App v2.0.5 Feedback
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Here's a bunch of random feedback in no particular order:
- Night mode background should be black instead of dark grey (for OLED displays)
- Some control over the margins (text is too close to the edges for devices with curved screen edges)
- At the same time, images should not have any margins, they should be edge-to-edge on the screen
- The font selection UI should show the names of the font in that font (though that would mean not using the native OS selection popup it does now)
- The gray versus blue for selections is a bit confusing since normally a brighter colour might indicate selected (but in this case it means unselected).
- Changes should take effect immediately (no apply button), and Exit should be renamed since a bunch of times I hit it thinking it should close the options screen
- Night mode should affect the entire app instead of just the reader, so that the user doesn't get blinded going from a black screen to a bright white one when switching parts/books
- There should be some way to disable the "Resume?" screen... I always want it to resume, I never want it to NOT resume, the extra step of having to confirm every time is annoying.
- Reading progress should be exposed in the part list. Right now it only shows your last location, as opposed to the old version that showed your progress. Consider a two-tone progress bar for that since last location can't be farther than total progress.
- The three pulsating dots in the corner are distracting and don't seem to convey anything useful to the user. I don't think anything would be lost if they were simply removed entirely.
- The user should be able to tap on the percentage indicator on the bottom of the reader to show/hide it (as the Kindle app and devices do).
- The user should be able to select "left/right direction" even if simple reader is enabled (this should automatically disable simple reader mode). As it stands, it was confusing why I couldn't seem to get back into left/right mode when disabling simple mode (because I kept doing it in the wrong order).
- Search should also be available on the latest parts screen. It'd be faster to locate the part you want by searching all parts for "seirei" and clicking the top result than to go to the series list, type "seirei", clicking into the series, and THEN clicking the latest part
- Search results should update with each keystroke rather than after the user hits "return" (which is a bit confusing anyhow, that you hit "return" to search)
- When opening the options, there should also be some navigation options that come up from the bottom of the screen. Go to beginning, go to end, go to a specific "page" (percentage).
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I love the new update. That said, in addition to Guspaz's feedback, I also have some thoughts from using it for a bit:
- The search bar in the series list could probably use a "clear" button.
- It'd be nice if the sort direction for series content was remembered (probably across all series, rather than on a series-by-series basis).
- Tapping the blue top bar feels like it should scroll to the top of the list.
- In reading mode, the previous/next page tap areas probably shouldn't cover the entire screen. Maybe tapping the middle ~1/3 of the screen could either (a) do nothing or (b) display the options, instead of the top portion of the screen?
- In vertical scroll or simple reader mode, the previous/next page areas should probably be the top and bottom parts of the screen, rather than left and right. (This conflicts with the current method to access the options, though.)
- It's possible to go to an empty page before the beginning of a part, or after the end of a part, which probably shouldn't be possible.
- The options menu feels a little... messy? Functional, but messy.
- I love the addition of entries for each ebook to the series list, though it took me a moment to notice they were there. Should they be visually distinct somehow, or separated from the prepub material with an additional separator? Also, it'd make sense for there to be a link to buy the premium ebook, in addition to the links to other storefronts, but I can think of a few reasons why that might not be there yet, so fair enough.
And a few things where I disagree with the previous feedback:
- The pulsating dots in the corner seem to indicate that some content isn't able to be displayed yet because it's still being loaded/typeset/rendered/paginated, so they're probably worth keeping (rather than silently failing to go to the next page).
- I think the "Apply" button needs to stay on the options screen, at least given the current speed of pagination -- ideally, yeah, you'd want the content to update live, but it's not feasible with how long it takes to change font or text size on anything but the first page. Strong agree on renaming or moving "Exit", though.
Ultimately, these are all minor details, and I'm happy with the new update and really heartened to see more work being put into the mobile app.
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I also love the update. Though no next/previous part option while reading a part is kinda disappointing. Also, a “queue” or favorites list would be convenient.
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It doesn't need to fail to go to the next page, it can simply delay until the next page is paginated, which should only be a fraction of a second.
The dots always show up, but the case where the user tries to go to the next page before it's paginated should be relatively rare.
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Speaking of the updated iOS app, it seems broken. Having tested with the four "Bakarina" parts that were uploaded today on my iPhone X with iOS 12:
- The first part failed to upload entirely. Was stuck on the "repaginating splines" and spinner message. Possibly because the <img...> tag at the start wasn't closed correctly causing the XML to be malformed (on inspection in Postman) or possibly because image display seems to be broken in the app.
- I was able to complete the second part. It was non-obvious that I was supposed to tap the top of the screen to bring up the status bar menu since I missed the brief popup that said to do so.
- The first time I tried to read the chapter three dots appeared at about 35% through the part and did not go away - at a best guess because it was loading an image. At 56% the app shows a blank page and turning more pages continues to bring up blank pages. They are actual new pages because you have to go back the same number of blank pages before you get to a page with text on it. Image loading seems to be generally broken and.
- Also, if you tap on the left side of the first page of a part, it will show a page flip animation and show a blank page. Swiping in any direction brings back the legitimate first page. The percentage complete at the bottom of the screen sometimes seems to consider the "fake" first page to be the real one (on the "fake" first page it will show 2%, then on the real first page 5%, next page 8%, etc). Unlike the bugs above this is just a glitch and not a showstopper. in the same way if you tap on the right side of the screen on the last page then a blank screen will be displayed.
- The behavior of the login screen is also not working as expected, and seems to be worse than the previous version of the app. The old version would show the 'key' icon on tapping on either the email or password fields, would have my j-novel credentials highlighted by default and, on clicking that entry, would populate both fields. Now the 'passwords' button only comes up when I click on the password field, I have to actively search for the j-novel entry from my list of passwords, and only the password field is populated after I've selected my j-novel credentials.
So overall, after waiting years for an update to the app It's nice that my iPhone X screen is supported now - notch and all - but the app is pretty severely broken in terms of actually being able to read with it.
Update: The showstopper bugs that were preventing me from using the app were not present when I tested the app on my iPad Air with iOS 11.4.1
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@cassydd iOS 12 must have broken things last minute... sigh.
I've fixed the image tag on part 1, and will see if I can reproduce any of what you are seeing... Most of it seems completely new behavior from what I see on my phone.. I hope it's not limited to iphone x hardware...
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I’m on iOS 12 on iPhone 8, and I see none of these bugs (except the flip to the “fake” first and last pages).
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@sam-pinansky Thanks for replying. The first part is still failing to load so it seems that the app on my iPhone X can't display images. It's also failing to open the first part of other novel volumes.
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I'm on Android and I'm seeing a consistent problem similar to what cassydd was describing. When I get to an image in the middle of the story, it stops at a blank page with the three dots at the bottom and doesn't seem to make progress. If I back out of the section and then enter it again, I can resume from where I was, and after the (very long) repaginating finally finishes loading, the image appears. This happened to me pretty consistently whenever there was an image in the middle of a chapter.
I'm not sure if it would load the image eventually if I let it sit there with the three dots or not. It didn't look to be making progress. If I go back and resume the chapter it at least has the "repaginating splines" loading bar which (although it moves agonizingly slowly) does slowly move to completion.
I really appreciate the dark theme and the new version of the app seems to work better than the old one. Some other features from my normal ebook reading app (FBReader) that I'd love to see here:
- Use the volume keys to page forward/back.
- Adjust phone brightness by sliding up/down the left edge of the screen. Makes it easier to adjust the phone to the ambient light. (I tend to read both when in bed and when out and about in daylight, so that's important.)
Other suggestions:
- I wish the "part display" showed which parts I've read or which part I just came back from. Sometimes it's hard to remember, "wait, did I just finish part 6 or part 7?"
- I'd love to be able to favorite / bookmark specific series and see the latest release for each. Especially if they also tracked whether I'd read the latest release of each so I be notified when new parts go up.
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I've been having a strange issue with 2.0.5. Everything seems to work without issue on one device, but not the other. My issue is with images not displaying.
On a Pixel 2 XL running Android 9, all is well. However, on my Galaxy Tab S3, which is running Android 8 and Samsung Experience 9, images aren't loading. I'm also having the page turn issue that others have reported.
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Thanks for all the feedback! Hopefully we can reproduce/fix some of these soon!
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I'm using a Samsung phone with an OLED screen and I also noticed that the "black" of night mode is a not very dark grey.
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I am on my Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 and none of the images are loading for me either. I either am stuck at the blank page with 3 dots or I exit and try to resume and it never loads.
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@dayeon question: does simple mode work and load images? Did the old version of the app load images?
I thought upgrading to new versions of react native and changing resize methods to resize would help but maybe it made the problems worse somehow?
I did manage to get a system log from someone with hardware that wouldn’t load images in the previous version and it was some high screen dpi Samsung only issue with overflowing OpenGL hardware acceleration texture memory buffer I was unable to debug or reproduce on simulator.
And one that is baked into react’s android image library. I don’t know a strategy for fixing it though I suppose first I’ll need to maybe go out and buy a tablet that has the problem? -
@sam-pinansky Simple mode did the trick and images load now! The old version of the app did use to load the images most of the times but the new version doesn't load them at all from what I have tried (simple mode fixed it). For the old version of the app in the times it didn't load the image I could still skip to the next page and I would check the images later on my desktop.
Thanks for the assistance.
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On iPhone X, OS 12.0 simple mode loads images, normal mode does not. On chapters that start with a picture (first parts) normal mode gets stuck on the splines message.
I also would like it if when I resume normal mode from simple it goes back to left to right pages instead of staying on up to down pages
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I can't find a way to display the text in landscape orientation for the new app. It seems to be locked to portrait orientation. If there's a way to do this I would love to know how.
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@nutaris it doesn’t currently support landscape mode, and if you ever have been able to use it, it was a glitch (based on what Sam has said).
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@sam-pinansky The old version of the app loaded images nearly all of the time, and there was only one instance - that I know of - of it being unable to load a part (that being the next to last part of the previous volume of Demon Lord Daimoh). I wasn't aware of a "simple mode" but it does work to make the text readable (I'm guessing by turning it into a basic web viewer). Switching to simple view to get past images does the job as a workaround.
I've also noticed that some words aren't being wrapped correctly but are being cut off by the edge of the page. On my iPhone X with iOS 12 you can see this with "simple mode" off and standard font settings in Outbreak Company, volume 6 part 5 three pages from the start midway down the page at "take away your ability to wa..."
Also, the settings shown on the status menu aren't always consistent with the actual settings. Also the notion of clicking an "apply" button seems a little anachronistic in current app designs - especially iOS apps.
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It wasn't so much that the old version of the app always loaded images for me, as much as if the image failed to load in the old version, it simply silently failed, and let me continue on without seeing the image.
In the current new app (outside of Simple Mode), if the image fails to load, the app gets stuck with the three loading dots and stops me from progressing.
Simple Mode does fix it, so that's a good thing. Another fix was to exit the chapter, then resume the chapter and wait for the Repaginating Splines loading to be done again (which can take a while, especially if the resumption was near the end of the chapter). This seemed to force-load the image properly.
I am using a Samsung phone (Note 8), so that might be a factor.
