool again. Not very encouraging to use split window constantly. All this because the split window doesn't remember its tool and doesn't show dimmed handle at the bottom of the screen (those two horizontal lines) when completely closed. And perhaps there could be some gesture to switch between the last 5-6 resources in the split window. That way with one gesture I could quickly switch between dictionary and 2-3 commentaries. Please improve this!

 

7) Maybe it would be good to place "Add Parallel" Text, Reference Tools and My Notes icons in the toolbar? This way even if I open Texts, I'd still see Reference tools and My Notes icons in the toolbar and could quickly switch between them without going back to the "Add Parallel" screen.

 

8) And thank you for the verse copy feature — your approach how to select verses for copying is excellent! The best I've seen in mobile applications.

 

9) How about opening Bible verses in the main or the split window from the popup window (when I tap on any Bible reference in the split window)? BibleReader has special button for that in the popup window's top right corner, but perhaps you could add swipe-sensitive area in the right side of the popup window? Just swipe up and the text in the popup opened in the top (main) window, swipe down across it and it's opened in the split window. No need for the extra buttons as in the BibleReader. Add narrow vertical swipe-sensitive area at the right side of the black popup window to open popup text in the main window or the split window. And popup window could be a notch taller too... Currently it's too narrow...

 

10) When I bought this spring new MacBook Pro 17" with the high resolution screen (1920x1200), I had to go through all my user notes on Accordance 9.x for Mac and enlarge user notes' font to 14pt to make it easy to read on the HD screen. Now in Accordance 1.3 you have enabled rich text formatting in user notes and suddenly all my notes which look OK on the Mac look large and ugly on my iPhone... Can you think about overriding font face and size settings? For example, Verdana on a Mac could be Georgia on iOS devices, and there could be font size adjustment with the slider — which would turn all larger size fonts to smaller.

[Scott Knapp]

1) Try to tap-and-hold Gen 1:1 to highlight this verse. Almost impossible as Search button's touch-sensitive area is too large at the bottom. And if you manage to highlight Gen 1:1, try to select reference again. It took me almost 1 minute to select it again to open a user note.

I don't have any issue with this, but I probably use a much larger font size than you do. It's a known issue that we are planning to address in a future release by adding some type of buffer area at the top of the text view.

 

2) Regarding highlights

[Guntis]

Thank you for your comments on my remarks! Here are my answers on some of your comments.

 

The iOS app is really just a consumer of the highlight rendering code used by Accordance for Mac. It's not a sufficiently high enough priority to write our own version unless there is enough demand for changes on the Mac side also.

Actually I like BibleReader approach by fading out both ends of the highlights. That way empty spaces between the verse number and the verse text don't stand out so sharply.

 

The red dot is a pretty small target for a "touch". Too small in fact to be reliable and useful. So in Accordance for iOS it's really more of a visual indicator that you have a user note available for that verse reference. I actually argued for having Accordance for Mac adopt the iOS interface for choosing user notes, but as you can see that argument did not carry the day.

I think you can use red dot as big as it is, but add large enough transparent touch-sensitive area around it. And when I open any note, first it should be displayed in full-screen read-only style, and it would explicitly require editing mode.

 

While I don't really disagree with you argument about "place of influence", we had to also consider the problem of where to place the names of the modules when displaying the parallel pane. Noting our screen real estate limitation on the iPhone while handling both portrait and landscape orientations. This is our best solution at the moment.

I think module name placement has nothing to do with the Library and Split window button placement.

 

I don't like the idea of always showing the split pane divider. Don't like it in OliveTree's apps and wouldn't like it in ours.

I find it useful. It can be 70% transparent when docked at the bottom of the screen. When you need to maximize screen real estate for the Bible text on the iPhone, and then continue reading commentary or notes, then switch to the Bible text and then again to the commentaries, always available handle to pull up the split screen (with the same resource) has many advantages.

 

While there is room for this on the iPad, where would you place all these buttons on the iPhone?

No place for 3 icons in the toolbar? Really? ;-)

I think you could redesign this window completely. Put icons in the top toolbar so that all I should do is switch between them. No need for the first window with the 3 icons. By default go to the Reference Tools section, and if I want to, I can always switch to the Texts or My Notes sections. And remember last section from the previous session. This way 1 screen eliminated.

[Guntis]

Here's how I envision it:

 

[Scott Knapp]

Here's how I envision it:

 

Ahh. You're talking about putting the parallel type buttons in the "Add/Change Parallel" view that appears, not in the main interface.

 

A 3-segment control (like the 2-segment in the Library downloads view) was one of the alternative design ideas for this view. We ended up going with a hierarchical list instead (although I cannot remember the exact reason why). It's true that using a segmented control at the top of the list would definitely be one less tap to change the content type of an existing parallel pane. Something to consider.

 

Scott.