On Jan 28, 2010, at 9:53, Simon Spiegel wrote: > > On 28.01.2010, at 04:48, Adam R. Maxwell wrote: > >> >> On Jan 27, 2010, at 7:09 PM, M. Tamer Özsu wrote: >> >>> This is an interesting discussion. For me the most critical requirement is >>> to have an annotation application that uses ink. I need to be able to jot >>> down margin notes by hand rather than typing on a window. Then the >>> integration of this pdf previewer/annotator and bibdesk would be great. >>> Some method such as the one used by, for example, Papers where the pdf file >>> can be read within Papers would be good. >> >> As far as it goes, you can read PDF files page-by-page in BibDesk, if you >> zoom in on the file icons in the lower pane, or use the Quick Look preview. >> No annotation or fancy reading features, though. >> >> My guess is that the iPad would basically require a new application; BibDesk >> is heavily oriented and optimized for usage on a laptop or desktop system. >> That would require significant effort, not to mention a developer with an >> iPad :). It does look like a good platform for that sort of app, so it'll >> be interesting to see what happens. Both you and James have emphasized the >> reading/annotating aspect, so I'm curious whether you're looking for BibDesk >> with a viewer, or Skim with a PDF manager.
I think it's clear that what one wants (and should want) is something very different from BibDesk or Skim. BibDesk is citation manager, to help with organizing bibtex, while this is about reading, annotating, and organizing PDFs. So it's more like Skim with a PDF organizing feature. As for the code base, I can tell you that 90% of BibDesk and Skim are totally useless for use on an iPad or iPhone. Therefore we're really talking about a totally different and new app, that needs to be written basically from scratch. Most relevant, Skim and all its annotation features are heavily based on PDFKit, which is not available on the iPhone OS, I think the only thing that would remain is the (tiny) SkimNotesBase framework for accessing Skim notes. The more primitive Quartz framework is much harder to work with, so writing Skim's functionality for the iPad would be a lot more work than writing Skim for MacOSX. I think we all agree that it would be very nice to have all this functionality for the iPad. But given that, the first question should be: who will be writing a totally new app that would be quite a lot of work? I can assure you I won't do it, and I suspect Adam would say the same. So if no one would want to start developing, I'm afraid this discussion is rather academic. Christiaan ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Planet: dedicated and managed hosting, cloud storage, colocation Stay online with enterprise data centers and the best network in the business Choose flexible plans and management services without long-term contracts Personal 24x7 support from experience hosting pros just a phone call away. http://p.sf.net/sfu/theplanet-com _______________________________________________ Bibdesk-users mailing list Bibdesk-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bibdesk-users
