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Where in the UI is a navigable list of currently-open PDFs?

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  • Where in the UI is a navigable list of currently-open PDFs?

    I need to be able to navigate between many open PDFs in PhantomPDF on Windows, and so far I can't find an efficient way to do so. Here's my use-case:

    1. I have to refer to a lot of technical documents that need to be open all at once, and where I need to have several visible at once. I have a large 4k monitor, plus two additional monitors, so literally several PDFs are open full-page and visible at once.

    2. Because I need several visible at once, I have Settings > Documents >Allow multiple instances enabled. I make considerable use of the ability to drag tabs from one PhantomPDF window to another. [But see later message. Apparently you can only drag tabs between windows that originated within one instance.]
    I have have 10 PhantomPDF windows open at once, each with two to 10 PDFs open.

    So far, so good. Nice job, PhantomPDF. But...

    3. Now, I need to somehow find and show the already-open document named ABC.pdf that is not currently showing. How do I do that?

    Here's what doesn't work:

    a. The Windows Taskbar shows the 10 instances of PhantomPDF that are open, and displays the names of the docs that are in the selected tabs of each window. But unless ABC.pdf happens to be the selected tab of its window, the Taskbar doesn't show it.

    b. The Recent Documents listing (shown when clicking on PhantomPDF's File menu) seems pretty much useless for this or any purpose.
    That list never seems to have a useful list, I think because it's somehow limited to what that instance knows about, or initially read in when it started up, or something. At any rate, it's not at all helpful for locating the currently-open window and tab that holds ABC.pdf. (Also, it's visually hard to scan this list because the filenames are interleaved with their folders in a single column, like this is a vertical phone app, instead of showing as a two column table using the vast ocean of adjacent whitespace. And it's not sortable, so visually scanning it is the only way of using it.

    And that's about it.

    Have I missed something? What I'm looking for is a listing that shows all the loaded PDFs in all running instances, and click to navigate to a particular document. And that list should be sortable at least by name, and preferably by directory\name, by date, how recently opened and so on, and preferably searchable. And provide an indication of whether the doc has unsaved edits. But just the plain list would be a big help compared to the current situation.

    Assuming I didn't overlook such a feature, this might be easier to implement if the multiple windows were within the same instance so that the whole experience acted like a single program. But maybe the one-instance-per-window has some programming and performance benefits, so that's OK. The multiple instances just need to be able to share info enough to make dealing with a large number of open PDFs tractable.
    Last edited by gwideman; 06-15-2021, 06:20 AM.

  • #2
    Correction, and update on subtlety.
    Regarding the relationship between multiple windows and instances:
    It seems that if you drag and drop files from Windows Explorer into PhantomPDF (or open them from the File menu), the resulting multiple tabs are of course within one instance. You can drag tabs out of that window, where they now act as separate windows. I think they are visually indistinguishable from separate windows that arise from double-clicking a PDF in Windows Explorer.

    However, using the multiple windows you created by the first method allow dragging tabs from one to another. But the multiple windows created by double-clicking in Windows Explorer do not permit dragging tabs between them -- apparently these being separate instances prevents the tab drag-and-drop.

    OK, so apparently I've been randomly using various methods to arrive at multiple windows, and periodically encountering inability to drag tabs, seemingly randomly. I guess I can adapt to dragging files into a single instance, and creating multi windows by dragging tabs out of it. And I guess that means I really should have "Allow multiple instances" turned OFF.

    Does that make the Start page (Recent Files list) any more useful for my main quest: navigation among open PDFs? No it doesn't.
    Last edited by gwideman; 06-15-2021, 06:28 AM.

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    • #3
      gwideman Thanks for choosing Foxit as your PDF solution. You could find the list of currently-open PDFs in the current Foxit instance by clicking on the "active files" button on most-right corner of the tabs bar in Foxit application and then click on the PDF document from the list will switch to document instantly. Please refer to the attached screenshot:button.jpg.
      Any further questions or concerns,please contact us any time.
      Attached Files

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      • #4
        Originally posted by Lisa_lee
        gwideman You could find the list of currently-open PDFs in the current Foxit instance
        Thanks for your comment, but it is not the solution.

        That "active files" button does not do what you say. That only shows the list of tabs in the current window. So it doesn't show tabs in other instances, but it also doesn't even show tabs in the other windows of the same instance.

        The list is slightly useful in that each item shows the complete filename where the tabs themselves show an abbreviated version due to space constraints. Yet the list is not alphabetized (why not?), and, as I say, it does not know about other windows even of the same instance.

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        • #5
          gwideman ,I am sorry that I didn’t understand your request correctly previously. PDF files opened in different windows of Foxit PDF Editor cannot be synced into the same “Recent Documents” list and Foxit PDF Editor also still doesn’t provide any list to show all of the opened PDF files from all of the opened Foxit PDF Editor windows.
          Concerning this situation, I have submitted the suggestion “Provide a list to show all opened PDF files when open PDF files with multiple Foxit PDF Editor windows” as a new feature request to our product management team’s reference with suggestion ID# PHANTOM-15757 ,so that it may be considered in future versions.
          For your current workaround, please choose to not enable the Allow multiple instances feature in Foxit PDF Editor. Firstly, please open all the PDF files in the same window of Foxit PhantomPDF at once to make all of the opened PDF files to be listed in the Recent Documents, then choose to tear some tabs out one by one to become new windows before you want to navigate between them.

          In addition, the documents in the “active files” are listed in order of tabs. Please refer to the following screenshot:
          Click image for larger version  Name:	tabs.jpg Views:	0 Size:	41.9 KB ID:	183452

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Lisa_lee
            gwideman
            Concerning this situation, I have submitted the suggestion “Provide a list to show all opened PDF files when open PDF files with multiple Foxit PDF Editor windows” as a new feature request to our product management team’s reference with suggestion ID# PHANTOM-15757 ,so that it may be considered in future versions.
            Thank you. Could you emphasize to the product management the extent of this opportunity: For a mature product, it can be a challenge to figure out how to achieve even higher levels of adoption. The suggested feature ticks many boxes:

            (1) It encourages users to extend their use of the product by making it tractable to open and navigate to a much larger number of documents.

            (2) Users are getting increasingly familiar with their need to do this, as they often have dozens of web browser windows open, each with many tabs, and for both PDFs and web pages they are increasingly aware that's a problem. (How many times on Zoom have we heard "I have so many browser windows open!". )

            (3) Many users are already aware of what solutions look like, in the form of various web browser tab-management and tab finding add-ons.

            (4) This one feature alone could make your product essential versus the competition.

            This feature does not need to be very complicated, so long as it can sort and hopefully filter.

            The feature neighbors on other features related to dealing with large numbers of documents. For example, it would be nice to have a feature to "save a list of all the PDFs I have open right now", so that I can later open that same set of PDFs en masse. This would allow switching between different projects, each of which has a set of relevant documents that need to be available at a glance. Also allows shutting down PhantomPDF if/when it's necessary to power down, reboot and so on.

            (And NOT using any cloud service. This is not about saving copies of the documents some place. It's about saving the state of which documents are open. The documents themselves are stored wherever appropriate -- in the directories of different engineering or legal projects, on local drives or file servers.)

            Originally posted by Lisa_lee
            gwideman
            In addition, the documents in the “active files” are listed in order of tabs. Please refer to the following screenshot:
            Listing PDFs in order of the tabs is only sometimes useful. Alphabetical order becomes increasingly important the more items there are in the list, which is the original reason for the list, since if the list is short then the tabs themselves display longer, more-usable, names that are already visible, and then you don't need the list.

            Comment


            • #7
              gwideman , Per your request,I have emphasized to the product management the extent of this opportunity you mentioned (suggestion ID#PHANTOM-15757).
              For the request "Listing the opening PDFs in order of alphabetical order",it has been submitted to our product management team with suggestion ID#PHANTOM-15788.
              We have also submitted the suggestion "Save a list of all the pdfs that I have currently open and name this group(all opened files) as a file to be loaded at a later time", suggestion ID#PHANTOM-5089.
              We will keep you informed for any progress about the above-mentioned suggestions that we have reported.




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