Enable/Disable Synchronous scrolling of two vertical tabs

Ciberian · Post by **Ciberian** » Thu Mar 02, 2017 7:14 pm

It is common to view and compare two different versions of a PDF in separate vertical tabs to identify changes between the two documents.

I would like to request the feature to enable/disable synchronous scrolling of two documents (or vertical tabs) via a simple toggle button, perhaps located under the Menu bar/Window tab. In usage, I might synchronously scroll two documents until I see some differences, temporarily disable synchronous scrolling to analyze the changes, then re-enable synchronous scrolling for the rest of the document.

Until it gets implemented, can you kindly provide a script that might accomplish this?

Thank you.

Fri Mar 03, 2017 11:42 am

Hi Ciberian,

Thanks for the post - As far as myself and my colleagues are aware, we do not currently have any Synchronous Scrolling feature.

To the best of my knowledge, this could not be done with a script of any kind. Even if it is possible to achieve via a JavaScript, it would be incredibly complex and we will only very occasionally provide users with JavaScripts, if they are simple and do not take much of our time. It is up to users to create any scripts that they may need themselves.

Thanks,

Ciberian · Post by **Ciberian** » Sat Mar 04, 2017 9:33 pm

Thank you Will.

Please accept my prior post as a formal request to consider implementing Toggleable (yes that's a real word) Synchronous Scrolling of two vertical tabs in PDF XChange Editor. A feature which will make the Editor that much more usable when comparing two PDF files.

Thanks.

Post by **Tracker Supp-Stefan** » Sun Mar 05, 2017 8:15 am

Hello Ciberian,

Request recorded. I will bring it up for discussion on the next meeting!

Cheers,
Stefan

Post by **Tracker Supp-Stefan** » Wed Mar 22, 2017 6:36 pm

Hello Ciberian,

Just coming out of the meeting where we discussed this - we are looking at how best to implement this feature now (there are some technical details that need to be addressed) - and we will then work on implementing it.

Regards,
Stefan

Ciberian · Post by **Ciberian** » Wed Mar 22, 2017 7:05 pm

Thank you Stefan

.

Wed Mar 22, 2017 11:39 pm

Ciberian · Post by **Ciberian** » Thu Mar 23, 2017 6:43 pm

For what its worth:
Notepad ++, https://notepad-plus-plus.org/ has synchronized scrolling implemented as follows:

To create a second tab group:
1. Open a long text document.
2. Rt click on the Tab, select: Clone to Other View - now you have two vertical tab groups.

Alternately you can open two long documents, Rt click on a Tab, select: Move to Other View.

To enable/disable synchronized scrolling:
Main Toolbar/View, select: Synchronize Vertical Scrolling [or Synchronize Horizontal Scrolling]

I hope this helps.

Thu Mar 23, 2017 11:42 pm

Thank you for your input Ciberian.

Cheers!

Timur Born · Post by **Timur Born** » Sat Mar 25, 2017 8:15 am

Other PDF readers (and some image viewers) implement this via an extra compare function. I like the implementation of Faststone Image Viewer best, especially the option to either compare side-by-side or switch between images via ALT-1/2/3/4 while every scroll and zoom action remains synchron (unless you press CTRL while panning/zooming).

Post by **Will - Tracker Supp** » Mon Mar 27, 2017 8:04 am

Thanks Timur

Ciberian · Post by **Ciberian** » Tue Mar 28, 2017 7:24 pm

While PDF XChange Editor is vastly more sophisticated than Notepad ++, I suggested it not because I like it, but merely as an example because both programs share several common architecture features.

1) Both programs are document editors,

2) Both programs have tabbed interfaces, and

3) Both programs share similar implementation of multiple tab groups (Notepad ++ refers to the other "Tab Group" as "Other View"). It was my intention to make the implementation of this feature request as easy as possible for the Tracker development team. There may be other similar programs.

FastStone Image Viewer on the other shares none of these architectural qualities with PDFX Editor, and in my opinion, is an entirely alien program with entirely different architecture and purpose that confuses the issue. Thanks anyway for your input.

Post by **Will - Tracker Supp** » Wed Mar 29, 2017 9:07 am

Hi Ciberian,

Any example of a working implementation is great to see, even if the purpose and construction of the application as a whole differs vastly

David.P · Post by **David.P** » Wed May 31, 2017 10:13 am

Hi all,

I usually do a blink comparison (by opening both PDF versions in two tabs, switching to full page view in both tabs, and then blink comparing via the Ctrl-Tab hotkey. Works great for instantly detecting even the sligthest changes (IMHO much better than side-by-side comparison), because of this property of the human vision system (you don't even need your brain -- this takes place directly in the eye's retina. i.e. like hardware accelerated :).

OTOH, side-by-side comparison of course also can be useful, if the comparison task is more about text comparison, and when there are more than just minimal differences.

Cheers
David
--

Wed May 31, 2017 10:59 am

Hi David,

That's typically what I do as well, for the same reason - the differences are usually much more immediately apparent.

Cheers,

David.P · Post by **David.P** » Wed May 31, 2017 12:27 pm

Will, good to know that this method works for you as well!
Cheers
David

Wed May 31, 2017 12:32 pm

CaptnBob · Post by **CaptnBob** » Thu Feb 11, 2021 12:38 am

I second this request to enabled/disable synchronous scrolling of two documents, whether they are side by side or in two tabs that are switched to allow "blink comparison" as described in one of the earlier posts in this topic.
In both cases I have to manually scroll each page by a similar amount to keep them in the same position. This is tedious and not accurate.

I would suggest:
1. allow the user to choose which two documents (or perhaps more) to compare / scroll synchronously
2. synchronising the current pages by the vertical % position of the page in the window, assuming the full width of the page is shown. That would also help when the two documents have different page sizes (A4 vs 8.5" etc)
3. synchronise the page changes in both documents so that when the page changes in one doc, the other also changes (e.g. for using single page view)
4. It should also be possible to re-align one document to the other, e.g. when one doc has an extra page somewhere, then the user should be able to choose e.g. page 3 on doc 1 while moving to page 4 on doc 2, then scroll synchronously from then on.

Post by **TrackerSupp-Daniel** » Fri Feb 12, 2021 9:31 pm

Hi, CaptnBob

Thank you for the support on the request and the suggestions. While I cannot make any promises, the Dev team will review this and see what can be done when we get to this item. For the moment, I cannot offer a timeline for this.

Kind regards,

JohnCLeBlanc · Post by **JohnCLeBlanc** » Fri Mar 03, 2023 12:56 pm

What a great idea! This works for me as a musician to detect differences in two music scores that are saved as images. The only part that I can't get to work is the rapid switching between the two documents. Xchange 8 transiently switches away from full-screen to regular display before presenting the other document. Have you found the same and is there a work around?

John LeBlanc

David.P wrote: ↑Wed May 31, 2017 10:13 am Hi all,

I usually do a [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blink_comparator]blink comparison[/url] (by opening both PDF versions in two tabs, switching to full page view in both tabs, and then blink comparing via the Ctrl-Tab hotkey. Works great for instantly detecting even the sligthest changes (IMHO much better than side-by-side comparison), because of [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_perception#Neurophysiology]this[/url] property of the human vision system (you don't even need your brain -- this takes place directly in the eye's retina. i.e. like hardware accelerated .

OTOH, side-by-side comparison of course also can be useful, if the comparison task is more about text comparison, and when there are more than just minimal differences.

Cheers
David
--
[img]https://i.imgur.com/1r9u0o6.gif[/img]

Post by **Tracker Supp-Stefan** » Fri Mar 03, 2023 1:12 pm

Hello JohnCLeBlanc,

The blink comparison can be done with two tabs opened and the files zoomed/positioned to the same page you need. Then Ctrl + Tab should work as your "blink" between the two.

Kind regards,
Stefan

zeichenkunstler · Post by **zeichenkunstler** » Tue Nov 26, 2024 3:07 pm

Hallo,
ich bin auf der Suche nach dieser 2015 gewünschten Funktion "Aktivieren/Deaktivieren Sie das synchrone Scrollen zweier vertikaler Registerkarten" .
Nun haben wir 2024 und ich habe die akutelle x-change- editor, v.10.4.4 installiert.
Kann mir jemand helfen und sagen, wie und wo ich diese tolle Funktion finden kann?

Danke.

Willy Van Nuffel · Post by **Willy Van Nuffel** » Tue Nov 26, 2024 4:51 pm

You can either use:

1) the built-in "Compare documents"-tool (available in the Review-tab)
See: viewtopic.php?p=178385#p178385

2) the Javascript "Synchronous Scroll"-tool (current version: v0.5.1) written by forum-member Mathew.
See: viewtopic.php?p=182951#p182951

Post by **TrackerSupp-Daniel** » Tue Nov 26, 2024 9:32 pm

Hello, Willy Van Nuffel

Thank you very much for sharing those solutions, I hope they help the others!

Kind regards,

zeichenkunstler · Post by **zeichenkunstler** » Mon Dec 02, 2024 5:43 pm

Danke. Ich werde es probieren. Herzlichen Dank für Ihre Unterstützung.

Post by **Tracker Supp-Stefan** » Tue Dec 03, 2024 8:59 am