No fullscreen? Seriously???

[taosaur]

Is there any feature more standard on any software intended to display anything? Is there any activity less in need of a GUI than reading a book?

This software is sorely lacking in options to make PDFs adaptable to the wide variety of displays likely to be used for leisure reading, rendering the whole value of retaining the original  page layout moot. The lack of rotation means that the obvious orientation desired for small, widescreen laptops must be supplied by a third party, and the persistence of the GUI means that 1/4 of the display area is wasted for a typical hardcover in full-page view on such a device, leaving some texts effectively unreadable (I for one don't find panning, scanning and scrolling very immersive).

What's more, it requires too many operations to reach the point where you're actually reading a book. With FBReader (not a competitor, as it can't read DRM), it's four keystrokes and maybe 20 seconds from sleeping laptop to fullscreen and ready-to-read. With ADE, I have to maximize the window, close the left pane, and rotate my desktop each and every time.

This software was clearly designed for managing the DRM, with reading as an afterthought, most likely by people who have never read an ebook in their lives. Small-scale laptops and tablets are the only mobile devices capable of displaying these files faithfully, and Adobe has completely failed to support them.

[lb580]

Yes would have to agree. We have gotten used to simple full screen or detailed views with pdf viewers and Adobe is no stranger to displaying them. It does appear that the publishers legal department were the primary users in mind when the functionality was being agreed.