highlight text (and elsewhere) color options

[mathog]

In the comments and markup tools selected text may be highlighted by changing the background color, but it doesn't seem like there is an option to change the foreground color. Or at least, there is only one color box shown in the tool. However all the options (normal, color dodge) etc. show two colors. It seems that the single color shown on the highlight toolbar is sometimes used as foreground, others as background. It is very confusing, and I still don't understand what all of the coloring options ("color dodge") and the like do. It took me a long, long time to figure out how to change the color of selected text with the highlight tool (set the desired color in the first box, 100% in the second, set the color method to "screen".)

These modes are very powerful but naming them tells me little. It would be great if the pull down that shows "normal", "separable", "color dodge" etc. was reformatted slightly to make this clearer, ditto for the highlight tool.

For instance, change the highlight tool to show in order l->r

fg color (plus add an option to use current fg color in selected region)
bg color (plus add an option to use current bg color in selected region)
opacity (?, it currently says 100,80,60,40,20% in a pull down list, this is fine as is)
color mode

For the color mode picker reformat the display to show a single column of selectable modes on the left, with the current descriptive icon next to that, followed by an example piece of text as if colored with that option, given the current fg,bg,opacity settings from the toolbar. That way the user wouldn't have to keep trying different settings, he/she could see at a glance which was the desired one and just pick it.

Also regarding highlighted text, once a region of text has been highlighted it may no longer be selected as text, well, that's an oversimplification, see below. This can be a problem. Let's say I go through a PDF highlighting parts in different colors. If I later want to cut and paste a bit that has already been highlighted, for instance to email it, I cannot, instead the highlight itself is selected. But once selected, there doesn't seem to be any way to temporarily "un"-highlight the region (return it to normal formatting). The only way to get there is with repeated "undo" (which would also un-highlight regions I don't want to modify) or right click "delete", which will remove the highlighting permanently.

More about text selection in a highlighted region. While it is true that one cannot with the text selection tool begin a selection within a highlighted region, one can being a selection BEFORE that region and extend into it, or through it, and copy the text that way. Similar, one can begin a selection AFTER a highlighted region, and drag forward into it or through it, and then copy. So the only way one cannot select highlighted text is if the start and end of the selected region is entirely within the highlighted region. Is this maybe some sort of confusion between the "hand picker" (which should select the whole highlighted region) and the "Text picker", which should not?

Thanks.

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello mathog,

And thank you for your comments.
I am afraid that the names for the blending modes are unlikely to change as those are the default terms used for colour blending.
What you are doing when "changing text colour" is actually blending two colours in a given way.
Those blending options are available for more than one of our tools, and the name is shared, so we better keep to the standard.
Here you can read an article about the different blending modes used in image editting - with some examples.

A text that is already highlighted you can select by holding down the Shift Key - this way the selection will "look through" the highlight.

Cheers,
Stefan

[mathog]

I didn't want you to change the names, just show examples of what the processed text would actually look like given the fg/bg/blend settings.

The shift select works as you described. Thanks. The thing I don't understand is is why the text picker tool _ever_ selects the highlight block instead of the underlying text. Selecting an object would seem to be the role of the "hand" selection tool. Hmm, all 3 selection tools pick the object in preference to the text, and act "normally" over highlighted text when shifted. That makes even less sense for the "camera tool" than it does for the text selector. Or is there some function here that I am missing?

[Vasyl - PDF-XChange]

Hi, mathog

The "Blend Mode" in PDF is special mode for combination of page background (page content: any vectorial drawings, raster pictures, text) and foreground drawings (highlighting boxes, underline etc) of definite color. It is NOT simple combination of background/foreground as you have thought about...

More details about PDF Blend Mode:
http://partners.adobe.com/public/develo ... f#page=436

The thing I don't understand is is why the text picker tool _ever_ selects the highlight block instead of the underlying text. Selecting an object would seem to be the role of the "hand" selection tool. Hmm, all 3 selection tools pick the object in preference to the text, and act "normally" over highlighted text when shifted. That makes even less sense for the "camera tool" than it does for the text selector. Or is there some function here that I am missing?

You may use additional option "Menu/Edit/Preferences/Commenting/Enable exclusive mode for NON-commenting tools".

HTH