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do "Magic"/"Universal" Post-It notes exist ?
440bx:
Hello,
I'm looking for a Post-It (sticky notes) program that is "smart" enough to work with any specific application.
For instance, imagine you're reading a pdf file in a reader and on some page, you'd like to add a note related to whatever text is on that page. Is there a note program that can do that and re-display the note in the correct place (and a note index) when the _same_ document is being read either in the same reader or even another reader ? (that's why I used the word "magic" because accomplishing that almost requires magic - requiring the same reader is ok!.)
Ideally, it would work with epub, mobi and pdf files (djvu would be nice too.)
Thank you for your help.
Чебурашка:
--- Quote from: 440bx on May 24, 2023, 01:23:46 am ---Hello,
I'm looking for a Post-It (sticky notes) program that is "smart" enough to work with any specific application.
For instance, imagine you're reading a pdf file in a reader and on some page, you'd like to add a note related to whatever text is on that page. Is there a note program that can do that and re-display the note in the correct place (and a note index) when the _same_ document is being read either in the same reader or even another reader ? (that's why I used the word "magic" because accomplishing that almost requires magic - requiring the same reader is ok!.)
Ideally, it would work with epub, mobi and pdf files (djvu would be nice too.)
Thank you for your help.
--- End quote ---
Basically what is required is that it would be able to know which content one application is accessing and allow you to assign a note to that. After, it would also be able to know that another application is accessing to the same content and let you see the note set on it. All this without this two applications to interact with anything else that the OS, and neither the applications nor the OS modified to notify to this notes application what content they are accessing.
As first analysis I would say that if exists is definitely magic.
440bx:
--- Quote from: Чебурашка on May 24, 2023, 09:26:11 am ---As first analysis I would say that if exists is definitely magic.
--- End quote ---
Yes, it does come close to "magic" but, I think it can be done (but, it's quite difficult) because of that, I figured I'd first find out if someone has gone through the trouble of implementing something like that.
Thank you for your input... appreciated.
Чебурашка:
--- Quote from: 440bx on May 24, 2023, 10:28:13 am ---
--- Quote from: Чебурашка on May 24, 2023, 09:26:11 am ---As first analysis I would say that if exists is definitely magic.
--- End quote ---
Yes, it does come close to "magic" but, I think it can be done (but, it's quite difficult) because of that, I figured I'd first find out if someone has gone through the trouble of implementing something like that.
Thank you for your input... appreciated.
--- End quote ---
What I find very difficult is to allow a process to know what other content is being accessed by another process. Mostly for "process separation"/"privacy" reasons. Ok it could be allowed for processes of the same user, but both the OS and the programs should be modified to do that. BTW if one note is taken on a pdf while readin of linux destop pc, should it be visible while reading same document on smartphone? Prob. yes, so linux desktop should exchange this info with android or windows phone..
Being all such modifications necessary, it would be much more feasible to add to the document types (pdf, epub, ...) the support for this notes, so that, after being modified, the readers could easily display it even if generated by some other reader. And it would not require new kind of intercations with the OS. Also a reader running on another OS could read the notes as well, if capable. Just copy same file to other destination.
440bx:
--- Quote from: Чебурашка on May 24, 2023, 10:41:51 am ---What I find very difficult is to allow a process to know what other content is being accessed by another process.
--- End quote ---
Yes, that's difficult but it's not the most difficult part. On Windows (I don't do anything other than Windows), there is an API that returns _all_ the handles being used system-wide. With that list of handles, it is possible to determine the file and the program that is using it. The downside of this method is that, the list has to be polled which can consume too much CPU if the polling is too frequent.
What is truly very hard is to determine when the note should be shown because it means the notes program has to "somehow" figure out what the reader is displaying to determine if there is a note associated with the text. I've got a couple of ideas about how to get that done but, I've never tried them in anything else, therefore I don't know if they would work.
Anyway, I was hoping that someone had already done all the hard work (or written a component that does most of it) but, it doesn't look like it has been done and I don't think I can spread myself any thinner.
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