By now you probably have a version of Comic Zeal with the page lock feature.
There’s been an item on the to-do list that’s been niggling at me for over a month now.
When the user has page lock on and they get to a landscape page (normally a two-page spread from a portrait single-page) CZ forgets about the lock parameters for that page and shows the landscape page in a height-fit mode.
In most cases that’s enough to read the text on the iPad, the user can see the second page by panning to the right.
When the user turns the page again the page lock settings are re-applied and everyone’s happy.
Except for this one thing … it’s not always obvious to the user that they have opened up a landscape page. In most cases it is, text, characters or panels are only partially displayed. Sometimes though, it isn’t.
Which brings me to the niggly to-do. It tells me to add an indication to the user that they are looking at a two-page spread.
I was thinking of adding a little graphic, but there are some issues with that. Most of the time people don’t want the graphic, so there will have to be an option to not show it, which people will use, which means they won’t see the graphic when they need it.
Thank goodness for the beta testers though.
One of them said ‘Why not just move the view to the right when they press the next page button?’.
Well, duh.
Obviously that makes a lot of sense. If the user indicates that they want to go onto the next page, but they haven’t seen the second page in a two page spread we simply show them that second page. It’s better than a graphic because it automatically does what the user will want to do when they see the graphic.
Now we start extrapolating.
Should it also work if the user hasn’t seen the bottom of the current page? It would be nice wouldn’t it?
What if we look at this as a way to navigate the page? instead of having to perform a careful action (panning the image right or down), the user can just press the next page button or tap zone.
How about this … how about if pressing the next page button progresses you along the ‘natural’ reading direction until you run out of page? (natural reading direction is left to right, then down, then left to right again in western comics).
It’s really quite a simple feature but it could be very important, it has the advantage of not needing to detect panels but greatly simplifying the reading experience and can be tweaked in the future to stop at panel boundaries depending on zoom levels, panel size etc. We could even adjust the zoom level a little bit to help fit panels or read text better.
You probably want to SEE it don’t you? Well, do I have a screencast for you!
It’s a little experimental right now, so I’m going to add it to a new ‘experimental features’ section of the settings pane. That will give us a chance to get your feedback (and work out bugs) before making it official. Naturally, this mode will always be an option that you can turn off.
I hope you enjoy the screencast and I’m really looking forward to getting this feature out to you.
Speaking of new features, the universal version of CZ 4 has been submitted to Apple for review.
This is perfect!!!
I was gonna suggest this. Thanks for the great program.
This is an excellent solution, very similar to what the Marvel app does. I can’t wait to try it out.
Looks great!
Only one potential problem I can think of, but perhaps it is already handled! Does it ‘store’ your movement along the page (or at least if you’ve reached the end)? Why might this be needed? Use case:
Let’s say I’ve completed reading a page, but since the graphics were so stunning, I wanted to take a quick pan around to re-examine them. Now I’d like for the next page button to clearly push me over to the next page – not pan me around a page I have already read before continuing on.
So my suggestion for this to work (if it hasn’t already been implemented as such), is to keep a boolean variable that is set to true when the user reaches the end of the page. Prior to it being set, this auto-panning is enabled. Once it is set, normal page-by-page navigation takes effect. This should work well since there is a high probability that the user has already read through the page when that variable is set, and at that point they would prefer to continue on to the next page rather than re-pan the current page.
An alternative that might work is to detect if the user’s last action was a pan or ‘page turn’. If the last action was a pan, then the ‘next page’ action would actually continue to the next page, and if the last action was a ‘page turn’, keep auto-panning (as normal).
Looks great. Would this also work in landscape mode?
I like it… a lot! We all get so caught up in things like swiping that it’s easy to overlook some of the UI opportunities that pop up when you stick to a simple tap.
Naturally, I’ll have to try it to really see if it works for me, but it “feels” like a promising way to quickly move through a book without giving yourself an RSI from all the finger movement.
go for it. I LOVE IT!!!!
Looking great! I love that feature – completely makes sense.
I think this will be the best feature yet. This will be great for reading on the iPhone, I can’t wait to try it!
Jordan, good point, that’s why it will be experimental at first! I’ll have to come up with something. It will always page turn when you’re at the bottom-right corner though. It’s not really convenient if you’re moving quickly around a comic though. I’ll add this to the to-do list to investigate.
Gord, yes it will work in landscape mode too.
Looks like a good idea. Definitely a feature that you want the user to be able to turn on and off.
It would be nice if it was able to determine the location of page splits (for scans that are not properly centered) and also whether the landscape 2-page scan forms one giant image (in which case you wouldn’t want the zoom to be split, or it does split but it zooms out to the full scan view at some point).
This is awesome stuff. Keep up the great work!!!
Absolutely incredible feature, can’t wait to try it.
Per chance, will the upcoming universal build support a naming structure similar to the way iTunes handles things? A minor thing, but something I can’t wait for to be implemented.
Thanks so much.
Roly, what do you mean by ‘the way iTunes handles things’?
Emiliano, This new feature looks great but I have a small house keeping issue which is really annoying. It’s not really a ComicZeal created problem. It’s more of an iTunes issue which apple should provide some way to manage. Backups !!! I have 25 GB of comics on the iPad and I really don’t want that to be part of my iTunes backup. (a) It takes a really long time and (b) It takes up valuable hard drive space. If iTunes provided a way to select apps for which content should be backed up, it would be great but it doesn’t. Is it possible for you to turn off the backup for ComicZeal i.e. put the comics in a location on the iPad that iTunes doesn’t back up?
Is there any chance of adding support for zumodrive? like you have for dropbox. I don’t know if that is just registering these file type with zumodrive app on the ipad? At the moment zumodrive does not know about comic zeal. Of course this could be a failing of their software not knowing about the association of cbr and comic zeal.
Emiliano, I meant in the way iTunes handles naming. Where it ignores “The” in the way it sorts comic titles. So “The Amazing Spider-Man” and “The Walking Dead” are sorted as “Amazing Spider-Man, The” and “Walking Dead, The”.
Oh right! yes, already on the to-do.
That’s great to hear! Any idea when it will actually make it into an App Store release?
Hey, this looks like a great feature, and I cat wait to try it!
@Koham – I know it’s not ideal, but I use a free application on my Mac called “Back Off” that disables automatic back-up. It’s not ideal because unless you remember to manually back up from time to time (right-click your device in iTunes and select Back Up), you risk losing data. I just run this occasionally before I go to bed and let it sync overnight.
@emiliano – Still loving Comic Zeal, but I continue to butt heads with the 32 (?) character limit for displaying comic titles in the Collection list on iPad. Is it possible to make this text either scroll, so I can read the full, non-truncated title, or add a “fit to title width” style of option?
@Anthony, thanks for the advice. I already have disabled the itunes backup. I think I directly changed an xml file somewhere( can’t remember ) to stop the backup. Turning it off wasn’t a problem. Turning it off just for CZ so that I can continue normal backup of all my other apps is. Since CZ takes up the bulk of the space on my iPad, having the ability to just not backup CZ stuff would be really good.
I’d like to add my support for finding a way to stop iTunes from automatically backing up my ComicZeal files if at all possible without affecting the rest of backup. That would be amazing.
I’d also like to support the comments earlier on enlarging the ‘next page’ touch area if possible as I still occasionally find I get the info bar by mistake.
But overall – this app is just amazing and I love the way it just keeps on getting better and better.
Roly, I hope to get it into the next one. It’s come along very nicely.
Anthony, fit to width is already in effect to the smallest font that’s easily readable. It’s important to note that there is no limit to the length of the comic title just the area displayed. More display area will have to wait till the selection interface is redone.
Mike, thank you.
A very nice feature!
A couple of questions on CZ in general if I may – I asked against some of the other threads but I think I posted in the wrong place, so forgive me if this has already been replied to before:
Is there any chance in the future for a way to browse server based folders?
Can the comic box menu be full screen large icons in a 12 x 4 setup rather than a 12 x 1 ribbon down one side?
Thanks again!
Emiliano,
Thanks, can’t wait!
Also looking forward to what seems like an inevitable interface overhaul. I know you’ll come up with something that’s as functional as it is aesthetically pleasing.
Tneydon, 1. not in CZ, you’ll have to use a third-party app that allows you to open files with CZ (like the Drop Box app) 2. the interface is due to be updated.
Hello Emiliano, I wanted to report a bug with the latest version. After the third or fourth time opening the app since turning the ipad on a lag develops when flipping pages. Sometimes it gets quite long.
Thanks