Bluefire reader app

[midlifec]

I am an iPhone Stanza orphan getting into Bluefire. My main beef with BF is the lack of configurability of the screen - unless one taps the extreme right of the screen, the annoying top and bottom toolbars pop up, covering half the screen.
While I was reading today, I somehow got into a mode where only a narrow, top toolbar appeared after a centre tap, instead of both narrow top and wide bottom bars. This was great but I somehow lost this setting when I went back into library view. I haven't been able to reproduce this.
Has anyone else seen this phenomenon and if so, figured out how to set it?
Micah?
Chris

[Micah]

Originally Posted by midlifec

I am an iPhone Stanza orphan getting into Bluefire. My main beef with BF is the lack of configurability of the screen - unless one taps the extreme right of the screen, the annoying top and bottom toolbars pop up, covering half the screen.
While I was reading today, I somehow got into a mode where only a narrow, top toolbar appeared after a centre tap, instead of both narrow top and wide bottom bars. This was great but I somehow lost this setting when I went back into library view. I haven't been able to reproduce this.
Has anyone else seen this phenomenon and if so, figured out how to set it?
Micah?
Chris

Yes, tap zones are a big one. Probably not in the very next release, but the one after. Never heard of the top bar only thing, very odd. I have toyed with the idea of setting I call "quick chrome". When enabled, after you dismiss the "main chrome" you still see a few indicators and controls overlaying the view (e.g. Time, Title, brightness control and bookmark on the top, and place in book with slider and next/back mini-buttons along the bottom).

[Micah]

Originally Posted by frozennorth

I don't think that's the problem. I tried a few books (drm free) on both stanza and bluefire. On bluefire the margin on the left is about double the margin on the right on every book I tried (lowest margin setting). On stanza I don't get the wider left margin. It has nothing to do with publisher formatting as it even happens with an epub font test I got at this site.

And JS, the margin on the left is almost as big as ibooks's. Actually ibooks also has a slightly wider margin on the left but the difference between left and right margin isn't quite as big since ibooks already has a big right hand margin also.

The margins we apply are the same pixels left and right sides mostly, but a few pixels actually on the right extra are used for area to show page numbers for when users turn that on, the width of those margins are controlled by the margin setting control - which at the smallest setting is only a few pixels. Everything else is controlled by the CSS/HTML of the EPUB itself. Most reading systems do not actually faithfully render the CSS like Bluefire Reader. We need to be more aggressive in over-riding it, but as mentioned we can only over-ride "standard/known" selectors, and how aggressive to get is tricky as you don't want to lose special formatting when the intent is to, for example, further indent special passages.

As mentioned, I myself hate those extra margins. E.g. I just read "Reamde" on my iPhone and iPad and the margins in the book on the iPhone forced me to read landscape (not my favorite usually). Looking forward to fixing that.

[Micah]

Just was playing with a new build today with: *much* Better PDF reading in many ways and support for crazy big files, editable meta (Title, Author), crisper images in EPUB. Goal is to ship update in Nov, so time to maybe squeeze in a few more...

[Jillyc72]

Hi, I am new to the bluefire app, and am testing it out for a library service about to launch E-pub, I think the app is great, all but for it really needs increased senstivity, after being used to reading with ibooks, I find I am swiping the page up to 3 times on each turn eventually having to press it quite hard, this is not great when there is so little text to a page (iphone) and really spoils the experience. My only other gripe is the bookmark feature, why does it need two clicks? Surely just one to put a bookmark in, and one to take it out?

[lorindas]

I'm a Stanza refugee and I'm I liking Bluefire so far, it has enormous potential. My wish list of additional features would include:

-Editing metadata within each individual book
-Lighten or darken with a swipe
-In book night and day modes options, it's a bit of a drag to have stop reading and access the main menu for these features
-In Stanza there was a tiny pie chart next to each book in the main library that was blank for unread books and became progressively shaded in as you progressed through the book. When you finished the book the pie chart was replaced by a check mark. Basically you could track your progress without having to go into each individual book. It was a handy feature I'd like to see incorporated into Bluefire.
-Ability to group books alphabetically, by author, ect.

Otherwise nice little app, keep up the good work.

[Micah]

Originally Posted by lorindas

I'm a Stanza refugee and I'm I liking Bluefire so far, it has enormous potential. My wish list of additional features would include:

-Editing metadata within each individual book
-Lighten or darken with a swipe
-In book night and day modes options, it's a bit of a drag to have stop reading and access the main menu for these features
-In Stanza there was a tiny pie chart next to each book in the main library that was blank for unread books and became progressively shaded in as you progressed through the book. When you finished the book the pie chart was replaced by a check mark. Basically you could track your progress without having to go into each individual book. It was a handy feature I'd like to see incorporated into Bluefire.
-Ability to group books alphabetically, by author, ect.

Otherwise nice little app, keep up the good work.

Thanks for the compliment, and for the feature suggestions. We just implemented swipe up/down for brightness, but I'm concerned that it is too easy to accidentally do, (I did it myself a few times and had to stop and think that it was a new feature) and users would get confused as to why their screen just went dark if they did not already know that was a feature. I think we need to find similar "quick and easy" way to adjust that on the fly, but with some kind of UI element to activate it. I could have just punted and made it an off/off setting, but I'm trying to avoid a bunch of toggles. We'll add lots of features moving forward, and I don't want a long list of on/offs. I've a few good ideas for the quick brightness control, but for now, probably won't make it into the very next update.

[Micah]

BTW, for those folks that do enjoy and use Bluefire Reader, if you have not given us a rating in iTunes yet, I'd really appreciate it. Our rating average has taken a beating lately with the disgruntled Stanza folks trying it out and finding it lacking. I grant that we have work to do to make those users happy (and we are working hard on that).

[Micah]

On that topic: We always looked at Stanza and thought "why try to beat them at their own game" (serving hard core readers/calibre users) with tons of customization controls, and instead differentiate by focusing on things Stanza did not do. e.g. Supporting library lending, commercial ebooks with DRM, good CSS support, good PDF reading flow, etc. Some of that is pretty cool (e.g. supporting libraries). So comparing Bluefire to Stanza is not Apples to Apples. Now that Stanza is dead (RIP) it leaves a hole we will try to fill, but it takes time.

[Micah]

Originally Posted by Jillyc72

Hi, I am new to the bluefire app, and am testing it out for a library service about to launch E-pub, I think the app is great, all but for it really needs increased senstivity, after being used to reading with ibooks, I find I am swiping the page up to 3 times on each turn eventually having to press it quite hard, this is not great when there is so little text to a page (iphone) and really spoils the experience. My only other gripe is the bookmark feature, why does it need two clicks? Surely just one to put a bookmark in, and one to take it out?

Thanks for the usability report.

That's an interesting comment about sensitivity - I've never heard that problem before and I read every user email we get (maybe 10 or so a day from the 400K+ users). We use standard iOS swipe events, and I'm not sure how we could make it "more" sensitive. I personally tap on the right side for page turn, and when holding with my left hand I do a tiny swipe-left gesture in the bottom left hand corner with my thumb to page turn, and I never notice any kind of problem with the device "registering" the gesture. I read several dozen books on each: iPad, iPhone, Ipod Touch.

I am looking forward to having adding features that allow users to configure tap zones.

Question: Which device and OS are you using? And are your reading PDF or EPUB docs? I'll try to reproduce the issue you are describing if I can to troubleshoot.

[soondai]

Originally Posted by Micah

BTW, for those folks that do enjoy and use Bluefire Reader, if you have not given us a rating in iTunes yet, I'd really appreciate it. Our rating average has taken a beating lately with the disgruntled Stanza folks trying it out and finding it lacking. I grant that we have work to do to make those users happy (and we are working hard on that).

Done. Rated and reviewed. Did some downvoting of other comments as well. Kinda wonder if the slew of one star reviews is orchestrated by a non-free competitor.

[Valkrider]

Originally Posted by Micah

Thanks for the usability report.

That's an interesting comment about sensitivity - I've never heard that problem before and I read every user email we get (maybe 10 or so a day from the 400K+ users). We use standard iOS swipe events, and I'm not sure how we could make it "more" sensitive. I personally tap on the right side for page turn, and when holding with my left hand I do a tiny swipe-left gesture in the bottom left hand corner with my thumb to page turn, and I never notice any kind of problem with the device "registering" the gesture. I read several dozen books on each: iPad, iPhone, Ipod Touch.

I am looking forward to having adding features that allow users to configure tap zones.

Question: Which device and OS are you using? And are your reading PDF or EPUB docs? I'll try to reproduce the issue you are describing if I can to troubleshoot.

I am having exactly the same problem. It takes a long time to register a page turn then because I have got frustrated and tried a second time it suddenly jumps 2 pages. iPad2 with iOS5 reading an ePub book. Seems to be the same with any ePub as well.

[ChristopherTD]

Hi Micah
If we could side load fonts into the user file area, and reference them with a CSS path, that would be nice.
Of course this is a niche request, but you never know...

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Valkrider

I am having exactly the same problem. It takes a long time to register a page turn then because I have got frustrated and tried a second time it suddenly jumps 2 pages. iPad2 with iOS5 reading an ePub book. Seems to be the same with any ePub as well.

I suspect your description is better. It is not the pressure of the swipe but the timing of the swipe. It is possible that the page, or the next page being prepared is complicated and there is a delay registering the event. This could account for what you are seeing.

Dale

[seajewel]

I tried a different book and got the whole magnifier (bubble around a word where I tapped) + app freeze problem within like 3 minutes. I have to completely shut down Bluefire in order to get it to respond to anything afterwards. It happened today when I was paging through the book trying to find my spot, so fairly quickly tapping the previous page (left side). Sigh. I could try uninstalling and reinstalling the app, since no one else seems to be having the problem..