General Overview
Documents load in 2-Pane View by default (other page views are described below). The document text is in the left-hand (LH) pane and paragraphs are numbered. Moving your cursor over the text outlines the current paragraph in blue and highlights the moused-over sentence in gray, as shown below.
Conversations about the document appear in the right-hand (RH) pane.
The two panes are in sync with each other; clicking on Paragraph 2 in the LH pane will make the RH pane scroll to any conversations on Paragraph 2. Similarly, clicking on a RH conversation will make the LH pane scroll to the corresponding document passage.
You can make comments (start or join a conversation) at any of three levels:
- On a particular sentence
- On a particular paragraph
- On the document in general, for comments not tied to a specific passage (e.g. comments about the author's background, the document's style and structure, historical context)
"Word balloons" in the LH pane show how many comments a passage has. White squares show paragraph-level comments and gray circles at the end of a sentence show sentence-level comments; this passage has one paragraph-level comment and one sentence-level comment:
In the RH pane, conversations on the overall paragraph come first, under dark blue headers that give the paragraph number and the number of total comments in parentheses. Conversations on sentences within a paragraph show after the paragraph header, under lighter blue headers with the sentence number within the paragraph given in parentheses first (e.g. S2 = sentence 2).
If there's no paragraph header for a passage in the RH pane then there aren't any comments about it. A paragraph header showing "(0) Comments" means there are no paragraph-level comments, but at least one sentence in that paragraph has a comment.
Links at the top and bottom of the LH pane:
take you to the bottom of the RH pane where document-level comments display.
Replying to an Existing Comment
Just click on the "reply" link at the end of a comment:
An Add Comment box will pop up in the LH pane where you enter your comment:
There are three components to a NowComment comment:
- Summary line—a required overview of your comment; the essential point(s) you want to make.
- Comment—optional; lets you flesh out your summary line with more detailed arguments and perspectives, citations, data, etc.
- Tag (web keyword)—an optional field that helps other users find your comments.
When you finish writing your comment, proofread it before clicking the "reply" button to submit it. There can be a time lag of several seconds, but only hit the button once!
If no one has replied to your comment you can edit or delete it by clicking one of these icons:
(pencil icon to edit, minus sign icon to delete) that appear only when you mouse over one of your comments. You can't edit your own comment once someone has replied to it.
Starting a New Conversation
Click the "New Conversation" icon at the far right side of any paragraph, sentence, or document-level RH header:
The Add Comment window works as described above.
Other Document Controls
Hovering over the transparent toolbar at the screen's bottom lets you access five other controls:
- View
- Comments in Context puts the document and the comments together in a single window. Comments appear under the sentences and paragraphs they relate to, so you can skim the conversations as you read the document. You can use printouts of this view when computers won't be available.
- Comments Only hides the document and lets you sort comments by Commenter (person), Date, or Document Sequence.
- Document Only hides a document’s comments (for reading without distraction).
- Comments (Display Options)
- Mark as Favorite
- Full Screen / Normal Screen
- Share button
NowComment offers three other views in addition to the default 2-pane view:
When you first visit a document you see at least all the top-level conversational threads. When you revisit a document the system only displays newer comments that weren't there when you first visited ("Show New" option). You can switch from this option to "Show Everything", which expands all the conversational threads. You always have the option of switching to "Summary Lines Only", which is great for skimming through large numbers of comments. If you choose to expand or hide certain conversations by clicking the small blue triangle in front of a RH header that shows up as "Custom". Finally, "Hide All" hides all the threads but (unlike Document Only View) shows you which paragraphs have comments.
This lets you list this document on your MyAccount page; if it's a public document others will be able to see it on that page.
You can switch between full screen, where your browser shows only the document and its conversations, and normal screen, where you also see the NowComment menu at the top of the page.
The Share button takes you to the page where you can share invite others to view private document (see our sharing overview). This option doesn't display for public documents, which are already available to everyone.
That covers the basics of discussing document with NowComment. It's easy to use; we hope you'll give it a try! You can leave some comments on Public Documents, or upload your own document, or look at more of our tip files and short videos.