Jan 20, 2022

Zenreader - v2.1.8 Released!

By Zenreader Updates • Issue #4 • View online

Hello!

We hope your winter holidays have gone well! We have just released an update for Zenreader, version 2.1.8, that includes several new features that were requested by our users!

We have now entered the testing phase for the cloud sync & collaboration features and aim to release them shortly. In a matter of weeks, you will be able to sync your projects in real-time across your devices; and shortly after that, we will add the ability for you to share and collaborate on a project.

Read below for details on the new feature, information about cloud sync and the release notes.

Key Improvement: Documents screen UI

With this update, we bring several improvements to the Documents screen and the way you work with documents.

We have improved the UI of the List, Table and Kanban Items, presenting more information and giving you some quick action buttons
You can now quickly open documents in the Reader, without leaving the Documents screen
Documents that are open in the Reader now have a green open book icon showing that that document is being read
You can now sort documents by the date you imported the document, the length of the document, the last time you read it
The inspector panel for Documents is now split into 3 tabs including the document Info, Citation and Markings.

Here are a few screenshots to showcase the new features, but it’s best if you update and try them out!

New Feature: Document Inbox System

We introduce the document inbox system which allows you to group documents into 3 “containers”: the Inbox, the Read Later and the Archive.

You can enable the Inbox system from the preferences screen. Once this is done, in the Documents Screen toolbar, you will be able to see the three inboxes.

You can now:

snooze a document to read at a later date, it will automatically show up in the inbox after that date
archive documents that you are done with so that you can focus on a subset of documents to work with
move documents back to inbox at any time.

This will allow you to work on your projects with greater focus.

Pricing Change

Once we release Cloud Sync and Collaboration we are going to revise the pricing model for Zenreader (at least, with regards to the sync functionality which will be offered as a subscription service).

We do intend to continue offering Lifetime licences (no subscription), but these will increase in price to reflect the added service that will be provided alongside Zenreader with cloud sync & collaboration.

We are still offering Zenreader at a huge 75% discounted price of £39.99 and recommend that you grab your Premium licence before the pricing changes. We are happy to make further discounts if you grab more than one licence (as a lab/group), so please contact us if you are interested.

For those who already own Lifetime Premium Licence - you will have access to Cloud Sync & Collaboration without restrictions.

Full v2.1.8 Release Notes

New Features

It is now possible to rename a project directly from the Home/Welcome Screen in Zenreader
It is now possible to rename a document file from the Document screen or the Document Inspector Panel. In the Inspector panel, you now need to choose the Info tab.
The Document Inspector panel is now split into 3 tabs. The Info tab shows the detailed information of the document and includes a box to type a custom document summary. The Citation tab has all the fields for editing the document’s bibliographic information. The Markings tab is where you can see all the document’s highlights and notes.
The Document Info widget in the inspector panel now shows many more fields.
Zenreader now extracts a document blurb (the first 200 words) and the full word count of the document, making this information available in the List, Table and Kanban views in the Documents screen. From the settings, you can customise your reading speed, which will now automatically update the estimated time required to read the document.
Newly imported documents have a “New” tag visible in the Documents screen. This label stays there for 48 hours or until the first highlight is made.
Document sorting: it is now possible to sort documents by the date they were imported, the length of the document, the last time they were read. The sorting is available in all views in the Documents screen.
Documents have two new properties: the last date & time the document was read and the date & time the document was imported. For existing projects, the imported date-time will be set to the instant you load the project the next time you open Zenreader.
Opening documents in the reader: you can now quickly open documents (with one click) in the Reader with two options, 1) staying in the Documents screen or 2) going to the Reader screen after the document is opened.
When a document is being read in the Reader, there now is a green open book icon showing which documents are being Read in the Documents screen (in the List, Table and Kanban views).
The Reader screen now has a placeholder when no documents are open that allows you to quickly open recently read documents.
Document Kanban items can now be moved across columns when you are using the search bar.
When a Kanban item is dropped onto a column, the border now changes colour to show that it was recently dropped.
The Document List view now presents the document blurb, summary or abstract in this order of priority. If none are available a short placeholder text is displayed.
Importing BibTeX from Mendeley, Zotero or Paperpile now detects whether the bib contains pointers to the PDF files in the file system at the time of export. These files are now automatically imported into Zenreader.
Document Inbox system: introduced the inbox system which allows you to group documents into 3 “containers”: the Inbox, the Read Later, the Archive. You can enable the Inbox system from the preferences screen. Once this is done, in the Documents Screen toolbar, you will be able to see the three inboxes. You can snooze a document to read at a later date, or archive documents that you are done with so that you can focus on a subset of documents to work with.

Other Improvements

Implemented Fractional Indexing algorithm which allows for the successful cloud sync of ordered lists (outline documents, Kanban columns), so that two users end up seeing the same order of items after sync.
The List, Table and Kanban items have been re-structured: more fields are presented and the layout is improved. This allows much more flexibility and control with the available actions in your documents.
The Tags module has been rewritten fully to make the data easily synced with the cloud and for collaboration projects. Visually, you should experience a few changes (see notes below).
Tags colour change popup panel is now anchored correctly and won’t disappear off-screen in certain conditions.
Duplicate tags are now allowed (same tag name and tag colour). There is a feature to merge all duplicate tags in case you wish to get rid of duplicates.
The Welcome/Home screen has been laid out again to have more space so that on smaller screens you can see the projects list.
Kanban items can now be dragged across columns but not within columns: the items are automatically sorted with the sort rules that you can choose from the toolbar.
Zenreader should ask for the login password much less frequently now.

Bug Fixes

The analysis of PDF documents was not always happening when a file was attached to a citation that didn’t have a file.
Creating new tasks used to have the due date set to today, this is now removed, so no due date is automatically set.

Did you enjoy this issue?

By Zenreader Updates

Updates about Zenreader

Tweet

Share

In order to unsubscribe, click here.

If you were forwarded this newsletter and you like it, you can subscribe here.