Donmai

New Feature: Embedded notes

Posted under General

I'm testing out a new feature with notes that lets you embed the text in the note box, eliminating the need to hover over to read the text. For now this feature is limited to Builders and above. You have to edit the post and enable the new Embed Notes option which will then embed all notes for that post. The old style text-on-hover effect still works, and to edit a note you use the same workflow as before. The goal is to make comics faster to read.

Questions, comments, complaints can all go in here.

Updated

I noticed a bug with notes written in small or undersized note boxes. When Embed Notes is enabled, the corner drag triangle does not move to the edge of the resized box but remains in its original location, blurring or obscuring text. I tried this in Firefox 35.0.1 and Internet Explorer 11. Tested with page zooming, and being logged out. Aside from that, I love this as a feature on the few comic pages I've tried it on.

Example: note #651860.1, on the bottom right panel in post #1104238, when enabled.

Also, should we leave this feature disabled after previewing it, or is it ok to leave for others to see?

For testing purposes you should leave it enabled. It's trivial to revert changes.

I see what's going on there, I'll work on a fix. But it's easy enough to fix it in this case by resizing the note and saving it.

This feature is causing problems when the original textbox is vertical, as it would forcibly widen the noteboxes to accommodate the words. See post #1917489.

Note how the new note boxes obscure the characters' faces. It gets even worse if there are lots of SFX notes around.

I wonder if the noteboxes could also obscure each other if they are close enough.

The embedded notes can also be annoying to translators who are trying to translate or edit notes. Well, at least that's my personal experience so far -- the embedded notes are still partially visible and can obscure the original text, forcing me to drag the notes aside.

Overall, I don't support this feature. Right now it has a lot of issues, and I believe it will still ruin the aesthetics of the image, as it has to automatically adjust the size of the embedded notes to fit words in them. Having all the notes being activated by default also takes up too much real estate space on an image.

You'll also have a lot of inconsistency issues as it is enabled on a per-post basis instead of as a user setting.

In any case, if this feature stays, I hope it will be made into a user option, as suggested by Hillside Moose.

Updated

D'Eye said:

I see little point in this "feature", to be honest.

Well, if this feature stays, made into an option, and refined, it would mean browsing and reading 4komas on smartphones a breeze. I should know, I do it almost daily. Also, I have checked it on my smartphone. Neither the embedded notes nor the traditional notes appear now. Maybe make it exclusive for browsing Danbooru on smartphones.

As for the feature itself, it is currently a bit faulty right now. As stated by users before me, the boxes seems to widen itself to accommodate the texts. It should be the other way around. And if it stays, there should be an option to make it transparent and opaque just in case if the embedded notes block facial expressions.

Kyrozen said:

Well, if this feature stays, made into an option, and refined, it would mean browsing and reading 4komas on smartphones a breeze. I should know, I do it almost daily. Also, I have checked it on my smartphone. Neither the embedded notes nor the traditional notes appear now. Maybe make it exclusive for browsing Danbooru on smartphones.

Actually, that never crossed my mind... How about a global "Mobile Mode" toggle switch for notes, then?

Hm. Sorry, but to be frank, I don't like that feature. It hits the same set of problems that regular scanlation typesetting does. Poor positioning, trying to accommodate horizontal translated text to vertical bubbles, trying to squeeze in multiple-word translations into the tiny box where two kanji were. However, html formatting is somewhat limited and notes are even more basic, hence those don't have the versatility of graphic editors. That's even not to mention sound effects.

Also, it removed one of the primary benefits of note system: embedded notes DO obscure major part of image, by their very nature they can't be made transparent enough.

I'd say, a user option should be made to turn it off and it should be possible to toggle it on temporary when you want to read some comics without mousing-over anything. However, I'm somewhat worried that note sizes would be hard-adjusted for embedded mode, which would make them look ugly on regular mode - imagine post #1917489 with same note sizes but regular notes.

Type-kun said:

Hm. Sorry, but to be frank, I don't like that feature. It hits the same set of problems that regular scanlation typesetting does. Poor positioning, trying to accommodate horizontal translated text to vertical bubbles, trying to squeeze in multiple-word translations into the tiny box where two kanji were. However, html formatting is somewhat limited and notes are even more basic, hence those don't have the versatility of graphic editors. That's even not to mention sound effects.

Also, it removed one of the primary benefits of note system: embedded notes DO obscure major part of image, by their very nature they can't be made transparent enough.

I'd say, a user option should be made to turn it off and it should be possible to toggle it on temporary when you want to read some comics without mousing-over anything. However, I'm somewhat worried that note sizes would be hard-adjusted for embedded mode, which would make them look ugly on regular mode - imagine post #1917489 with same note sizes but regular notes.

Right now, you can still click the image and hide the notes from covering any of the imagery. If a comic is particularly bad with sound effects and vertical bubbles, I personally find it faster and somewhat less annoying to view it, in part or in whole, without any notes and then clicking randomly on it to view the embedded translations, over having to actively follow each box for a mouseover translation in the old system.

Naturally, automated resizing is going to produce non-ideal note dimensions and placement. Would it possible to build the system where the sizing and positioning of embedded notes can be edited separate from their original note system? It also would be nice to have a togglable preference between the old note system and the embedded one as a link on each page, with the default choice settable as an account preference.

Updated

If there are specific posts where the formatting is problematic let me know. This will never be a global setting because this style of display isn't suitable for some images. But for others it's very convenient (as long as the notes are styled with the constraints in mind).

I'd say this feature will be well placed on pages with "horizontal" languages (for example latin, cyrilic, arabic families and korean after quick research). Just saying they have higher chance to fit and I suggest to use these pictures as main test subjects. But in other hand we have loads and loads of "vertical" writing because this site is mainly contain manga/anime style pictures, mostly japanese. I join in opinion that this feature have to be switchable via user settings.

Suggesting something advanced: automatically enable "embedded notes" via implication by tags of corresponding languages.
Example:
If tag "finnish", "russian", "french" or other "horizontal" - use "embedded note".
It tag "chinese", "vertical" or have no language tag - don't use "embedded note".
Also it'd be not bad of having in settings three options - "don't use", "use on specific language tags", "use wherever possible".

DeadW@nderer said:

I'd say this feature will be well placed on pages with "horizontal" languages (for example latin, cyrilic, arabic families and korean after quick research). Just saying they have higher chance to fit and I suggest to use these pictures as main test subjects. But in other hand we have loads and loads of "vertical" writing because this site is mainly contain manga/anime style pictures, mostly japanese. I join in opinion that this feature have to be switchable via user settings.

Suggesting something advanced: automatically enable "embedded notes" via implication by tags of corresponding languages.
Example:
If tag "finnish", "russian", "french" or other "horizontal" - use "embedded note".
It tag "chinese", "vertical" or have no language tag - don't use "embedded note".
Also it'd be not bad of having in settings three options - "don't use", "use on specific language tags", "use wherever possible".

1) It's possible to have more than one language tag. More commonly it's possible to have another language tag co-occurring with Japanese (which is untagged by default). See post #1641141.

Language tags are not mutually exclusive.

2) Even in the case of images with only one language, embedded note boxes can still mess up the images, especially if it's a sound effect or background text. See post #1869434 for a potential example of the latter.

Embedded notes should not be automated.

Still, in any case, I support a user settings option to opt out of embedded notes entirely.

So, by default, users should see embedded notes on post that have it activated, and wouldn't otherwise.

Users who opt out wouldn't see embedded notes at all.

Now everyone's happy.

(Well, except for the programmer who'd have to program an additional 'feature').

Updated

Discovered another limitation of the embedded notes in their current state: leading. In an echo of one of the snags occurring at the inception of Danbooru 2.0, text leading/line spacing appears to be fixed within a certain range. So when one uses text over a certain size in multiple lines, the letters eventually overlap. The effect is exaggerated when one uses a background color effect for text over a certain size, as the background color on one line will cover up low-hanging portions of letters on a higher line, even if the letters themselves aren't large enough to overlap directly. (Rollover text display still looks fine, of course.)

I discovered this while fancying up the text effects on post #798607 (which was originally translated long before I knew background color was even possible in translation notes), so please refer there to see what I mean.

Also, the default text centering of the embedded notes generally looks nice, but I suppose it means we'll have to insert a left-alignment tag where necessary. Well, it's a trade-off.

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