[Feature]: Read-Only Tool Bar for viewing in webapps / kiosks

[katcaola]

Is the feature relevant to the Firefox PDF Viewer?

Yes

Feature description

I'm developing a web application where I want to display documentation that will be a PDF. This makes it easy so that the Technical Communication team can create/update new documentation PDFs and all I would have to do is upload a new file and display it in the web app.

This app will be running in a browser Kiosk Mode, so I do not want the ability to edit the PDF, only have functionality required for viewing and making the viewing/reading experience easier. I also don't want users to try and print or save the doc, since it is already available for viewing. Leaving these buttons available would confuse users.

It would be really nice if there was a way to specify having a view only or read only tool bar.

Currently there is only the ability to show or completely hide the tool bar.

Hiding the toolbar in this use case is not useful, because it removes all the great and currently available functions to aid users in viewing the PDF, such as search, specifying a page number, or zoom (Note since it is in kiosk mode, no keyboard or mouse will be attached, so having UI options that already exist on screen is important).

Showing it in this use case is also not great because there are many features that I don't want users to be able to use, since they only need to be able to view.

This toolbar would include the following buttons (and their functionality):

• Search
• Next / Previous page buttons
• Specifying a page number to go to via textbox
• Zoom in / zoom out
• Specify zoom via drop down
• The following buttons in the Left side pane menu:
  • Thumbnail button (Select a page based on thumbnail)
  • Outline button (Select a page based on the chapters/text content)
  • View Attachments button
  • View Layers button
• The following buttons in the more / >> menu:
  • Current page button
  • Go to First Page button
  • Go to Last Page button
  • Hand Tool button
  • Text selection tool button
  • Page Scrolling button
  • Vertical Scrolling button
  • Horizontal Scrolling button
  • Wrapped Scrolling button
  • No spreads button
  • Odd spreads button
  • Even spreads button

This toolbar would exclude the following buttons (and their functionality):

• All Buttons in the <div id=editorModeButtons> (Highlight, Text, Draw, Add/Edit images)
• Print button
• Save button
• The following buttons in the more / >> menu:
  • Open Button
  • Presentation mode button
  • Rotate clockwise button
  • Rotate anticlockwise button
  • Document properties button

I know I could fork the repo, then hide/delete the buttons in the view that I don't need and essentially "make my own", but for folks who don't have the capacity to code something like that, it would be great to just specify via URL another parameter such as toolbar=2 for read only.

Something like this perhaps:

• toolbar=0 hide tool bar
• toolbar=1 show full tool bar
• toolbar=2 show partial / read only tool bar

Other PDF viewers

No response

[yasirdivde]

HI @katcaola can you pls assign this task to me

[katcaola]

HI @katcaola can you pls assign this task to me

@yasirdivde I do not have permission to assign issues to users. I don't have the gear icon that allows me to edit 😅

[katcaola]

@timvandermeij would it be possible for your or someone who has permissions in the repository to assign this task to @yasirdivde since they asked for it so nicely? 😸

[timvandermeij]

I think before doing so that this requires discussion as to whether we want a feature like this to be merged. I personally think this kind of customization belongs in a fork because Firefox is our primary target and I don't really see a clear use case for such a feature in there. Therefore including it in PDF.js itself would cause extra maintenance for a feature that we don't use ourselves, so we're generally careful with that because we don't have enough maintainers to maintain all requested third-party features.

Unless use cases can be presented that show that this is generally useful to have in e.g. Firefox then I'm personally not in favor of including this. @calixteman What do you think?