Maintain scroll/cursor position when switching from View to Edit mode on Android

Features
1

Joplin Mobile 3.4.7 (prod, android)

Device: android
Client ID: 64c9300ab2b64c268b417f7ffd744f99
Sync Version: 3
Profile Version: 48
Keychain Supported: No
Alternative instance ID: -

Revision: 44ac26130 (release-3.4)

Github Alerts: 1.0.5

Android API level: 35
WebView version: 138.0.7204.179
WebView package: com.google.android.webview
FTS enabled: 1
Hermes enabled: 1

Hello Joplin team and community,

First, thank you for creating such a fantastic open-source note-taking app.

I'm using Joplin on Android, and I've run into a usability issue that I'd like to ask about.

**My Workflow:**

  1. I open a note (especially a long one) in the **Viewer** (reading mode) and scroll down to find the information I need.
  2. When I spot a place I want to edit, I tap the "Edit" button to switch to the **Editor** mode.

**The Problem:**
When the editor loads, the cursor position is lost. It almost always jumps to the very beginning of the note, or sometimes to a seemingly random position.

This is very inconvenient for long notes, as I have to manually scroll all the way down again to find the exact spot I intended to edit.

**My Questions:**

  1. Is there a current setting or workaround on Android that I might have missed, which helps to position the cursor quickly after switching to edit mode?
  2. If not, could this be considered a **feature request**? It would be a significant improvement to the workflow if the editor could open at the same scroll position (or as close as possible) as the viewer when switching modes.

Thank you for your consideration!

1 Like
2

Similar to When I click the edit button after scrolling to a very specific section of a long note, I am back at the very beginning of the note and I have to scroll all over again. · Issue #11564 · laurent22/joplin · GitHub

Also Remember editing state · Issue #11521 · laurent22/joplin · GitHub

3

Also Keep screen at same position in note when activating edit mode? - #3 by bwat47 was posted just a few days ago as well.

My way of dealing with the issue is as follows:

To get around this when dealing with long notes, I look at a short phrase at the current scroll position, and after switching to edit mode I search this phrase in order to scroll to the same position.

1 Like
4

Could double tapping an intended cursor position in view mode also (optionally) switch to the editor with that position maintained?

5

That may help with implementing this actually, as I think the difficulty with retaining the cursor position could be related to that there is no carat in view mode, except when you highlight text. Although it might also be a challenge in general syncing the scroll position of 2 separate WebViews for view / edit mode, as one uses the CodeMirror / ProseMirror editor and the other some other renderer

6

Could the Cursor Sync plugin be a helpful resource for syncing positions on mobile? On desktop, double clicking in the viewer with that plugin installed can already toggle to editor or split views on desktop, moving the editor's cursor to the beginning of the clicked line.

7

This applies to iOS as well.