Features I would like to see added

[jpgrigno23]

Hello all. I have been using Foxit as my primary reader on a tablet PC I just got. Here are a few suggestions I have. If there is anyway to do these functionalitys already please let me know.

1. When using the hand to drag text up and down I would like to see smoother sliding. (I figure this is a performance issue so a setting for smoothness for machines that can use the extra resources would be nice)

2. I would like more options in the autoscroll feature. It would be nice to have a toolbar option with a play, stop, and slider for speed.

3. they ability to bookmark or flag some pages would be nice. I use this for my text books for class. When I read somehting that I want to bring up in class there seems to be no way to flag that page.

4. I love the multicolor highlighting. I would really love an export feature on highlighted text.

Thank you for a great product.
Jeremy Palmer

[christina]

Thanks for telling us what you need. I will forward your suggestion to our development team.

Suggestion Mantis ID: 0008670

[jpgrigno23]

Thank you very much

[Griefin]

May I add some?

1. I would like to see wrapping of long bookmarks like in Acrobat Reader.
2. "Display texts optimized for LCD screen" option gives too thin and low-contrast letters on most of LCD monitors I have used. It would be nice if you add an ability to control font smoothing parameters more accurately.

Thanks in advance.

[christina]

Thanks for posting here. I will add them to our feature list in our internal system. Thanks.

[akeil]

I love the speed of Foxit and would also like to use it when authoring LaTeX documents. In this regard, I already managed to configure my TeX IDE for Foxit so that I can now open a LaTeX-generated PDF with Foxit from within my TeX IDE.
However, whenever re-generating the PDF, there is no smooth way of updating the PDF rendering in Foxit. The only option is to close the file in Foxit and re-open it again. At least, Foxit does not lock the file as Acrobat does. So the generation itself is no problem.

In order to make Foxit usable for the large community of LaTeX users (and maybe other types of PDF authors), it would be nice if Foxit had at least one of the following two features:
- File change detection: If Foxit would use Windows' file change detection, it could alert the user whenever the user focuses again on an already opened PDF after it was changed externally. It could then ask the user whether or not the PDF should be reloaded. That's the same feature as is implemented in most text editors (e.g. notepad++, UltraEdit, ...).
- Command line option for closing open files: If Foxit would provide an option like
/close <PDF filename>
this would enable users to automatically close opened PDFs before re-generating the PDF.

As I said, either of the two features would be a big plus for Foxit. Having both would be even better though ;-)

Thanks a lot for considering this request.

P.S.: A third option/feature that just came to my mind would be a "reload" button and hotkey (F5).

[Zinc666]

If I could have my two cents;

1 - Improved printing speeds. Foxit Reader seems to sometimes take an age to print multiple copies of large PDFs - ie, there is a noticable delay between each spool actually starting to print. Also, when I send off mulitple copies of the same PDF, I'm pretty sure I've occasionally seen multiple spools to the printer. Adobe Acrobat on the other hand doesn't seem to do this and only spools the document once no matter how many copies you require. For us, this is a problem when I've got users printing a 10mb PDF over a slow WAN link.

2 - Foxit Reader preferences moved from [Install Folder]\FoxitReader_Preferences.ini to the registry. Managing settings (auto-update etc) would then be a breeze using login scripts. This would also mean an opportunity to manage Foxit settings using a Group Policy template.

Thanks,

Zinc

[christina]

Hello akeil, thanks.
For commandline request '/close <PDF filename>' I will let our developers know this.

For 'File change detection' and 'Load', I regard them as related. When a file is opened in Reader, it will be locked, at this aspect, it's not possible for reader to detect if a file is chaged, since any external changes are impossible to save back to the file.

[christina]

Hello Zinc666, thanks.

1 - Improved printing speeds.
I know we have some printing problems and our developers are working sovle them. In your case described above, would you please provid us the following extra info:
1) a screenshot of the spool activities after your sending off serveral copies.
2) proivid us a sample of the pdf you used to print.
3) your printer model ans operation system.

2 - Foxit Reader preferences ....
I don't quite understand this, it sounds more involved. Would you please elaborate on it. I will forward it to our developers for references. Thanks.

[akeil]

Hi Christina,

thank you for considering my request.

With regard to the file change detection and/or reload button: I was happy to see that Foxit Reader (3.0) does not seem to lock opened files. I am able to change a PDF while it stays opened in Foxit Reader. However, I can only see the changes by closing and re-opening the file afterwards.

That's why I came up with these other two options, too.

[christina]

Hi Christina,

....... I was happy to see that Foxit Reader (3.0) does not seem to lock opened files. I am able to change a PDF while it stays opened in Foxit Reader. .....


I suppose you can edit that pdf but you can not save the changes to it while it stays opened in Foxit Reader, am I correct? If you can, that shall be a bug of our Reader.

[Zinc666]

Hello Zinc666, thanks.

1 - Improved printing speeds.
I know we have some printing problems and our developers are working sovle them. In your case described above, would you please provid us the following extra info:
1) a screenshot of the spool activities after your sending off serveral copies.
2) proivid us a sample of the pdf you used to print.
3) your printer model ans operation system.

2 - Foxit Reader preferences ....
I don't quite understand this, it sounds more involved. Would you please elaborate on it. I will forward it to our developers for references. Thanks.

Hi Christina,

I'll try and collect the printing info you require and get it to you as soon as possible.

As for the preferences, as far as I can tell a few user preferences are stored in an .INI file saved as 'FoxitReader_Preferences.ini' under the main Foxit Reader installation folder. I'd originally looked into managing auto-update settings for my users but it appears that the settings for this are stored in this .INI file. Having all settings relating to Foxit Reader moved entirely to the Windows Registry would make this sort of thing very easy to administer as modifying .INI files using login scripts is a real pain (whereas modifying registry entries is not).

Once all settings/preferences are located in the Registry it also opens up the possiblility for creating a Group Policy admin template to bulk manage Foxit settings within my Windows domain (in the same way Microsoft Office settings for users can be managed using GP).

For larger companies, being able to manage application settings across the organisation using Group Policy is essential - if Foxit had this capability then I'm sure many more companies would adopt Foxit software as a replacement for Acrobat.

I hope this info helps,

Zinc

[christina]

Thanks Zinc.

INI file will be store in user application data, thus you can create profile for every user. Does this help in your case?

[rawjaw]

I have one thing that I would like to see implemented if possible.

Could you make it so that you can move/re-order the tabs. I love the tabbed feature in Foxit 3.0+ but it makes it difficult not being able to re-organize what you might be working on.

-rawjaw

[akeil]

I suppose you can edit that pdf but you can not save the changes to it while it stays opened in Foxit Reader, am I correct? If you can, that shall be a bug of our Reader.

No, I can avtually re-generate the PDF with LaTeX while it is opened in Foxit Reader. However, I would no like Foxit reader to lock the file as you suggest it. Much better would be a change detection with a dialog box appearing in Foxit Reader the next time it receives focus and detected a changed PDF file. This box could then give you the option to either keep the old version visualized or reload/close (in case the file was deleted instead of changed) the file. That's how all good text editors do it and I see no reason for doing it different for PDFs. I am actually pretty sure that most users of Adobe's product are disappointed by their software locking opened files.

[christina]

Thanks for commenting. I will foward your post to our developers team.