The Personal Study Tab

This section has changed since I wrote this document. A lot of it seems broken for VoiceOver users. In my brief retesting Note titles were not headings and references to the publication where the note was created were not links. It was no longer clear how to open the original publication from the Note. I was also unable to find any images in a publication where I had created a note. I will edit this again if I figure anything out.

This is the tab where the Notes you create in JW Library end up. Read the information below the Notes heading in the Context Menu section of this guide to learn about creating notes from within publications.

You can swipe through your Notes by moving by heading since the title of each note is a heading. The most useful feature of the Notes shown in the Personal Study tab is that each has a link that will take you to its place in the publication where you created it.

When you double tap the location link for any note the publication opens in the Personal Study tab. Turn your VoiceOver rotor to Images and then swipe up or down to find the image indicating your note.

A note can be deleted by double tapping the More button that is just before its title. Since delete is the only option in this menu for notes in the Personal Study tab it is hard to understand why it is a More button. You'll have to double tap the delete button once you've activated the More button because you will be stuck on it. Don't worry, after double tapping delete you'll be asked if you really want to delete the note. At that point you can choose cancel or delete.

Double tapping on a note will open it in a window all by it self. I'm assuming this is for being able to see it better, but it can also be edited. Editing the title and note fields is straightforward, but adding a tag requires following the precise directions provided below. I couldn't figure out how to make tags work without a hardware keyboard, so my thanks go to the Blind and Low Vision Bethel Help Desk for telling me exactly what does work.

Add a tag:

  1. Double tap the unlabeled field after the Note text field.

  2. Type in the entire name of the tag even if the tag already exists and is suggested by the system.

  3. Double tap Return on the on-screen keyboard.

  4. Double tap Return again.

The tag should now be present.

It is possible for a VoiceOver user to use the "Add a Tag" button at the top of the Personal Study tab. Just double tap that button, enter the name of the tab in the edit field that appears, and double tap the Okay button. This doesn't add the tag to any notes. It just makes it available for future use. Of course, there isn't much point to creating tags this way, since choosing one from the list is not accessible while using Voiceover without a hardware keyboard.

The "Add a Note" button will create a new note. You can enter a title for the note, and write or copy text in to the note. There is no way to link the new note you create in the Personal Study tab to any part of a publication.

There is a Search field that you can double tap to enter a word or words that you want to find in any of your notes. When you are done entering what you wish to search for double tap the Search button on the Right side of the on-screen keyboard where the Enter button usually is.

The Personal Study heading and usual 4 buttons will still be at the top of the screen. The Search field should contain what you entered. Then there will be a dimmed Cancel button. It's lying about being dimmed because it does work.

When you double tap the Cancel button VoiceOver will go back to the Search field with it ready for editing. Swipe right to the Clear button to start over. Swipe right once more to find another Cancel button that can be used if you don't want to search anymore.

There may be another lie on the Search screen. Mine says, "No results found" even when notes containing my search term were found. All the matching notes will appear below that.

Backup and Restore

The "Backup and Restore" feature will allow you to make sure your Notes, tags, highlights, favorites, and bookmarks aren't lost if you switch devices or have to reinstall JW Library. When you double tap the Backup and Restore button a dialog will open. The two available options are "Create a Backup" and "Restore a Backup." They aren't buttons but double tapping either of these options will start the process you chose. After each option is a short description of its purpose.

Choosing the Create Backup option will open the familiar iOS Share Sheet. The file name is a heading at the top of the ShareSheet. JW library constructs the file name using the label UserDataBackup current date device name JW Library Backup.

You can choose any of the common options. I have tested both saving to Files where I placed it in my iCloud Downloads folder, and Emailing it to myself.

You can restore the backup you Emailed yourself by opening the message then double tapping the button with the name like UserDataBackup current date device name JW Library Backup.

The attachment will cause the usual ShareSheet to open. Swipe right through the options until you find JW library and double tap it.

JW library will open with a dialog that says, "Restore a backup Notes, tags, highlights, favorites, and bookmarks on this device will be overwritten." Double tap the Restore button if you want to do that. Double tap Cancel if you've changed your mind.

JW Library will show a message about the restore's success. Double tap the Close button.

To restore a backup you've saved to Files double tap the Backup and Restore button at the top of the Personal Study tab. Double tap Restore a Backup. Mine opened a screen that had a Recents heading at the top and was the familiar Files interface. Lower down on the screen were shown the 2 files that had the correct file type to be JW library backups.

Double tapping the file name I wanted opened a dialog that said, "Restore a backup Notes, tags, highlights, favorites, and bookmarks on this device will be overwritten."

There was a list of two items. The first was the name of the device who's backup I had chosen to restore. The second was the name of the device that had created a backup in the past. Each had a time stamp. I double tapped the Restore button without tapping anything else. I was then given a message saying the backup file had a problem. i double tapped the Close button. Obviously no successful restoration happened.

When I repeated the procedure only 1 device name was shown and double tapping the Restore button gave me the usual Success message.