[Archived] Marvin ePub reader for iPad

[maxjens]

Kguil, i am trying the 2 finger swipe option in the book view.

I see the following behavior. I have two or three bookmarks and there are 30 chapters in the book. 2 bookmarks are within one chapter the other is 3 chapters removed.

First swipe right 2 left, start of chapter 1
Again, end chapter 1
Again, begin chapter 2
Again, bookmark
Again, bookmark 2
Again, end chapter 2
Again, begin chapter 3
Etc

Reversed - left to right swipe -the same happens in reversed order.

Love the idea of two and three finger swipe. If i could use 2 finger swipe between bookmarks, then i could jump quickly back and forth. Handy when studying.

3 finger swipe for chapters, would be nice if they go to the start of the chapter and not first to the end and then to the start.

Is it an idea to add an option next to the star for chapters?

To be able to just swipe between bookmarks would really help while studying

[mariosipad]

I see the same behaviour with swipes as @maxjens. Hopefully with a different book ;-)

I support his ideas for:
1 - difference between 2 and 3 finger swipes (chapters and bookmarks)
2 - if possible go to start of next chapter, not to end of chapter.

for Marvin!

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Faterson

Erm, I apologize for saying this, maxjens, but that's nonsense. You're not suggesting that anyone with a sane mind would read unconverted DOC, LIT, PDB, RTF, TXT (etc.) files (especially long books!) on their iDevice?

You really need to learn to turn your opinions down when posting.
At the moment you come across as shouting down anyone with even a slightly different viewpoint than yours.

[kguil]

Hi maxjens, Mario. Ideas noted. Right now, I'm working on improving chapter loading speed so swiping directly to bookmarks (across chapters) will be even better.

[maxjens]

Originally Posted by kguil

Hi maxjens, Mario. Ideas noted. Right now, I'm working on improving chapter loading speed so swiping directly to bookmarks (across chapters) will be even better.

Great, waiting (im)patiently for 1.4. When do you estimate it to become available?

[Philantrop]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

You really need to learn to turn your opinions down when posting.
At the moment you come across as shouting down anyone with even a slightly different viewpoint than yours.

The point is: Alex is right. Let's look at those formats mentioned:

- LIT, MOBI, PDB, PRC, RTF, TXT

It doesn't make sense for Marvin to support any ebook format that can as easily be converted to the de facto standard format epub as these. It would be completely uneconomical. People don't even have to install and use Calibre - there are fairly good online ebook converters; the best one uses Calibre, btw.

- DOC (as in Microsoft Office's format, I presume)

Not many ebooks are distributed in this format (and that's an understatement). In fact, the only DOC-format ebooks I've ever seen were pirated. Nevertheless, there are quite a few solutions to convert DOC files to epub.
If we're talking about Office documents, there are far superior solution to work with them - Apple's Pages (and I'm using it fairly successfully) and quite a few other office solutions.

- IMP: A proprietary, dead format. Nevertheless, there are still quite a few utilities to convert those ebooks if anyone really still has such. Adding dead, proprietary formats to any ebook reader software today would undoubtedly be folly.

- CBR/CBZ: Adding support to Marvin for this might make sense. CBR/CBZ are easy to handle, they are a de facto standard for comics and, AFAIK, there aren't many good readers for them around.

- PDF: PDF is hard to get right and there are a lot of good PDF reading tools for iDevices. So if I were Kris, I'd think long and hard about basically adding a second rendering engine to Marvin.

So, there are two formats that can't be easily converted into epub by anyone. So why should any developer go to any lengths to support such formats? It simply wouldn't make sense. That's what Alex said - in slightly stronger terms maybe - but that's a secondary concern.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Philantrop

So, there are two formats that can't be easily converted into epub by anyone. So why should any developer go to any lengths to support such formats? It simply wouldn't make sense. That's what Alex said - in slightly stronger terms maybe - but that's a secondary concern.

No, he didn't.
He didn't say that Marvin's developer shouldn't spend time supporting these formats. (Which I would agree with)
He said noone with a sane mind would ever read them.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by Philantrop

So, there are two formats that can't be easily converted into epub by anyone. So why should any developer go to any lengths to support such formats? It simply wouldn't make sense. That's what Alex said - in slightly stronger terms maybe - but that's a secondary concern.

Sorry, I agree con Paul. That's not a secondary concern. It's not the same spelling "It doesn't worth to support these formats because they're not usual" than "Nobody with a sane mine would use it".

[Philantrop]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

He said noone with a sane mind would ever read them.

No, if you're criticising someone for his choice of words, you should read them carefully:

Originally Posted by Faterson

You're not suggesting that anyone with a sane mind would read unconverted DOC, LIT, PDB, RTF, TXT (etc.) files (especially long books!) on their iDevice?

"unconverted [...] on their iDevice" is the important part here.

Anyway, it seems we're in agreement about the fact that it doesn't makes sense to add support for obscure/obsolete formats to Marvin. :-)

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Philantrop

No, if you're criticising someone for his choice of words, you should read them carefully:

I did, and the previous posts.

"unconverted [...] on their iDevice" is the important part here.

Yes, with Shubook, Stanza, or other apps which already support them:

I think i also stated that Marvin was the better reader for epubs. For other types of ebooks Stanza and Shubook are the better readers currently available. And as was stated, just stay out of the settings page

[ProfCrash]

There are plenty of people who have no interest in converting documents to ePub so they can read them on Marvin. Believe it or not, there are folks who are not interested in stripping DRm and then converting to ePub. The reality is that those people will not use Marvin.

I would prefer Kris focus on features that improve Marvin and be less worried about adding other formats. But that is me. He will reach more users by adding other formats.

[mariosipad]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

There are plenty of people who have no interest in converting documents to ePub so they can read them on Marvin. Believe it or not, there are folks who are not interested in stripping DRm and then converting to ePub. The reality is that those people will not use Marvin.

I am not interested in converting documents (if there are good readers for those formats available) nor am I interested in stripping DRM, but I use Marvin for all those other ePub's in the world.

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

I would prefer Kris focus on features that improve Marvin and be less worried about adding other formats. But that is me. He will reach more users by adding other formats.

I wholeheartedly agree with ProfCrash here!

[ProfCrash]

I liked what I saw in Marvin enough to do some serious converting. It is a much better ereader App then anything I have seen. It didn't take long to convert and it was easy enough.

That said, my brothers work with computers and have no clue about Calibre and plug in tools available for Calibre that would help them use something like Marvin. They both program for a living and have not sought out the info.

If they are not interested, how many other people are not? Which is why it would be nice if Marvin read the most common formats, Mobi, PDF, and ePub. Right now it reads one of those. Mobi is probably pretty useless to add since most people with Mobi books are going to be sold by Amazon and have DRM. If you are not interested in converting then you are not going to be interested in stripping DRM.

[Philantrop]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

There are plenty of people who have no interest in converting documents to ePub so they can read them on Marvin. Believe it or not, there are folks who are not interested in stripping DRm and then converting to ePub.

I believe such people exist. Either they learn or it'll be their loss sooner or later.

With DRM, they're forever hostages of their ebook vendor and/or supplier of the DRM system.

Be it Barnes & Noble who like(d) to cut people off from their books if their credit card has expired, or Apple who are denying people's heirs access to your digital library, or Amazon who like to wipe their customers' Kindles and remove the entire account.

Or that Japanese comic seller, JManga; they're shutting down and their customers won't be able to download their digital content.

Or just switching to a different reading device - without removing the DRM, how do people get their ebooks transferred? Sure, they can buy them again but that might not strike them as the ideal solution.

And all of this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Sure, whoever is "not interested in stripping DRM" can just ignore it - it's just a really, truly bad idea.

[ProfCrash]

I am not disagreeing with you but the reality is that many people ignore DRM and don't care about it.