(QOL change) Clicking on text annotation ought to show a popup with just the annotation text inside.

[IToastPotatoes]

Currently, you can Ctrl+Click on text annotations to open the edit window, or you can hover over them to show the start of an annotation. My professor likes to leave long comments in text annotations, which requires me to go into the edit window in order to view them in their entirety. I find this is not a very good user experience. Here is what Firefox pdf viewer does (although it doesn't actually display the text, seems to be a bug).

The blacked out part is the name of my professor.

It would be great if simply left clicking (or some other shortcut) on an annotation would bring up such a window, so I can read the annotation without opening this large edit window with a lot of extra things that I don't need. Also, opening the edit window is a little uncomfortable as its now possible to delete the annotation by accident (I'm imagining spilling tea all over my keyboard or something), which would be inconvenient. Furthermore, it's not ideal for users who aren't confident with tech - since the edit window is an intimidating piece of UI design. I think that click-to-view on an annotation is a very intuitive feature - it's what I expected to happen when I clicked on an annotation in SumatraPDF, and I was surprised when it didn't do anything.

For contrast, here's what sumatrapdf offers right now. Also, this opened on my second monitor for some reason, which is pretty inconvenient.

Alternatives:

• The partial text in the hover window could be changed to include the entire annotation, but I think this isn't ideal because (a) waiting for the hover window to show up is still annoying and (b) it's a useful piece of functionality on its own, so there's no reason to replace it with something else.
• The edit window could be changed so that by default it just shows the comment information, and there's a button you click to view the rest of the tools. I think this is also not ideal as it would probably be more work than just making a window that shows up next to the annotation when you click it.

Also, I'd be more than happy to help make this feature happen - although I don't know much about how collaboration on github works. If someone can show me the ropes I'll figure out how SumatraPDF is coded and have a go at implementing it myself.

Thanks all!

[GitHubRulesOK]

The PDF specs never explained in detail how a reader is supposed to handle tips other than they are a SHORT hint to fuller commentary.

SumatraPDF is based on MuPDF

SumatraPDF uses the tooltip to show the short comments and the sidebar for a fuller picture

Acrobat expects to show more than most

[IToastPotatoes]

The PDF specs never explained in detail how a reader is supposed to handle tips other than they are a SHORT hint to fuller commentary.

SumatraPDF is based on MuPDF

SumatraPDF uses the tooltip to show the short comments and the sidebar for a fuller picture

Acrobat expects to show more than most

I appreciate the response, and I am sorry for responding so late. However, I think there is a discussion to be had here. If I understand correctly, your point is that these annotations were not initially intended to be used for large comments, and therefore sumatraPDF does not support this use?

I understand the sentiment here, but I don't think this is necessarily the best way forward. It is simply brute fact that people do not use comments in this way; they are often used to write large pieces of text. From a user experience standpoint, I think this feature should be supported, even if it is not what was originally intended.

Furthermore, the examples you have provided serve to illustrate my point: I'm not sure what the first application is, but both that UI and Adobe Acrobat's UI offer a 'clean' way to read arbitrarily large comments. It is not good user interface design to make it so the only way to see a full comment is to open a cluttered edit menu. This is precisely what I am suggesting should change. I don't think that because we are an open source project based on an older application, we should shy away from providing a good user experience.

[GitHubRulesOK]

I can only explain that at one time over 256 characters was a drastic problem for display. Causing flashing rendering and stuttering at the time. which was potentially a very bad user issue for epileptics. Thus currently tooltips as with other products avoid overloading when overlaid. The use of static or floating sidebars is how larger blocks of more complex dynamic rich text can be displayed as a fixed area when converted to plain text.