[Archived] Marvin ePub reader for iPad

[Meemo]

Originally Posted by artbatista

Personally, I dislike iTunes profoundly.

I have to agree with Alex, iTunes is not the only way to load books to Marvin.

One of the easiest ways is simply to use the browser, download the book and "open with" Marvin.

Cheers

Art

That's my way - it's one of my favorite things about Calibre.

[Meemo]

Originally Posted by ChristopherTD

I have a book, newly converted to ePub by Calibre. it opens happily in Calibre's viewer, and in Bluefire Reader. Marvin says it is malformed or encrypted and won't open it. Is it particularly sensitive? Is there a way to discover what Marvin doesn't like? Or should I just hold on till 1.2 emerges?

I had that happen with a book - I deleted the ePub from Calibre and converted it again, and it was fine. Not sure what the issue might've been.

[ChristopherTD]

Originally Posted by Meemo

I had that happen with a book - I deleted the ePub from Calibre and converted it again, and it was fine. Not sure what the issue might've been.

I have tried that too (alas). I will wait and see if 1.2 is happier with it. Curiously the book is from Tor UK and makes much of the fact that there is no DRM (which is good, of course). Except that Amazon UK delivered it to me with DRM, which I routinely stripped. I attempted to convert the original file and Calibre complained about that, but the stripped/converted ePub is the one Marvin doesn't like.

[Faterson]

Originally Posted by Wickedkitten

It’s not just a case of literally dropping your books into dropbox though. First you drop your books into dropbox, then it has to index and sync them to dropbox, and then you have to download them one at a time from dropbox.

Not true at all. Because Dropbox is integrated within Marvin, you can download dozens of books from Dropbox to Marvin in one go.

And please, don't make ti sound as if "indexing and syncing to Dropbox" meant any effort for the user. That's exactly the point: that those things demand zero effort from the user, because they proceed fully automatically. A typical e-book, hundreds of kilobytes in size, is synchronized so quickly by Dropbox you're likely to miss the process if you blink. In contrast, wrestling with iTunes always requires manual steps.

Plus, as mentioned earlier, you can skip the first step as well ("dropping into Dropbox"), unless metadata and cover pictures are an obsession. As explained, should metadata or the cover picture turn out to be not up-to-date after loading them in Marvin, you can easily adjust them using Marvin's metadata editor (another new feature in Marvin 1.2). This issue hasn't occurred once for me so far in real-life usage. Instead of worrying about metadata and the cover picture, it's a lot more time-saving just to let cloud software handle all synchronizing duties between Calibre and all handheld devices fully automatically.

[edbro]

Originally Posted by Faterson

Not true at all. Because Dropbox is integrated within Marvin.

I can only presume that you are referring to a beta version that the general public does not have yet. In that case, it isn't valid to say Marvin can do this or that.

[Faterson]

You're presuming wrong. Dropbox integration has been in Marvin from the very start. You could always download dozens of books into Marvin from Dropbox in one go, if that's what your heart desires.

[edbro]

Originally Posted by Faterson

You're presuming wrong. Dropbox integration has been in Marvin from the very start. You could always download dozens of books into Marvin from Dropbox in one go, if that's what your heart desires.

I stand corrected. I had forgotten that was in there.

[kguil]

Hello everyone,

1.2 is out and available on the App Store now. I'd like to thank everyone here on MoblieRead... many new features in this update are straight from your feedback and suggestions. I hope you enjoy it.

Special thanks goes to 1611mac, Artbatista, Faterson, GRiker, JSWolf, MeSue, Philantrop, Ssholloway, Wickedkitten and the others on MobileRead that helped in this release. I cannot overestimate how much better Marvin is because of what they've done. You're some of the most rigorous and enthusiastic people I've worked with and really hope to have this opportunity again. Arturo Batista (Artbatista) and Wulf Krueger (Philantrop) provided Spanish and German translations on the App Store. Thanks again.

You can read all about this update here: http://marvinapp.com/whatsnew.html

Kris

[ProfCrash]

Downloaded. Yeah!

[kguil]

Let me know what you think!

[Philantrop]

Congratulations, Kris! You already know how happy I am about Marvin. :-)

Apple couldn't have chosen a better day for pushing the update out, though - it's my daughter's birthday and I'll install Marvin on her iPad right now.

Meanwhile, I've updated the comparison in Wikipedia (link in my signature) and my review in the AppStore (*there* I did let my enthusiasm show :-) ).

Great job, Kris, thanks, and I'm looking forward to working with you again!

[kguil]

Thanks Philantrop. Send her my regards and best wishes!

... and thanks for the Wiki update - you beat me to it!

[humler]

Congratulations, kris. Impressive update. Already downloaded. To me Marvin is by far the best ePub reader for iPad. Even more with this update. If you let me make some suggestions for future updates I would like to see in Marvin:

- Google Drive integration à la Dropbox
- Automatic dictionary selection on the basis of the ebook language
- The ability to use embedded fonts or to allow users to add some more fonts to the already preinstalled

Again, thanks a lot. Great job.

[Terisa de morgan]

Thank you very much, Marvin. It looks very, very nice and I'm very grateful for it (I'll try a review if App Store lets me done it ;( ). And a great integration with dropbox.

[Rachel]

Hi Kris, I've been excited every time the app store showed there was an update for my ipad and today, at last, it was for Marvin. I'm looking forward to exploring further, but - thank you so much - I've already accessed my OPDS2 catalogue - the main benefit I was looking for. Now, to discover what else new I can do.