New Reader with great pdf-support: Mantano Reader (like aldiko+ezpdf)

[pixiestyx]

I'm not sure about in the Premium version, but in the Essentials version, yes, the bug that cropped up a few updates ago that dropped the day/night toggle has been fixed. I created my own theme & am able to switch between my own custom day/night theme within it. I also found 1 particular epub file that didn't look correct in my custom them & switched to the sepia theme to use it - though had disliked it previously, it actually grew on me & I haven't switched back to my custom scheme since.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by pixiestyx

I'm not sure about in the Premium version, but in the Essentials version, yes, the bug that cropped up a few updates ago that dropped the day/night toggle has been fixed. I created my own theme & am able to switch between my own custom day/night theme within it. I also found 1 particular epub file that didn't look correct in my custom them & switched to the sepia theme to use it - though had disliked it previously, it actually grew on me & I haven't switched back to my custom scheme since.

Amazon App store is always a version behind. 2.2.11 is the latest it has so we haven't been given the fix yet. The Night theme hasn't been fix yet. It still has the white page bug too.

I use my own Sepia theme. I took my Kindle Fire lay it side by side with my SGP5 and it took a couple hours but I finally got something close enough that it's comfortable enough for night reading. Now if I could only transfer the theme to my other device.

[pixiestyx]

Aha, good to know about the Amazon app store version!

Originally Posted by Blossom

I took my Kindle Fire lay it side by side with my SGP5 and it took a couple hours but I finally got something close enough that it's comfortable enough for night reading.

I did the same using my NookColor when I made my Mantano theme on my Nexus 7. The standard dark black/bright white is just too high contrast in night mode for my taste. I find this is the case with a lot of the reader apps that I've tried, so custom theme capability is a must for me.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by pixiestyx

Aha, good to know about the Amazon app store version!



I did the same using my NookColor when I made my Mantano theme on my Nexus 7. The standard dark black/bright white is just too high contrast in night mode for my taste. I find this is the case with a lot of the reader apps that I've tried, so custom theme capability is a must for me.

I can't use white text on black background. Sepia works well for me. I also have a theme I made called paperback which looks very close to one and works well with the cute book background. Then I use my black text on grey for day time reading. I've also gone and tweak some of my favorite fonts to look better with it. I still wish someday they will let us have Italics and Bold in our own custom font. It just looks odd with the way it is now.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Blossom

I still wish someday they will let us have Italics and Bold in our own custom font. It just looks odd with the way it is now.

There is an easy way of doing this, but it does mean adding 1-line (always the same) to the top of each epub's css file. If you're interested in the details just PM me.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

There is an easy way of doing this, but it does mean adding 1-line (always the same) to the top of each epub's css file. If you're interested in the details just PM me.

You have to specify the font though correct? It like linking to it instead of embedding?

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Blossom

You have to specify the font though correct? It like linking to it instead of embedding?

Yes, in summary, you have to:

1. Copy the 4 font files in the family to a dir on the android device - once.
2. Create a simple bit of css, with @font-faces pointing at the font files (plus other stuff if you want) as a separate css file. Then copy it to the android device - once.
3. Add a 1-line @import statement as the first line of the epub's css file which points at the css file from 2 - unfortunately you have to add it to every epub.

The nice thing is that if you want to change your fonts at some point, all you have to do is replace the single css file in 2. All the epubs can stay the same.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Yes, in summary, you have to:

1. Copy the 4 font files in the family to a dir on the android device - once.
2. Create a simple bit of css, with @font-faces pointing at the font files (plus other stuff if you want) as a separate css file. Then copy it to the android device - once.
3. Add a 1-line @import statement as the first line of the epub's css file which points at the css file from 2 - unfortunately you have to add it to every epub.

The nice thing is that if you want to change your fonts at some point, all you have to do is replace the single css file in 2. All the epubs can stay the same.

That does seem to be a work around the problem...still Mantano could fix this.

I suppose you could have multiple CSS files and just rename them back and forth at will.

Does this break the epub for other apps?

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Blossom

That does seem to be a work around the problem...still Mantano could fix this.

Can't argue with that... Mantano's current 'solution' is plainly ridiculous. It would be much better if their partially implemented select-a-font feature was instead a select-a-user-css-file feature.

Originally Posted by Blossom

I suppose you could have multiple CSS files and just rename them back and forth at will.

Yes, that's exactly what I do.

Originally Posted by Blossom

Does this break the epub for other apps?

I'm not 100% sure because I don't do the change in my calibre library. I make the change to the Save-to-disk copies in my DropBox directory. These are only used by my android device. Having quite a lot (too many) different ereader models means I try and keep the master epub in calibre as 'vanilla' as possible. In theory it shouldn't break the epub for other apps because the @import points to your mantano special css file as a relative reference e.g. @import url(res:///../external_sd/ebooks/mantano.css) points at my external SD card's /ebook/mantano.css file, from the point-of-view of Mantano's home dir. As far as I can see, res:/// is equivalent to /sdcard/Mantano from a user perspective. In another app, that reference probably points to a non-existent file which I think would just be ignored. On the other hand, if, by chance, it did point at the mantano css file it may work as originally planned ???

In short, you'd need to try it with your other apps. I (very occasionally) read in CoolReader3, which, as it happens has implemented the select-a-font feature much better. Its standard font feature works OK on the same epubs. I still think Mantano does a better job than CR3 in other epub rendering aspects though.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Can't argue with that... Mantano's current 'solution' is plainly ridiculous. It would be much better if their partially implemented select-a-font feature was instead a select-a-user-css-file feature.


Yes, that's exactly what I do.


I'm not 100% sure because I don't do the change in my calibre library. I make the change to the Save-to-disk copies in my DropBox directory. These are only used by my android device. Having quite a lot (too many) different ereader models means I try and keep the master epub in calibre as 'vanilla' as possible. In theory it shouldn't break the epub for other apps because the @import points to your mantano special css file as a relative reference e.g. @import url(res:///../external_sd/ebooks/mantano.css) points at my external SD card's /ebook/mantano.css file, from the point-of-view of Mantano's home dir. As far as I can see, res:/// is equivalent to /sdcard/Mantano from a user perspective. In another app, that reference probably points to a non-existent file which I think would just be ignored. On the other hand, if, by chance, it did point at the mantano css file it may work as originally planned ???

In short, you'd need to try it with your other apps. I (very occasionally) read in CoolReader3, which, as it happens has implemented the select-a-font feature much better. Its standard font feature works OK on the same epubs. I still think Mantano does a better job than CR3 in other epub rendering aspects though.

Okay now I am intrigue would you mine sharing a example CSS file with me and the epub's code needed for all this to work. You may PM me this info if you like. Thanks.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Okay now I am intrigue would you mine sharing a example CSS file with me and the epub's code needed for all this to work. You may PM me this info if you like. Thanks.

OK. Will send PM shortly. Don't want to derail the thread with css stuff.

[RichieTheK]

I just downloaded the recent (v 2.3) update to Mantano Premium. It would not load, complaining about a problem with reading the database. Reinstalling the app did not help. Even a "clean install", involving deleting Mantano's data and cache, uninstalling the app, deleting the Mananto directory from the device, downloading and installing the app fresh did not help, producing the same "database" error (which makes no sense because I believe that I had deleted all Mantano-related data from the device before re-installing). Does anyone else have this problem?

System info: device: Nexus 7 (8 GB), OS: Android 4.2

The v 2.3.1 update appears to have fixed the problem. Thank you Mantano dev-team.

[jhempel24]

Mantano Reader Premium is no longer showing up in the Play Store for my Rooted Nook Color (manual Nooter not the others). trying to update to latest version and I can't

[IngoBN]

Mod, please delete...

[jhempel24]

Please go back to title sorting by file name! Argggh....just updated and now I HAVE to sort by series if I want some sort of order.

I had my series in the file name and it worked beautifully!!