Ever since the release of version 2, there has been a continuation of incremental improvements leading to a new minor release every few months. The current version 2.7.0, released a few days ago, marks the longest interval since the previous version 2.6.3’s release in February 2023. This long interval was necessary because of the need to do a substantial redesign of BookMapper’s navigation model.
The new navigation model encapsulated in version 2.7.0 was arrived at after a deep assessment of what BookMapper needed to turn it into a more compelling tool. The result is a navigation model where the normal reading activities of the user is carried out within a reading layer, while the user’s exploration of other pages (such as those related to bookmarks, search, table-of-contents, etc.) is carried out via a popup layer.
This solution aims to address a fundamental goal we had in mind: The user should never be forced to lose his current reading page whenever he needed to browse other possibly-relevant pages; this is now achieved by the user of separate layers for reading and for browsing.
This solution, while simple in concept, has a surprisingly out-sized effect in boosting user productivity when implemented with the right automation support and complemented by new features made possible by the solution infrastructure. These new features are so useful (such as the ability to automate the Index section of textbooks) that we dare say the trajectory of BookMapper has taken a significant turn for the better with the release of version 2.7.0, which is why we feel the need to mark the event with this blog entry.