Floating toolbar while in fullscreen mode

[CaptainJohn_W]

When viewing a multi-page PDF, it would be great to have a floating customizable toolbar for marking up PDFs. I am using the software on a Surface Go with the Surface Pen.

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Hi John,

thanks for the post and for voicing your preference here. We have seen a few similar requests and will be makimg a feature request for this. I must say however that there is some resistance to the idea and many people are of the opinion that Full Screen mode is for presentations and as such don't need access to tools.

Personally I can see a use for annotations DURING a presentation. Ultimately this will be at the discretion of the development team leader.

regards

[CaptainJohn_W]

I am using a Surface Go with a Surface Pen. and I was trying to minimize how much top screen space your app takes when I am marking up PDFs. I am not using this for presenting, but I am using it to mark up PDFs of construction drawings. I am trying to use this app as my PDF markup app on my tablet, but the pen/tablet input is more of an afterthought. I use this app exclusively on my desktop computers, but it is third place on my tablet.

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Hi John,

have you tried F8? That will hide all your tool bars, though that doesn't help you change tools easilt. A double click in a ribbon tab will minimize the ribbon and allow quick access to the tools with a single click ion the respective ribbon's tab:

Regards the Full Screen floating tool bar, it looks like we are making headway with the development team, and we have agreement at lest to allow the existing tool bar to be customized. I would also like to see it be re-positionable, and further, I would like to see the option to create our own floating, re-positionable tol bar. I sometimes want to be able to use highlighting and the Pencil tool during a presentation for example.

To that end I have created a formal feature request around this. RT#4910: Feature Request :: Editor :: Customize options for Fullscreen floating toolbar

Just because there is a request in the system does not guarantee it will ever eventuate - that ultimately will be at the discretion of the development team leader.

Lets see what comes from this.

[CaptainJohn_W]

Turning off the toolbars with F8 helps, although it's a pain to get to F8 since I don't use a keyboard 99% of the time. I did put some comment tools in the Quick Access menu bar at the top, but I can't have a red pen, a blue pen, a green pen, at the same time. PDF-XChange Editor has a ways to go before it is usable with a touchscreen device (e.g. program doesn't respond to touch right after I stop writing due to delay to switching back to pan mode, jagged handwriting, etc.). I'll just stick with Drawboard PDF for marking up my PDFs and PDF-XChange Editor for desktop applications.

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hello CaptainJohn_W,

Thanks for the feedback - that is always helpful, and we are indeed working on improving the touch oriented aspects of the Editor in the future!

Regards,
Stefan

[rakunavi]

Hello all,

I agree with CaptainJohn_W's feature request. I think full-screen mode is equally important for both presentation (or reading) and drawing purposes.

Perhaps those who do not regularly use a stylus would imagine that users who request full-screen mode for drawing purposes are requesting it because they want "a little more drawing area" or "a simpler view of the screen". That is why I believe that when such requests come in here on the forum, you guys suggest the F8 shortcut.

Certainly there are such purposes, but an equally important reason is that we want to disable edge swiping.

Edge swipe is a feature that displays the notification menu (Windows 11) or action menu (Windows 10) by swiping leftward from the outside of the screen toward the inside of the screen. Edge swipe can be disabled by modifying the following registry entries.

Disable Screen Edge Swipe

Code: Select all

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\EdgeUI]
"AllowEdgeSwipe"=-

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\EdgeUI]
"AllowEdgeSwipe"=dword:00000000

Enable Screen Edge Swipe

Code: Select all

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\EdgeUI]
"AllowEdgeSwipe"=-

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\EdgeUI]
"AllowEdgeSwipe"=-

Users who prefer full-screen mode should have Windows set to automatically hide the taskbar, but even if edge swiping is disabled, the taskbar still appears when swiping from the bottom to the inside of the screen, unless the application is set to full screen. The taskbar appears when swiping inward from the bottom of the screen, unless the application is set to full screen. If you draw all the way to the edge of the screen with the stylus, even if you don't explicitly intend to edge-swipe, your hand will frequently touch the bottom of the screen, and unintended movement is likely to occur.

The more you use a stylus to interact with an application, the more you will come to dislike unintended touch behavior. Therefore, please understand that we have a desire to disable screen elements (e.g. scroll bars) and features (e.g. edge swipes) that may cause unintended behavior, which is why we value full-screen mode. It is probably no coincidence that many pen-friendly applications have extensive drawing tools in full-screen mode. If the full-screen mode is used only for presentation purposes, it will be a waste of treasure.

Best regards,
rakunavi

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Hello, rakunavi

Thank you for the explanation, This is a very well reasoned suggestion, and may be just what we need to give the Devs that push to consider that fullscreen being a "presentation mode" only is limiting the capacity of the software. I have forwarded this to the team for consideration, and hopefully they will give some positive feedback here when they get the time to review it.

Kind regards,

[rakunavi]

Hello Daniel, thank you for your reply.

Currently, it is possible to imitate the floating toolbar even in Fullscreen mode by

• Disable presentation mode.
• Floating the toolbar with the Classic Toolbar.
• Use Autohotkey or similar tool to force the toolbar to switch back and forth.

While presentation mode can be disabled in full-screen mode, unfortunately, the tools are not well-developed enough to be of any practical use. By the way, please don't get me wrong, I think presentation mode is equally important. The functionality required for viewing and drawing is fundamentally different, and I hope that the UI will be designed with this in mind.

As a stylus user, I agree with many of the feature requests that have been made in this sub-forum. While lasso tools have been explicitly rejected in the past, once you start using a computer all day long with a stylus and touch, you will find that most of the numerous requests in this sub-forum here make sense (the following is just an example).

Feature requests:

- Implementation of a stroke eraser
- Add a lasso
- Ability to use the vertical toolbar in full screen mode or other floating customizable bar, because every cm matters when it comes to tablet
- Option to easy format the vertical toolbar: see pictures of pdf annotator, samsung note, Drawboard PDF.
- Make fullscreen mode, more UI friendly for tablet users, every cm matters when it comes to tablet; DrawboardPDF, OneNote (microsof365 version 2301
.....

I hope that one day I will be able to confidently introduce PDF-XChange Editor to others as a pen-friendly application.

Best regards,
rakunavi

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]