Sneak peak of PDF previews - Feedback needed

Greetings once again fellow Pandas!

As always we love receiving your feedback, but today we’d like it even earlier in the decision-making process.

We’d like to give you a sneak peak of what we’re currently working on in terms of PDF previews.

Check it out below:

What we’d like to know from you is:

  1. Which version would you prefer as the default when you add a PDF? (preview on or preview off).

  2. Would you like the option to resize a PDF preview? Is this important for you?

  3. If we choose to only offer a set size, do you prefer a small preview or something that takes all the available space?

  4. Is the PDFs information (name, date, size) something you’d like to always have visible? or do you prefer the hover option as shown in the example?

If there is anything else you’d like to add regarding the PDF previews, please let us know. We really appreciate all your help and feedback in testing Bear :bear:

3 Likes
  1. On by default (but could be disable so it doesn’t distract and take a space)
  2. Yes, but it’s not something important
  3. Definitely small
  4. Name, date, size – but I’d prefer to have more room for the title if it’s long

This looks awesome :art:

  1. I would prefer preview on, since at a glance it is easier to parse what the document is via an image. Also I use for my work vector plots which the software generates as PDFs so having it as a preview, would allow me to use pdf figures like regular png figures.
  2. Resizing, would be nice feature, but if you decide that other features have higher priority I would be ok with that. Having said that, If possible I would like to resize the preview.
  3. in that case for general usage, since PDFs, except for the figure example above, need to paginated to really be understood I would go with the smaller version. It looks a little cleaner, since pdfs are often in A4 format and hence look like huge cinema posters if they can take up all the available space. So in short: if no resize, then small preview.
  4. The PDF information is important, but hovering would be perfect, since if the PDF is used as an image the additional info would obscure it. So in short: show info on hover; not always.

:bear:

1 Like
  1. Preview: Off, configurable in Settings
  2. Resizeable: Yes, because you may have a Powerpoint slide and an essay, both in PDF, but you want to see the slide details and maybe just click on the essay to read it
  3. Small size or Window size: small size default, but check point 2
  4. File metadata: visible on-hover, because is more important the name I can type on the side of a file, since files may have hyphenation, uppercase/lowercase, file extensions

But some of the most relevant things are not there:

  1. Reading a PDF and pagination, like Apple Notes
  2. Link view. Icon view is useful if you’re writing a blog post of a book and want show a page, but if you are writing a document what you need is seeing the PDF as a link.
  1. Preview on, the size in the image seems good.

  2. Resizing option is always good, but not necessary if the default size is reasonable.

  3. Smaller one please. It is a hassle to scroll through the document when the only available size is very big.

  4. Hover is better, however, how would this be implemented on iOS?

  5. When I try on the Apple Notes, the horizontally long documents (ppt slides) are rotated to be shown in the same dimension. I wish the preview kept the same dimension as its files and maybe rotatable.

1 Like

Looks great

  1. preview on by default would be good for me but appreciate that may not work for everyone
  2. would be great to resize but nice to have
  3. small
  4. info on hover works for me and those fields are the right ones.
  • Is creation date or last modification date shown? Both are useful but if you can only show one I’d prefer creation date
1 Like

Thanks @TedwardBear! I store a lot of pdfs

  1. I’d prefer preview off as default
  2. Not that important to me; i’d prob use previews more if they were small
  3. Small preview, will click to see content :slight_smile:
  4. I would like info, especially size.

Long time Bear user and PDF storer here!

  1. Preview off by default - For me, PDFs are usually a part of larger context provided by the note.
  2. Resizing the preview is not important. Having less things to fuss about is IMHO a key reason why Bear is elegant and fantastic.
  3. Small preview - a preview is useful to know if I’m clicking into the right doc, and if I need to read something in detail, I should just click to open it.
  4. Meta info as hover detail keeps the basic experience nice and clean, which as you can tell, I highly prefer!! :slight_smile:

Keep up the good work, guys. Absolutely love Bear!!

1.preview on
2. Resizable
3. Large filling available space
4. Hover

1 Like
  1. Preview On by default
  2. Resizing is a nice to have
  3. All the space (because I read from them)
  4. Hover is fine
  1. Preview on by default, please.
  2. Resizing would be nice, but would only be critical if the preview were large.
  3. I would prefer a smaller size, although not a postage-stamp preview. Something more like Craft cards. I want to be able to recognize the document and its contents, but I don’t need to be able to read it. And I definitely don’t want it taking up critical real estate in my note.
  4. The PDF info is generally not important to me. If there were a hover feature, I would prefer it display a larger preview of the PDF, much like double-clicking does in the current editor.
  5. I second the motion by @aspublic to be able to display PDF’s as links. I often link files instead of embedding them to avoid the clutter in my notes. If we had the option of displaying the file as a link, I would use the embed feature a lot more.
  1. I doubt I’d use the preview much, but default on is OK as long as its easy to turn off.

  2. If the preview is small and can be turned off, I don’t think I have a use for resizing

  3. Small!

  4. Hover is great!

  1. On by default but with a toggle in settings.
  2. It’s depends on the default size so I guess my answer would be yes.
  3. Something that takes over the available space. I would like to be able to read the pdf.
  4. Prefer the hover option.

Also I think once you have rich attachments you need some kind of selective sync so you can leave some stuff in the cloud without it taking space up on the phone.

Hi all,

Thank you to everyone on this thread for their individual feedback and suggestions.

We really value our users input, we weigh up every comment we see coming in and discuss them within the team.

It helps us with our overall decision making moving forward. An example of this is our last test build, it was entirely a result of user feedback!

So please keep it coming, and a member of the team will stay in touch :bear:

1 Like
  1. I’d prefer the default to be Preview ON.

  2. Resizing the PDF preview is not important to me as long as the PDF preview is fully visible on the page… that is to say the preview is not 100% of the width of the workspace, potentially leaving part of the preview truncated. Also, since notes in Bear are primarily vertical (ie. PDFs and images rarely need to be placed next to each other on the same line) I think the 3/5 width preview you have works well.
    One element to consider is when someone takes a Screenshot of a webpage in iOS and chooses to capture the entire webpage, the PDF itself is one single long page. In that scenario I’d shrink the preview to keep it in the preview box that you have in your examples from above. (I’ve attached a JPEG to demonstrate the LONG PDF iOS creates – the PDF file format was not an allowed upload).

  3. If you offer a set size, fitting the PDF preview into the size you have for the examples would be great for me.

  4. The PDF information is not important for me. I do prefer the hover option.

The only other feedback I’d give is in regards to my previous post on what happens when we click into the PDF with Markup: Apple Markup in Bear vs. Panda

The attached file was made using the Screenshot option choosing “Full Page” on an iPhone:

  1. preview as default.
  2. Small preview, resizable would be nice tho
  3. Filename, date, size isnot as important as DRM flag, DRAFT/FINAL metadata, “this is not the latest version” warning (e.g. OneDrive)
  4. Support split screen mode on iPad/Android

Visually flag DRM documents so I know they aren’t shareable.

Similarly, a way to visually flag digitally signed documents, (e.g. docu-sign)

Following Bear’s focus on simplicity, open PDFs in distraction-free mode (like Kobo)

  1. Preview On
  2. Yes, resizable please but small by default
  3. Definitely small
  4. Happy for hover to expose meta information

Thanks guys!

may be getting a little late to provide feedback but here goes.

  1. Which version would you prefer as the default when you add a PDF?
    Preview ON

  2. Would you like the option to resize a PDF preview? Yes
    Is this important for you? Not Critical

  3. If we choose to only offer a set size, do you prefer a small preview or something that takes all the available space?
    Small Preview

  4. Is the PDFs information (name, date, size) something you’d like to always have visible? or do you prefer the hover option as shown in the example?
    Hover

Thanks and looking forward to this release.

You can never be too late with providing us with feedback!

We appreciate all the feedback we receive, weigh up every comment that comes in, and discuss them amongst the team.

Glad to hear that you are looking forward to the release.

More late feedback. I’m a recent convert from Evernote to Bear and loving it so far!

One small piece of feedback on PDFs. The previews don’t make it obvious when a PDF is multiple pages. In Evernote, I can flip through the pages right in the preview. In Bear, I don’t even know that a PDF has more than one page until I double-click to open it up. It would be great just to include some metadata about the size/length of the PDF in the preview (e.g. “4 Pages”).

Thanks!

3 Likes