
% language=us runpath=texruns:manuals/musings

\startcomponent musings-viewers

\environment musings-style

\defineexternalfigure[default][width=.75tw]

\startchapter[title={Viewers}]

\startsection[title={Introduction}]

In this musing I show some images that give an impression of how a few viewers
that I have on my machine deal with indicating that some area in the text has a
special meaning. The screen dumps were made in September 2024 when I added
support for highlights (per user request).

\stopsection

\startsection[title={Highlights}]

A highlight is an annotation. Normally annotations are bounded by a rectangle
made by $llx$, $lly$, $urx$, and $ury$, so basically a bounding box. Highlights
on the other hand need both a bounding box and list of quad points: $(x_1, y_1)$,
$(x_2, y_2)$, $(x_3, y_3)$ and $(x_4, y_4)$ that represent the corners of a
(possibly rotated) area. If you implement this according the the official
standard you get in Acrobat Reader \in {figure} [fig:hl-acrobat], in Okular \in
{figure} [fig:hl-okular] and in Sumatra (which uses muPDF) \in {figure}
[fig:hl-sumatra]. \footnote {Quad points were already in \CONTEXT\ but mainly for
supporting interactive features in \METAFUN\ with more fancy shapes. For multi
line hyperlinks one could also turn in on in regular text but this was never
advocated, if only because I couldn't test all these viewers.}

\startplacefigure[reference=fig:hl-acrobat,title=Highlight in Acrobat.]
    \externalfigure[musings-highlight-acrobat.png][default]
\stopplacefigure

\startplacefigure[reference=fig:hl-okular,title=Highlight in Okular.]
    \externalfigure[musings-highlight-okular.png][default]
\stopplacefigure

\startplacefigure[reference=fig:hl-sumatra,title=Highlight in Sumatra.]
    \externalfigure[musings-highlight-sumatra.png][default]
\stopplacefigure

However, this doesn't look that good. It happens that we need to swap the third and
fourth coordinates, which we can do with:

\starttyping
\enabledirectives[backend.pdf.fixhighlight]
\stoptyping

The result is shown in \in {figure} [fig:hl-okular-fixed]. We don't make this
feature default because the specification doesn't explain what viewers are
supposed to do. The fact that Acrobat also suffers from this indicates that a bug
has become a feature (creating and viewing has to match here). In regular links
the active area conforms to the specification.

\startplacefigure[reference=fig:hl-okular-fixed,title=Highlight in Okular with swapped coordinates.]
    \externalfigure[musings-highlight-fixed-okular.png][default]
\stopplacefigure

All viewers apply some form of transparency so when this is used in a workflow
you need to keep in mind that rendering of the highlighted area can differ per
viewer, so choose colors wisely, especially when the text itself also has a
color. Also test the viewers that your authors use and make sure that they don't
see garbage. Here are some tested that we (Mikael & Hans) did September 14, 2024:

\starttabulate
\NC Firefox    \NC follows standard but also works with swapping \NC \NR
\NC EBookDroid \NC follows standard but does something when swapping \NC \NR
\NC Google     \NC show nothing \NC \NR
\NC okular     \NC swap 3 and 4 \NC \NR
\NC evince     \NC swap 3 and 4 \NC \NR
\NC zathura    \NC swap 3 and 4 \NC \NR
\NC qpdf       \NC swap 3 and 4 \NC \NR
\NC acrobat    \NC swap 3 and 4 \NC \NR
\NC sumatra    \NC swap 3 and 4, more curved \NC \NR
\stoptabulate

Hraban did some tests on his Apple machine and most viewers expected the fix
while some didn't show anything at all. Because normally highlights are a temporary
(editorial) trick it's not that important in the end.

\stopsection

\startsection[title={Rotation}]

Out of curiosity I decided to look at how viewers handled a rotated highlight.
Getting the quad points right is possible but in the end it is more reliable to
use a generous bounding area instead. It's not like users will turn their head
when commenting on your proposal. \in {Figures} [fig:hr-acrobat], \in
[fig:hr-okular] \in {and} [fig:hr-sumatra] show the outcome.

\startplacefigure[reference=fig:hr-acrobat,title=Highlight in Acrobat with rotated text.]
    \externalfigure[musings-highlight-rotated-acrobat.png][default]
\stopplacefigure

\startplacefigure[reference=fig:hr-okular,title=Highlight in Okular with rotated text.]
    \externalfigure[musings-highlight-rotated-okular.png][default]
\stopplacefigure

\startplacefigure[reference=fig:hr-sumatra,title=Highlight in Sumatra with rotated text.]
    \externalfigure[musings-highlight-rotated-sumatra.png][default]
\stopplacefigure

It looks like Okular and Sumatra use the same algorithm for rendering the shape:
both have rather ugly corners, maybe emulating some kind of pen. Acrobat might have
an issue with the bounding box here but I'm not going to waste time on investigating
this.

\stopsection

\startsection[title={Selection}]

Talking of rotation, I was also curious how normal selection works out. Here
Acrobat is a clear winner: compare \in {figures} [fig:rs-acrobat], \in
[fig:rs-okular] \in {and} [fig:rs-sumatra]. It must be said: Okular makes for a
nice image and uses transparency wisely. \footnote {Selecting an unrotated text
also can give interesting effects especially when a viewer decided not to use the
characters bounding box but font specific ascender and descender properties.}

\startplacefigure[reference=fig:rs-acrobat,title=Selection in Acrobat with rotated text.]
    \externalfigure[musings-selection-rotated-acrobat.png][default]
\stopplacefigure

\startplacefigure[reference=fig:rs-okular,title=Selection in Okular with rotated text.]
    \externalfigure[musings-selection-rotated-okular.png][default]
\stopplacefigure

\startplacefigure[reference=fig:rs-sumatra,title=Selection in Sumatra with rotated text.]
    \externalfigure[musings-selection-rotated-sumatra.png][default]
\stopplacefigure

\stopsection

\startsection[title={Post scriptum}]

Just to be complete I show how one can use highlights in \CONTEXT. This feature was
made for Hraban who has a need for it.

\starttyping
\enabledirectives[backend.pdf.fixhighlight]

\definecolor[pdfhighlight:Rhaban][r=.8,g=1,b=1]
\definecolor[pdfhighlight:Hans]  [r=1,g=.5,b=.5]
\definecolor[pdfhighlight:Ton]   [r=1,g=1,b=.8]

test \PDFhighlight[Rhaban]        {\samplefile{tufte}} test \blank
test \PDFhighlight[Hans]          {what a mess}        test \blank
test \PDFhighlight[Ton]           {\samplefile{ward}}  test \blank
test \PDFhighlight[Hans][whatever]{\samplefile{knuth}} test \blank
\stoptyping

The first argument indicates the author and you can define a color specific to
one. The second optional argument specifies some content and it depends on the
viewer how all gets represented: in a side menu, as roll over, or by point and
click. There is also a \typ {\startPDFhighlight} with matching \typ
{\stopPDFhighlight} command. We deliberately use a \type {PDF} name space and
simple color setup (no instances) because this is a fragile feature from the
perspective of viewers. One can also wonder how it impacts validation because
conforming to the standard doesn't give the best results.

You can use this command to see what highlights are in a file:

\starttyping
mtxrun --script pdf --highlights demo.pdf
\stoptyping

\stoptext

