OnlyInAmerica
Rewind, jump, and scrub
Hi!
Just downloaded and installed the APK. Amazing stuff. Not sure if this is on your plan already, but there seem to be a few missing functions, which I think would improve the overall experience.
The most important is a rewind function. Being able to jump back a sentence or paragraph would be awesome. The second one is to be able to jump to any point in the book / chapter. (Scroll bar?) And the third would be what I'd call a "scrub" function, where the speed can temporarily be sped up and slowed down. This would behave similarly to an audio scrubbing tool. Here's a good example: http://www.ehow.com/video_4976209_pro-tools-tips-scrubber-tool.html
(I'm a UX designer by trade, and I'd be happy to help out on this project if needed)
Thanks! Loren
I would think the best way to jump anyone of the book would to have like a legit reader, where it looks like a normal epub reader with pages, and then you can select where you want with the cursor and say "Sprintz here" or whatever
@lorentrogers How would you envision adding these features. What if sliding a finger vertically up or down adjusted WPM, while sliding horizontally "scrubbed" through the text? Perhaps one additional "quick rewind" gesture would be interesting, like a double tap or quick swipe-left?
@thesoberrussian For a solution like yours it'd be best to incorporate our Spritzer into an existing epub reader like FBReaderJ. I want to keep the scope of this app focused on perfecting the Spritz view itself.
@OnlyInAmerica Loved the adjusting wpm idea. I tried to read a book and the first problem I had was, I had to wait until the book started. It read through all copyright and content list of the book.
Easy solution is the one you recommended (horizontal slider). So, even though quick rewind is a good idea, it wouldn't solve this issue.
I also thought that you might be able to right a simple previewer instead of implementing it to something else. I see that you won't likely do either of them. But, a simple reader app which display text, page count and let's you choose where to start would help a lot (hope you would consider it after the basics of this is finished). It would be very easy for people to know how much of the book is done.
Wow, I just realized that there is a chapter selector. I only tried scrubbing on the first time and didn't even think of clicking on the chapter number. I guess it would be better, if it can be made more obvious for people like me :)
Had an idea here: I now show some history when you pause the spritzer. This avoids cluttering the UI, and helps add context in a way that (I think..) is intuitive. Whenever I feel like I've missed something my intuition is to pause. Now when I do that, I see the context of my current reading position without fussing with scrubbing controls. See the screenshot below or checkout master to play with it yourself.
I'd appreciate feedback on this feature. Also would love you all to test and let me know how it displays on smaller screen devices cause I'm laaaaaazy.
+1 on the scrubber, have had to restart articles a few too many times now.
Not a huge fan of the context text, to be honest, mostly just found it made the thing seem broken. My 02c
