Yet another PDF viewer (muPDF based)

[melihron]

Let's call this version 1.0 since there is a readme included and a major bug fixed. Namely, muPDF needs to be told how much memory it can consume. Otherwise, it keeps caching fonts and images, quickly draining all available memory. So I fixed this limit to 32M (smaller values did not seem to make much difference, it sticks around 32M anyway)

Other changes:
-more settings stored in toc file (rotation, margins, view mode)
-view mode changed from I+T/T/I to more useful V3 (all elements), V2 (text and vector graphics), V1 (only text forced to black)
-settings added (look for [S] button in main menu): full update interval, hardware margins (to adjust for pixels hidden under the bezel), cache size

And this is it for some time

[rkomar]

Those are very useful improvements. My old LaTeX-generated thesis is very readable with your program, something that was never true with the other PDF-reading applications on the device. Thank you very much!

I noticed that the text in the settings menu is very small. To make it appear larger, you have to provide an icon for each entry. In pbimageviewer.app, I just used a 55x55 ibitmap filled with 0x0 for the data. You can't see it, but it defines the size of the menu item and the text appears larger in the space. You can just take the images.c from some other source code to get the ci_empty icon yourself for your next future version.

[melihron]

Aha, this is the trick! I was wondering why it's so small, too. Thank you for suggestion! I used your sources as a "how-to" but was too lazy to care for bitmaps :-)

[paolog]

Hi!

the settings 'S' button on touch 622 closes the app

furthermore, aren't big issue:

- in landscape view the menu still rotated (as you were in portrait)

- the slide gestures to go forward/backward are set to the contrary of what is widely used

for istance to go forward you slide from left to right where usually (on the touch too) you slide from right to left

thanks!

[melihron]

Ok, so apparently RKomar did not do two versions of settings just for fun... I will copy his code for this, too.

I will fix gestures. I thought they should look the same direction as next/prev buttons, but apparently they simulate paper page flipping.

As to completing landscape mode - did not plan to do it for some more time, since it looks messy, boring and only "nice to have" ;-)

[paolog]

Originally Posted by melihron

As to completing landscape mode - did not plan to do it for some more time, since it looks messy, boring and only "nice to have" ;-)

I agree, even if, to be honest, at first I try adobe with text reflow, then, when I'm not satisfied (i.e. with more than 1 column layout or with graphics), I use landscape mode (almost always for me on the 6")

anyway for a general purpose use the point you reach is good enough.

Consider also that for particular use one can convert pdf to djvu and so have another viewer (with search capabilities)

i'ld like to remember you, in case you have spare time, a search function...

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by melihron

Ok, so apparently RKomar did not do two versions of settings just for fun... I will copy his code for this, too.

Yes, that was very annoying to do. The Touch 622 models with the version 4 firmware use a different iconfigedit struct from everything else (and the hints don't seem to work right either). So that's why there are two different versions of the configuration menu, and also why there is code to detect the model and firmware version major number. With the new Touch 2 and Lux models, as well as new firmwares scheduled for the Pro devices sometime in the future, I suspect the detection code will only get more complicated.

[porga]

I suggest: when you are publishing new version of this app, please do update first post in this thread too. This is common, because when someone new comes on the forum and finds this thread, he can se latest changes in first post.

[crt]

I tried to make a new version of this viewer, but I don't know where to find the additional files for the symbolic links described (I am using Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit).
My main goal is to achieve a darker/bolder printing.

Is it possible for @melihron to add another menu option for additional darker printing (say from the current level to another 2-3 levels to the darkest possible)? I have several PDFs where it seems that muPDF tries to calculate an average value for dark level printing (e.g., black text with colored figures) which leads to light grey for the (otherwise) black text.
If necessary, I can post examples.

Alternatively, is it possible to have a mini-guide with what is needed to be installed, from where and to where in order to attempt the task myself?

Thanks in advance.

[JimMcLaren]

Originally Posted by melihron

A simple muPDF-based viewer for PDF/XPS/CBZ documents. Features:

- excellent performance due to muPDF library

- optional rendering of text/images/text+images. Useful for reading those bulky PDF magazines with redundant full-page background images

- accurate margins cropping

.....

muPDF appears to be am excellent tool to deal with PDF. Extremely fast, very well designed and pleasure to work with. You can define handlers for any element and customize/extract/render it. This allows for handling interactive elements, text search, etc, etc...

Thanks for this. As soon as I get my 912 back from my SIL I'll be trying it.

Originally Posted by rkomar

PocketBook devices are rather well built, and there are still plenty of old 301, 302 and 360 devices in use out there. When I put something up for sharing, I find that about 1/3 of the downloads are for those old devices. So, it's worth providing a version for them if possible.

I also have a 302. Would it be possible to compile this for the older platforms?

Thanks for all your work,
Jim

[Pascal V.]

I'm just here to tell you I really appreciate the app, it's the only pdf reader that I have found that crops the margin, and I guess for an e-reader it's the most useful one! Now I can just put scientific articles on there without having to manually crop them beforehand. This and rkomar's app for reading comic books make the pocketbooks really usable.

Thanks!

[Mike1]

hi there,

the speed for the viewer is great, but it doesn't work in 90° rotated.
i allways read pdf in roteted mode and this isn't split the pages right.
and there is no information which won has been read. it is possible to solve this?

thanks

[fabienne35]

Thanks for this PDF reader which works very well on my PB912 on very large Pdf image file (more than 800 pages !)

But, with this viewer I cannot access any more to scribbe to make annotation.
How can I fix it ?

I saw that now, mu PDF is 1.3 version. what are the change expected with this update ?
thanks

[readMax]

Hi fabienne,

the official MuPDF web page has a change log. Here you can find it:
http://www.mupdf.com/news

However there is no dedicated version for pocketbook. Did you find anywhere a version of the MuPDF V.1.3 for pocketbook? If so, where can I download it?
What I assume is, that we have to wait until melihron is willing to present us here such a pocketbook porting.

Hey melihron, you are invited to do so.


max.

[melihron]

Hi there,
Unfortunately, things went not according to plan this winter, and I am still busy with programming damn useless banking app which was supposed to be a 1-month of fun, but turned out to be a 3+ months nightmare mostly due to my addiction to perfecting things endlessly :-(
At this point, I can not promise resuming work on the reader, although I experience the need for annotating capabilities, too :-)
Thanks, Max, for reminding to check muPDF releases - there is an exciting new feature "Initial annotation support (strike-out, underline, highlight and ink) "
which should hopefully cure many plights (such a useful lib!)