A Better Custom PDF Experience, and a Couple Behind-the-Scenes Fixes

Longer Chapter Summaries

The page header summaries of your custom PDF Bibles now make better use of the space at the top of pages. Two changes let you write longer summaries that won't get cut off.

First, summaries used to be strictly limited to the width of their column, which, since all Bibles are two-column, is a little less than half the width of the page. Now your summaries check page-by-page how much space the built-in chapter reference in the other column header of that page actually uses. If your summary needs to push its way across the middle of the page to avoid being cut off, it does (but it won't ever bleed onto the chapter reference). This all happens automatically when PDFs are generated.

Second, the Chapter Summaries panel now has a "Part 2" field for each summary. Part 2 is used only when the same chapter of the Bible is shown on both pages of a facing page pair. Before this change, your Bible would just repeat your summary of the chapter at the top of both pages. Now, if you've written summary part 2 for that chapter, the main summary is put at the top of the left-hand page and part 2 is put at the top of the right-hand page. Often your PDF will end up with different chapters on each page, so make sure you write a main summary that makes sense by itself, and use the new part 2 to add something extra about the chapter that's nice to read right after the main part, when the page layout allows it. Part 2 is available for the default and for each size-specific summary. See the help on the Chapters page, under the "Chapter Summaries" section.

Better Management of PDF Batches

The Generate page now gives you more and more useful feedback. Look for a natural batch ID, direct access to new PDFs, and one-click regeneration.

First, the generation backend assigns ID numbers to each batch you queue, and it used to show you this ID when it notified you of your batch's progress. Now, instead of this seemingly random ID number, you see a description of the documents you put in that batch. Computers connect things with ID numbers, but people like things to make sense!

Second, when the backend told you that a batch was complete, you used to have to then go to the document tree where all your PDFs live and find the ones that were newly made. You can still do that, and all your documents are still permanently stored and organized under document trees, but now your completion notice includes direct access. All your new PDFs are listed, and you can click on one to go directly to it. (Note that there are some security considerations with clickable links in an email, and you should read about this under the "Messaging" section of the Settings page.) In addition, you can now also get your newly-made PDFs emailed to you as attachments. Before queueing the batch, select the new "Email PDFs" option.

Finally, when the generation backend's time limit was exceeded and not all of your PDFs were generated, you used to not know this until you went to your document tree and saw that not everthing was there. Now, the completion message tells you, and lists the ones that still need to be made. It even offers a new button to immediately requeue all the missed ones.

Note Locking

You've been able to view and add to your notes and chapter summaries from more than one browser tab or window, and changes you make in one place instantly show in all your other open tabs and windows. This is convenient, but, until now, you could get yourself in trouble by making changes to exactly the same note or summary in more than one place at the same time. Changes you made in one window would overwrite changes you were in the middle of making in the other window. Normally you would never do this on purpose, and you still can't, but now the system steps in and stops you from trying. If you accidentally end up trying this, you'll get an error message explaining the problem. So, if you've been in the habit of opening a lot windows with the same notes in them, and you've ever wondered why an edit didn't seem to stick, this new note locking will put an end to it.

This new lock is strictly frontend-only. This means it coordinates all the browser tabs and windows you have open for that particular browser on that particular device. Frontend-only means you don't pay anything for the extra checking the system does, but it also means you could still get yourself in trouble by changing exactly the same note in two different browsers or on two different devices at the exactly the time. 100% protection from mistakes like this is only possible with a backend-based lock check, and that would add a bit to your cost as you work on your notes. If it might be worth it to you to have protection against that, use the Contact page to say so, and maybe explain a bit about how you use BibleStudy.tools.

SLA Preflight Empty Frames

If you ever opened an SLA file using the Scribus desktop publishing software and then used the "Export" menu in there to create a PDF, you probably noticed some warnings from the built-in preflight check. A common warning would mention something about "empty text frames," and, although it was harmless and could be ignored, it might have annoyed you. This is now fixed. None of your old SLAs have been touched, so, if you want to remove that warning you need to regenerate. If you've saved SLAs somewhere offsite, you could also just use Scribus to fix your offsite copies by deleting any empty text frames it complains about.