Show HN: Sioyek – PDF viewer for reading research papers and textbooks (github.com)

However, evince only does it if the references are actual (hyperref) links.

Here is a point: Before doing such search, can't be sure will find a good answer. That was my point: There was no way for me to know before doing such a search that such a search would be successful. That is, the search engines are not guaranteed glossaries for all technical jargon in all technical fields.

So, my explanation that I didn't know where to find a description of "middle click" was correct -- before trying a search at some search engines quite literally we did not "know" where we would find an explanation. Now that such a search has been successful, sure, we do know, but that fact is a bit weak as justification for using undefined jargon.

So, since the search engines are not comprehensive glossaries for all technical jargon in all technical fields, given some technical jargon, a user has to make in effect shots in the dark, has to make these shots dark just to read a description of some product.

I suggest that product developers should avoid asking their audience to make such shots in the dark just to read their product descriptions.

Well, for a lot of people, e.g., a big fraction of the HN audience, sure, okay.

But: Yup, way back when personal computers were starting to use a mouse, there was no "middle click". Then there was, as a step forward -- I remember that. Now here is a surprise: While I spend well over 40 hours a week at a keyboard looking at a screen driven by Windows with data mostly from the Internet, I have not heard of or used the mouse middle click in years. The main reason is that on Windows, at least with the options I have, all the middle click is good for is a fast version of vertical scrolling on the contents of a window on the screen, and I don't find that fast scrolling to be useful. So, I have just forgotten about middle clicking. I'm up on a LOT of old stuff in computing, a lot of it from way back before middle clicking, but not middle clicking -- I just didn't find it useful. Here I'm using my experience as evidence for a

Lesson: In making assumptions about what is "pretty standard" for your users, it is tough to be accurate and for a solution work to err on the side of assuming less, a lot less.

There is one more point: It is totally obscure to me how fast scrolling could play much role in tracing references in PDF files of math. Maybe the Windows Win32 API permits programs to treat the middle click and scroll wheel any way it wants. If so, then that is something else tough to assume users know and be accurate. E.g., from my experience, I've written a lot of software and a lot for Windows .NET but so far I've never written any code that directly called the Win32 API. So, I have no good knowledge on what might be in Win32 for middle clicking.

Lesson: "pretty standard terminology", I wouldn't assume that.

More generally I claim that computing is being badly hurt by way too little in definitions for way too much technical jargon.

There is a simple solution: When in doubt, and even if not, work to define or at least give a reference for technical jargon. E.g., here at HN (Hacker News) apparently (although I've seen no statement) OP abbreviates "original post".

My second guess would be something having to do with a "middle finger".

Click on the middle mouse button? Okay: With an Amazon mouse, can just press down on the scroll wheel. With an HP laptop with Windows 10, I just did that: What I got was a circle with a dot in the middle, above the dot an up arrow and below the dot a down arrow. Research is still in progress in an attempt to discover how this might be used to search for, say, the Radon-Nikodym theorem! Or for something simple

y(t) = { y(0) b e^{bkt} \over y(0) \big ( e^{bkt} - 1 \big ) + b}

Maybe could do a middle click on an iPhone and then use a scanning, tunneling electron microscope to read the screen image -- give me a few minutes to set that up!!!

A lot of people could like WYSIWYG for anything like TeX. Thousands times more people like and expect WYSIWYG.

The TeX I use has 100+ TeX macros I wrote.

I type the TeX input using my favorite software tool, the one I use for nearly all my typing, my favorite text editor KEDIT. It is a Windows program version of the editor XEDIT for IBM's operating system VM/CMS and written on his own time by an IBM guy in Paris. For KEDIT I have 100+ macros and write new ones frequently. E.g., KEDIT has some good string manipulation tools, and, e.g., I can parse some files, rip out the data, then pull it into, say, Excel and draw a graph or pull it into some compiled language, Fortran, C, C++, C#, etc. and do some analysis. Sometimes the analysis is statistics, but typically I derive my own statistical methods and program and use those, methods not in the usual statistical packages, SPSS, R, etc. That is, I want to work at the level of the data and some code I wrote and not try to use higher level software intended to be easier to use.

To me, I want to work at the right level for me. E.g., I don't use LaTeX -- regard it as at too high a level. I don't want their macros and don't want to learn them or fight them. Knuth's TeX documentation is very well written; I find the LaTeX documentation less well written and much longer -- bummer.

Some of my KEDIT macros are to help in typing TeX files. E.g., a neighbor gave me a cake for Valentine's Day, and I just typed a letter of thank you, in TeX, using KEDIT, and using a KEDIT macro to insert the current date in the TeX syntax I wanted. Then I have a KEDIT macro that runs the spell checker, Aspell, I got with my TeX software, and do spell checking -- also used that for the Valentine's Day letter. And I like Aspell much better than any WYSIWYG spell checking -- Aspell does better at figuring out how to correct badly misspelled words and one reason for that is that I have my own spelling dictionary additions. Also since I use just Aspell for nearly all my spell checking, I get to use my one dictionary for all my work -- that is, the dictionary should be particular to me and not separately to email, software, letter writing, etc. To address the envelope for the letter, sure, I used KEDIT for that.

Yup, lots of people like WYSIWYG and, if they were to use TeX or anything like it, would definitely want WYSIWYG.

Uh, going way back, for anything like typing, especially for TeX, writing email, writing software, I like KEDIT and don't just dislike WYSIWYG but deeply, profoundly, bitterly hate and despise WYSIWYG and nearly all it values and attempts. In the simplest terms, I can't program WYSIWYG input, that is automate the input.

Not everyone likes WYSIWYG!

It's also useful when the information is really dense and there are certain things I need to go back and recall but don't want to search my short term memory for.

On the subject of note taking a professor once told me “don’t take notes, make notes”. Note taking is basically writing down what the author (lecturer) says. In college so many people would just blindly copy what the professor wrote on the board. That is note “taking”. Note “making” is adding you’re thoughts: what is the author saying (in my words) and do I agree with the ideas? What would other authors think, are there counter points, supporting examples, etc. Is this point elaborated elsewhere in the book? What terms, words, or concepts need more explanation?

I found this blog (https://fs.blog/how-to-read-a-book/) it has a good summary of Adler’s ideas. For example, on using the margins in a book:

    When you buy a book, you establish a property right in it, just as you do in clothes or furniture when you buy and pay for them. But the act of purchase is actually only the prelude to possession in the case of a book. Full ownership of a book only comes when you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it— which comes to the same thing— is by writing in it.

    Why is marking a book indispensable to reading it? First, it keeps you awake— not merely conscious, but wide awake. Second, reading, if it is active, is thinking, and thinking tends to express itself in words, spoken or written. The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks. Third, writing your reactions down helps you to remember the thoughts of the author.

    Reading a book should be a conversation between you and the author. Presumably, he knows more about the subject than you do; if not, you probably should not be bothering with his book. But understanding is a two-way operation; the learner has to question himself and question the teacher. He even has to be willing to argue with the teacher, once he understands what the teacher is saying. Marking a book is literally an expression of your differences or your agreements with the author. It is the highest respect you can pay him.

I mostly write connections that I make while reading a paper.

Apple changed the pencil. I wouldn’t get any iPad that wouldn’t support the new pencil, which I think is from the 3rd generation when the removed the home button and introduced rounded corners.

The old pencil has a lightning connector and plugs into the iPad to charge. The new pencil magnetically attaches to the iPad and charges.

Apple should release the next generation soon. (Maybe in a couple weeks.) Hopefully you can get a used one at a good rate when that happens.