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Sente 6.5.0 Released

By Michael on December 17, 2011 4:40 PM | 4 Comments
We are very pleased to announce the official release of Sente 6.5.0.  

Sente 6.5 is a major update to the application, and the result of almost a year of development here at Third Street Software and months of testing by Sente users.  We had several goals for this major update, including significantly improving the user experience for both new and existing customers.  

Because of the extent of the user interface changes we were making in Sente 6.5, we knew that we had to be sure that existing customers, the people who depend on Sente every day, liked the changes.  To achieve this goal we made a series of private previews available, and then a series of public previews, and we listened carefully to what we heard.  Sente 6.5 is a much better program because so many people took the time to give us detailed feedback on these preview releases.

So, what is new in Sente 6.5?  A lot.  I will not be able to list all of the new features here, but here are some highlights:

  • The new multiple-line reference list view is much more attractive and readable.  While the old, grid view is still available, most users prefer the new view for most work.
  • Single collection tabs let you open tabs containing only those references in any collection in your library, like one showing all references with a particular status.
  • The completely new reference editor is more attractive and usable.  It supports custom layouts based on reference type, and all layouts can be tailored to meet your specific needs.
  • The new notes interface features color coding to match the highlighting you added to your PDFs, and the ability to jump from any note to its original source in the PDF.
  • New window layout options let you set up each tab to make best use of your particular screen setup.  You can, for example, place the reference list at the left edge of single collection tabs, making them particularly useful on a large monitor.
  • Support for Full Screen Mode under Lion (OS X 10.7).
  • Improved citation lookup now supports many more data sources.  The new Citation Lookup sheet, which can be used either as files are being added to your library, or after the fact, makes it easy to locate the citation data for a paper using dozens of common sources.
  • Scan-in-place support for Microsoft Word and Apple Pages lets you work with a formatted version of your document at all times.  When you select the scan-in-place option, Sente formats any recently added citations and lets you keep right on editing without missing a beat.
  • Compatibility with Word + EndNote lets you easily collaborate with colleagues who still use EndNote with Word.  You will be able to edit and scan their documents, and they will be able to do the same with yours. 
  • Common customizations now sync between copies of your library.  Items like your custom statuses, reference type definitions, custom reference attributes, web bookmarks, QuickTags, hotword definitions, reference editor configurations and more are all automatically synchronized to all other copies of a library.  (These changes do not yet appear in Sente for iPad -- this is coming.)
  • The new Print-to-Sente command, available in all print dialogs on your system, lets you quickly send any document as a PDF to Sente.
  • There is a completely new user manual, available in both PDF and EPUB formats.

As always, there are some high-priority features or changes that did not make it into this release, like the ability to search for text within a PDF, or a command to share a reference and PDF through email.  These are high on our list and should be appearing in upcoming releases in the near future.

We are also announcing a complete overhaul of our web site, designed to reflect the changes in the application itself.  If you are accessing this blog post through an RSS feed, I would encourage you to visit the site to learn more about Sente 6.5.

Sente 6.5 is a free upgrade for everyone with a Sente 6 license.

Sente 6.5 requires Mac OS X 10.6 or higher.  We recommend the use of 10.7.

So, please take a look at Sente 6.5 -- we think you are going to like what you see!

Michael

Sente 6.5, Preview 5

By Michael on December 10, 2011 3:07 PM | 2 Comments | No TrackBacks
Sente 6.5, Preview 5 is now available for download.  There are some nice new features in this preview.  We are getting very close to the official release of Sente 6.5, so if you have not yet taken the time to try out the previews, this would be a great time to get started.


A New Notes Interface

The notes editor has been significantly updated.  Visually, each note is now presented as a "sticky" with the same color as any related highlighting (if any).  This means that if you are one of those users who use highlighting color to convey meaning about the selection, it will now be easier to spot particular kinds of notes in the note editor.  And if you do not currently use highlighting color to signify anything, perhaps you will start once you use the new design!

New Notes.png

Also, each note now has a menu of commands.  This menu appears when the mouse hovers over the note.  This menu of commands includes:

  • Open / Close (this replaces the disclosure triangles from Sente 6.2)
  • Source (to jump to the text in the PDF that was originally selected when creating the note)
  • Delete
  • Copy

Holding down the Option key before clicking on a command in a note changes several to apply to all notes (e.g., Open All).


Revised Add File Interface

We have made some important changes to what happens when you drop one or more files onto Sente.

In this preview, if Sente is able to locate the citation information using the first DOI in a PDF, the reference will be immediately displayed for review.

Citation Lookup.png

If Sente is unable to reliably identify the citation information for a PDF, you will be given the chance to retrieve the citation data using targeted browsing.  

Conveniently, if you select some text in the PDF in the Citation Lookup sheet, you will immediately be presented with a list of web pages that Sente can load to help you find the correct citation.  This list will contain your favorite bookmarks.  Also, the list will include any autolink-based URLs that  are designed to work with a text selection, rather than data in a reference.  These links might, for example, perform a search on a data source using the selected text as the search string.  This makes it very easy to search many literature sources.

By supporting targeted browsing in the citation lookup sheet, Sente now makes it easy to use many more data sources for citation information than were supported in version 6.2.

For more information on this new feature, please download the new version of the user manual and read the chapter on Adding PDFs and Other Files.


Scan-in-Place Support for Pages

This release also adds support for scan-in-place with Apple Pages.  This new approach to the file scanning process makes it much easier to work with documents in which all the citations are in their final format.  This feature is currently still in testing, so there are probably some bugs.  If you write with Pages and have a few minutes to test, please send us bug reports.


Ignore Cover Page on PDFs

This is a small, but important, change.  There is now a command that lets you tell Sente to ignore a cover page on a PDF.  The command appears in the Edit > Attachment menu, and in the context menu when viewing a PDF.  You can toggle this setting on and off on a per-PDF basis.  When turned on, the first page in the PDF will not appear, and page number calculations for notes will be adjusted accordingly.  Existing page numbers on notes will not be affected by toggling this setting on or off.


Downloads

Here are the download links:


and the current draft of the user manual:



If you click on the EPUB link in Safari on an iPad or iPhone, you should be given the chance to load the file into iBooks.


Feedback

As always, please provide feedback through this forum:

https://sente.tenderapp.com/discussions/sente-65-preview



If you have not yet tried any of the Sente 6.5 previews, please also read the announcements for the earlier versions on this blog.  There is important information there that you will want to know before you get started.



Sente 6.5, Preview 4

By Michael on November 20, 2011 4:48 PM | 7 Comments | No TrackBacks
We are pleased to announce the availability of the next public preview of Sente 6.5.

There a quite a few changes in this preview.  Here are some highlights:

  • There is a completely new autolink interface.  This includes the way that autolink templates are managed (this is now in the Autolink Setup pane in the source list) and the way they are accessed (click on the "links" icon in the attachment view header).
  • The attachment view now automatically loads one of the autolinks (as controlled in the setup pane), or the autolinks page itself, when there are no attachments on a reference.
  • The attachment view header has been improved.
  • The output gesture configuration has been moved into Sente Preferences.  This is where you say what Sente should do when you drag a reference from the reference list, for example.
  • There is a new Add Reference sheet that is used when adding references to your library (e.g., through targeted browsing, or when dropping a URL onto a library).  You can edit the reference in this sheet before updating the library (e.g., you can set a status, add tags, etc.)
  • There is a new Add File sheet that appears when you drop PDFs or other files onto your library.  You now also have options of adding multiple files using template references (e.g., to automatically assign tags to all files in a batch).
  • There is now a Create Reference from this Web Page in the context menu in Sente's web view.  Sente will automatically add a web archive of the page to the new reference.
  • Crossref.org is now used to lookup citation data for a DOI.
There are many more bug fixes and small improvements as well.

We are encouraging everyone to begin moving to Sente 6.5.  The official release is just a few weeks away, so this is very close to the official version (although we still have one or two nice changes to roll out!).

Preview 4 can be downloaded here:

http://www.thirdstreetsoftware.com/downloads/Sente-6.5-Previews/Sente65p4.zip

The current draft of the user manual can be downloaded here:

http://www.thirdstreetsoftware.com/downloads/Sente-User-Manual/Sente-6.5-User-Manual-DRAFT-2011-11-20.pdf

http://www.thirdstreetsoftware.com/downloads/Sente-User-Manual/Sente-6.5-User-Manual-DRAFT-2011-11-20.epub

If you are have not already tried one of the earlier preview releases of Sente 6.5, please see our blog post here:

http://www.thirdstreetsoftware.com/blog/2011/10/sente-65-public-preview.html

We look forward to receiving your feedback on this new preview release.

Michael

Sente 6.5, Public Preview Available

By Michael on October 7, 2011 1:41 PM | 5 Comments | No TrackBacks

Sente 6.5, Public Preview


We are excited to announce that we are making a preview release of Sente 6.5 available publicly for download on our site.  We are not yet done with the work on Sente 6.5, but there are number of important changes that are done and the preview releases are generally good enough for daily use.  


You are welcome to download the new preview release (instructions are provided further down in this message).  You can run the preview on your existing Sente 6 library (although see below for details on this).  


We will be producing a few more preview releases of Sente 6.5 before releasing 6.5.0.  These will not be available through the automatic update mechanism in Sente, so please watch the blog for future announcements.  (Better yet, subscribe to the RSS feed for the blog and learn about all Sente developments as they happen!)


If you do decide to try the preview releases, please let us know what you think (this is, after all, why we are making the previews public!).  We have created a special category in our forum for Sente 6.5. Previews.  You are welcome to browse through the existing threads there and to add new threads as appropriate.  We would really like to hear from you as we are working on the last few items before we make Sente 6.5 official.




Who Should Run the Preview Releases?


Anyone can run the Sente 6.5 preview releases.  If you are just trying Sente to see if it will suit your needs, you should definitely try the previews, because the new interface will soon be the standard Sente interface.  If you are an existing Sente 6 user, you will probably want to give the previews a try as well.  However, because you are likely to have a lot invested in your library already, please use normal caution (e.g., make a backup of your library) before trying the previews.


Many of the testers in the private preview program have largely switched to using nothing but the preview releases; they prefer the new interface and almost everything from Sente 6.2 is already in the 6.5 previews.  


The bottom line is that the Sente 6.5 previews are solid and are very close to being released.  There are a few items that are still missing from 6.2 (see below for details), and there are a few features that we are still working on adding.  We are waiting to formally announce Sente 6.5 until this additional development has been completed.  In the mean time, the previews are very usable (and a big improvement over 6.2, we think!).




Highlights


There are a lot of changes in Sente 6.5, and more coming.  Sente 6.5 is the best looking, most powerful and easiest to use version of Sente ever.  Here are some of the most important changes.


New Main Window Design


The main window has been completely rewritten.  Almost every aspect of the window has been updated.  Some of the specific changes are listed later in this message.  


NewMainWindow.png


New Window Layout Options


Sente 6.5 now lets you change the relative positioning of the reference list and the attachment view.  This makes it possible to take advantage of the large, wide screens now found on many Macs.


NewLayout.png


Single Collection Tabs


Just as you can double-click on a reference in the reference list to have it opened in its own tab, in Sente 6.5 you can double click on a collection to have it open in its own tab.  This lets you create tabs for, say, the collection of all references added in the last week, or all those with "To Be Read" status.  


SingleCollectionTabs.png


New Multiple-Line Reference List


There is a new option for displaying the references.  This new design looks more like the list in Sente for iPad.  The old grid-view is still there as an option.



New Reference Editor


The reference editor has been completely rewritten from the ground up.  The new design is cleaner, simpler, and more functional.   And it still throughly customizable so that you can see just the information you want. 



Full Screen Mode (in Lion)


For people running OS X 10.7, Sente 6.5 supports the new full screen mode.  This is a great way of working with Sente.



Compatibility with Word + EndNote


You can now exchange documents with users who are still using EndNote with Microsoft Word, including users running on Windows.  You can open documents they send to you, make changes, including adding and editing citations, and send them the new document and they will be able to open and edit the document.  The only requirement is that documents be stored in docx (not doc) format.



Scan-In-Place


Sente now supports a new, streamlined file scanning process that eliminates the need to think in terms of input and output documents.  When you use the scan-in-place option when scanning an open document, Sente will automatically replace the open document with the document resulting from the scan (after saving a copy of the original, of course).  And, because the "rescannable" option is always used for the output format, you can just keep editing where you left off. 



A Full User Manual


Sente 6.5 now includes a 300 page user manual, available as both a PDF and an epub file (for reading in iBooks).  The manual is not yet complete, but the current draft is available for download (see below).




What's Missing?


We are still working on a new remaining items that we would like to finish before we officially release Sente 6.5.0.  Some of these items are new, some are features that are present in Sente 6.2, but which have not yet been replaced for 6.5.


Here are some of the items present in Sente 6.2, but still missing in the Sente 6.5 previews:


  • Autolink setup and access.  We are changing the interface to autolinks and the changes are not yet complete.
  • Configuration of output "gestures" (e.g., copy/paste, drag and drop, etc.).  Again, we are changing the way this is handled (in 6.2 it is handled through the Format menu) and the changes are not yet complete.
  • Manual data entry during the QuickAdd process.  
  • Bibliography format editor does not current see custom reference types.



Compatible with Sente 6.2


Sente 6.5 is largely compatible with Sente 6.2.  This means that you can open your library in Sente 6.5, add or edit reference, and then return to Sente 6.2 and your changes will be there.  There are differences in the way the two versions handle preferences and library setup, so some of these changes will not translate back and forth between the two versions.  (For example, if you define a new custom reference type in 6.5, that type will not be available in 6.2; although references of that type will remain visible in both versions.)


In general, we would recommend making a copy of your Sente library for your initial testing of the Sente 6.5. previews.  This will let you make changes freely in the copy without changing your official library.  Then, if you think that you would like to use the previews for actual work, delete the copy of the library and open the main copy in the preview.  Even though there are very few incompatibilities between the two versions, if you need to switch back and forth frequently, you are likely to find the small issues frustrating over time.


You should NEVER run Sente 6.2 and Sente 6.5 at the same time.




System Requirements


Sente 6.5 requires Mac OS X 10.6.7 or higher.  (Note that this is a change from Sente 6.2, which can be run under 10.5.)




Upgrades


Sente 6.5 will be a free upgrade to everyone with a Sente 6 license.  People with licenses to Sente 5 or earlier can purchase an upgrade to Sente 6 for $39.95 on our site.




Downloading and Installing the Preview


The first public preview of Sente 6.5 can be downloaded here:


http://thirdstreetsoftware.lunarpages.net/Sente65p3.zip


All previews of Sente 6.5 use the same license codes as Sente 6.2, so if you have a Sente 6 license, you can run the previews without restriction.


The current draft of the user manual, in both PDF and epub formats, can be downloaded here:


http://thirdstreetsoftware.lunarpages.net/Sente-6.5-User-Manual-DRAFT-2011-10-06.pdf

http://thirdstreetsoftware.lunarpages.net/Sente-6.5-User-Manual-DRAFT-2011-10-06.epub


If you download the epub version by clicking on the link above on an iPad, you should be given the opportunity to add the manual to iBooks.




Feedback


We want to hear your thoughts about the preview releases.  We have created a dedicated forum on our site for the previews.


https://sente.tenderapp.com/discussions/sente-65-preview


You are welcome to post your thoughts, complaints, requests, etc. related to these preview in that forum.  It will remain public until sometime after the official release of Sente 6.5.0.




Sente 6.5.0 Official


We are still working toward the official release of Sente 6.5.0.  We are planning on adding a few more features, and we will be cleaning up some remain details on what we have already done.  In addition, depending on the feedback we receive during the preview period, we may modify the definition of the official release a bit.


In the absence of significant changes to our plans for 6.5, we expect the official release to happen later this Fall.  Sorry we cannot be more precise at this time.


Until Sente 6.5.0 is out, many users will be able to switch to the preview releases for most, if not all, of their daily work.  We will try to make each successive preview stable and useful (although, of course, you should take reasonable precautions, like making sure that you always have a good backup copy of your library).


Please note that you will NOT be automatically informed about new previews.   You will only learn about new previews through our web site, and in particular, our blog.  So, please add our blog to your RSS reader -- we really do not post that frequently, so you will probably not find the volume of posts annoying!


Sente 6.5 Public Previews Coming

By Michael on September 16, 2011 3:45 PM | 3 Comments | No TrackBacks
It has been just about one month since we made our first preview of Sente 6.5 available to a limited set of experienced Sente users.  Since then we have received some great feedback from these users and we are about to release a new preview to these same people.  

The point of limiting these private previews to experienced Sente users is that we wanted to be sure that the new user interface works well for those people who depend on Sente in their daily work.  If the new design does not work well for existing Sente users, it really does not matter if it appeals to new users. 

I am very happy to report that the first preview was very well received by our testers.  We are confident that, when the time comes to release 6.5.0, our current users will, in general, like the new interface and view the update as a real improvement to the software.

We also received  quite a few good suggestions for improvements to the interface, and we have implemented many of these and we will soon release a new preview including many of these enhancements.

We still have some important work to do before we will be ready to officially release Sent 6.5.0, but the preview releases are good enough to use for most daily work.  So, rather than keeping everyone waiting for the official release, we will soon be making the preview releases available to everyone.  

I will write more about this when the time comes, but in a few weeks you will be able to try the preview releases for yourself on your own data.  Switching back and forth between 6.2 and 6.5 works nicely (although some new settings in 6.5 will not, of course, have any effect in 6.2).

We look forward to a new round of feedback when the previews go public.  And many of you will find that you can simply switch to the using the previews for your daily work, reverting to 6.2 only for those few features that have not yet been implemented in 6.5, and there are very few of those remaining.

Not all of the new features or design changes will be important to all users, but I think that most of you will find some aspects of the 6.5 design that you will strongly prefer over the 6.2 design.  I know that I greatly prefer the new design and look forward to switching permanently to the new version.

So, if you are interested in trying out the Sente 6.5 previews, you will get your chance in the next few weeks.  The official release is still planned for later this Fall.

Michael


Sente 6.5 Private Preview Coming

By Michael on June 28, 2011 12:18 PM | 13 Comments | No TrackBacks
I am writing to tell you about the next major release of Sente, which we are labeling Sente 6.5. 

Why 6.5 instead of 6.3 or 7.0?  It is not 6.3 because it is a big update; much bigger than most of our "point releases."  It is not 7.0 because it will be a free upgrade to everyone with a Sente 6 license.

So, what's so big about Sente 6.5?

Well, first, it will be the biggest update to the user interface since our first release.  We have taken a close look at all aspects of the core Sente user interface and we are reworking almost everything.  The new version looks better and works better than any previous version of Sente. I love working with the new interface and I think others will, as well.  There will still be areas of the UI that need some attention, and we will be looking at these in later releases, but the parts you use on a daily basis will be much improved in 6.5.

Second, Sente 6.5 will make important improvements to some common workflows, like PDF import.  There are some relatively common tasks that have always been less efficient in Sente than they should be.  We will be addressing several of these in 6.5.

Third, Sente 6.5 will have a completely new user manual.  WIth all the changes to the software, even experienced users may find the new manual helpful. New users will definitely find it easier to learn to use Sente with this new manual.

There are some other important features that I will be discussing later, but I hope this is enough information to pique your curiosity, because this is the part where I ask for your help.

If you are a long-time Sente user who is willing to try out early releases and to give us feedback, we would like to give you early access to Sente 6.5. We will want you to try out the new interface and to tell us what you think about it.  We will eventually open up the previews to everyone, but first we want to hear from our most experienced users; those users who depend on Sente on a daily basis to get real work done. If the transition to the new interface is not successful for you, it is unlikely to be successful for others.

So, if you have been using Sente for at least six months, and preferably for several years, and if you are willing to spend some time trying out pre-release software (and you understand the critical importance of maintaining good backups at all times!), and you are willing to commit to telling us your thoughts and reactions to the new software, we would like to hear from you.
 
We want the eventual release of Sente 6.5 to be our most successful ever. And because so much about the application is changing, we want to make sure that problems and omissions are caught during the preview period and not after the release.  This all begins with our initial private preview period where we hear from our most loyal users.  

We expect the private preview period to last less than two months.  After that, we will open up the previews to everyone.

If you meet the requirements listed above, and would like to try the first preview in a few weeks when it first become available, please create a new, private support thread with your name, email address and a few words about your use of Sente.  I will respond with additional details.

Michael

Sente 6.2.6 Released

By Michael on January 5, 2011 2:52 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
We have just released Sente 6.2.6, with several important bug fixes.

First, we have (finally!) found and corrected the problem that prevented some users from opening the bibliography format editor.  Once it was clear that this was affecting everyone on OS X 10.5 (and no one on 10.6) it was straightforward to find and correct.  Thanks to everyone who helped piece the story together.

Second, we have refined the fix to Google Scholar support (for QuickAdd or targeted browsing) that we released in 6.2.5.  The last release worked for most people, but not everyone.  This new release should work universally.  Again, thanks for all the help in figuring out what was going on.

As usual, there were quite a few updates to targeted browsing and some other bug fixes, but these are the two most important fixes.

Michael

Sente 6.2.4: Bug Fixes

By Michael on December 18, 2010 5:00 PM | 1 Comment | No TrackBacks
Well, it has been an exciting few days, with the release of Sente for iPad!  We are preparing updates to the two iPad apps, but those take so long to get through the app store that we will be bundling up a bunch of changes before we submit. 

Desktop Sente, on the other hand, is easier to update, so we have just released Sente 6.2.4 with a number of import changes:

-- We fixed a problem with PDF annotation when a reference had more than one PDF attachment.  The previous version made it appear that the annotation was sometimes being applied to all attached PDFs, rather than just the appropriate one.

-- We fixed a bug that sometimes caused updated references to disappear from smart collections in synced libraries.  The disappearance was temporary (they returned under several conditions, including relaunching the app) but disconcerting.

-- We fixed a problem with the note editor not accepting input sometimes after the deletion of a note.

-- We fixed a problem where tapping on comment, after selecting a previously highlighted passage, would not do anything.  Now it creates a comment, as expected.

-- We have made the PDF highlighting colors a bit darker, especially when exporting PDF with attachments to be read in Preview.

We have a number of other high priority issues that we will be looking at in the coming days, but we wanted to get these changes out to users.

Michael


Sente 6.2: Importing Libraries from Other Reference Managers

By Michael on December 8, 2010 5:34 PM | 5 Comments | No TrackBacks
We have just released Sente 6.2 with a number of important changes.  I wrote another post about changes to the PDF view.  This post is about the new ability to directly import libraries from:

  • Mendeley
  • Zotero
  • Papers
Sente 6.2 can import libraries directly from each of these programs.  Because this is not done by exporting the data in something like EndNote XML or BibTeX, it does a much better job of getting all of the information.  Most importantly, it gets the PDFs, something that is not possible when working through an export file.

In essence, the process is the same for handling libraries from each of the above programs.

  1. Select the File > Import command
  2. In the file selector window that appears, select the folder that contains the sqlite database (not the database file, but the folder that contains the database file).
For example, Zotero normally stores its libraries in:

{your home folder}/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/{some folder}/zotero

For Mendeley, the folder is typically:

{your home folder}/Library/Application Support/Mendeley Desktop

And for Papers:

{your home folder}/Documents/Papers

In each case, you are selecting the folder that contains both the database file and the sub-folders with the attachments.

After you select the appropriate folder, the entire contents of the library, including attachments will be imported into the current Sente library.  The original library will not be modified in any way.

Once you have the library imported into Sente on the desktop, you can easily install it onto the iPad using iTunes, for use with either Sente Viewer or the full version of Sente for iPad. (The instructions for this can be found in the Help material in both versions of the iPad application.)

If you make a synchronized copy of the library before installing it on the iPad, then the desktop and iPad copies will stay in sync with one another automatically.  Obviously, the Sente versions of these libraries will not stay in sync with the original library (in Mendeley, Zotero or Papers).

Note that this entire process can be done using desktop Sente in Demo mode, so if you are not currently a Sente user but you want to try out the new iPad apps, you can install desktop Sente as a demo and install Sente Viewer for iPad for free.  You will not be able to sync a library with more than 50 references in demo mode, but other than that, everything will work.

Sente 6.2: New PDF Annotation Model

By Michael on December 8, 2010 5:30 PM | 18 Comments | No TrackBacks
We have just released desktop Sente 6.2.0, including:

  • support for Microsoft Word 2011 (it works just like it does with Word 2008)
  • the ability to import entire libraries from Mendeley and Papers (similar support for Zotero libraries was added a few releases ago)
  • a completely new PDF view, with a new highlighting interface
Sente 6.2 is required for compatibility with the soon-to-be-released Sente for iPad.  If you use Sente for iPad with any earlier version of desktop Sente, PDF annotation done on the iPad will not show up on the desktop copy.

In Sente 6.2, the attachment view has been completely rewritten using the same technology that we use on the iPad app.  The user interface is new, as is the way in which everything works under the hood.

In terms of the interface, we have taken a cue from the iPad and removed some of the controls from the toolbar above the attachment view.  The attachment and autolink buttons remain, but some of the annotation controls have been removed.  All that remains are the Text vs Region selection buttons.

Attachment View.png
One improvement is that it is no longer necessary to open a single reference tab to highlight a PDF.  

To highlight a passage, simply click-and-drag to select the text.  A popover window (à la the iPad) will appear with the commands used to apply highlighting and create notes.

Highlighting Menu.png
To highlight the text, select the desired color and click on Highlight.  To create a note with a comment, select the color for highlighting (or the "no color" option for no highlighting) and click on Comment.  To create a note with the selected text as the quotation, do the same, but click on Quote.

One difference between the iPad and desktop apps right now is that in the desktop app, all notes appear in the notes editor, whereas on the iPad you can set any individual note to be shown only in the PDF.  We will bring this option to the desktop in a future release.

Another difference is that it is only possible to create notes that include images on the desktop -- this is not yet supported on the iPad.  Notes creates with images will display correctly on the iPad, but they cannot be created there (yet).

To change the color of highlighting, just click on the passage, select the desired color from the popover, and click Highlight.

Region annotation works similarly.  Click-and-drag to select a region, choose the color and click Highlight (or one of the other buttons).

If you have been using Sente to annotate your PDFs for some time, it is important to understand that the underlying model has changed completely in Sente 6.2.  Annotation created in prior versions of Sente, or in other PDF tools, will be displayed, but not editable, in Sente 6.2.

Highlighting created in Sente 6.2 is not stored in the PDF itself -- it is stored in the library database.  This change has several very positive effects, notably on syncing.

There is a new command in the attachment view for exporting a PDF.  If you click on the title of the PDF, a menu appears with the Export option and two sub-options: With Annotations and WIthout Annotations.  (As should be obvious, if you use the Reveal in Finder option to get to the PDF file itself, and open it in some other PDF viewer, it will not include the highlighting added in Sente 6.2 or later.)

PDF Export Menu.png
This is a big update to a critical component of desktop Sente.  We know that we have left a few loose ends, but we think that 6.2.0 is solid enough for regular use and we did not want to delay any longer (given that the iPad app requires Sente 6.2).  If you have any specific suggestions for improvements in this area, please let us know because we are likely to be spending more time on this part of the app in the coming weeks.

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