PocketBook 2.0.x development

[paola]

I am not too sure whether this is a scoop or not (haven' checked the German forum), but I just heard form pocketbook that there is a new firmware update for the new models (well, the readers, not sure about the IQ), coming out on January 28!

[skydive]

Well! hope this will fix our claims on this thread...

Mark the date!

Originally Posted by paolamanzini

I am not too sure whether this is a scoop or not (haven' checked the German forum), but I just heard form pocketbook that there is a new firmware update for the new models (well, the readers, not sure about the IQ), coming out on January 28!

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by paolamanzini

I am not too sure whether this is a scoop or not (haven' checked the German forum), but I just heard form pocketbook that there is a new firmware update for the new models (well, the readers, not sure about the IQ), coming out on January 28!

I'm amazed that PocketBook continue to give out dates to the public for this kind of stuff. Saying something like "We are currently testing a new firmware release that fixes bugs X, Y and Z, and we expect to release it sometime soon" is good enough for me. Pinning a hard date on it just infuriates everyone when unforeseen problems cause delays, or pushes them to release without fixing the problems. Neither is good for their image.

[LoneTech]

You mean like how the 302 keyboard/text entry support is pretty much ready? I think they've pretty much concluded they can't do any meaningful harm to their image.

[rkomar]

So, I installed the latest firmware (2.0.4 902 NA), and the poterm app no longer works for me. It goes as far as rotating the screen, and then just returns to the library screen. Anyone else have any problems with apps built under the unofficial SDKs?

[sergeyvl12]

rkomar,
What SDK did you use for building poterm (my or LoneTech)?

pbchess, built with my SDK works well for the new firmware.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by sergeyvl12

rkomar,
What SDK did you use for building poterm (my or LoneTech)?

pbchess, built with my SDK works well for the new firmware.

I used the poterm.app that LoneTech provided (the later one that uses the menu button to rotate the screen). Hmm, I wonder if it's a problem with the new software keyboard. Does your pbchess program use the keyboard?

[skydive]

@rkomar: Can you provide feedback and impression of the new FW update? It is worth to upgrade? Any fixings? How about note taking? Did they make other things that were working ok and then make 'em worst?

thanks!

Originally Posted by rkomar

So, I installed the latest firmware (2.0.4 902 NA), and the poterm app no longer works for me. It goes as far as rotating the screen, and then just returns to the library screen. Anyone else have any problems with apps built under the unofficial SDKs?

[sergeyvl12]

Originally Posted by rkomar

Does your pbchess program use the keyboard?

No, I don't use the virtual keyboard.

Not quite clear for me your poterm problem description. Please specify the steps to reproduce it and I'll try to help

[review]

hi skydive,
finding the changes was a bit of research, because there was no Changelog or Release Note. I compared it to the 2.0.4 version which was released in December. Compared to that version there is nothing ground breaking new. There has been some discussion in this thread.
Very frustrating actually, because in a nutshell, none of the bugs or feature request seem to be integrated.
After playing with the firmware for a good while now, I have noticed the following two "major" changes:
1) You can use and seletec the font yourself for the interface.
2) the onscreen keyboard looks a bit more fancy (at least on the 903).
3) remove packages
4) improved pocketnews

further comment to 1): initially I was frustrated because I thought they just changed the default font. and unfortunately the font which was selected was a very low contrast one. So this became a nice surprise when I noticed that you can actually change this font in the settings now.

further comment to 3): apparently you can deinstall packages now (I haven't tested it).

For me it was rather annoying (as mentioned now many times in various threads) to learn that the games folder was not renamed but deleted and a new folder was created with the name applications. Now, over at the German forum, I report the progress on the development of an really improved RSS Newsreader (which downloads the whole articles and processes them). And I had in my "games" folder some prototype scripts which are all gone now . This obviously could have been avoided with an official change log.
Actually at this point I want to say a big thank you to LoneTech and sergeyvl12. I actually managed to get started on my RSS project and it works very neatly so far.
If there is an interest in using this application on english feeds I could open a thread in this forum as well.

further comment to 4): the headline is now linked to the article. But the article is not downloaded. Instead it just opens midori and displays it there. Obviously thats much better than it used to be but for what is the point of that? If you need to be online to read the news and if the webbrowser is started for each article you want to read in full, I bet you're much better off to read the news straight away in the webbrowser. But this is not what I found to be the point of an RSS Reader. The RSS reader I aim at developing is downloading not only the feed but the whole article so that you have them on-the-go.

[atango]

Originally Posted by review

If there is an interest in using this application on english feeds I could open a thread in this forum as well.

Yes, please!

[skydive]

Thanks!! These review that you privide will be the same for the PB902?

What is the diference on the Keyboard? the PB902 is not touch screen

The interface font is changeable on the PB902, but I do nto know if this applies also to the pdf file that cannot open using the PDFviewer.

thanks!

TO all: any impressions on the PB902 FW upugrade?

Originally Posted by review

hi skydive,
finding the changes was a bit of research, because there was no Changelog or Release Note. I compared it to the 2.0.4 version which was released in December. Compared to that version there is nothing ground breaking new. There has been some discussion in this thread.
Very frustrating actually, because in a nutshell, none of the bugs or feature request seem to be integrated.
After playing with the firmware for a good while now, I have noticed the following two "major" changes:
1) You can use and seletec the font yourself for the interface.
2) the onscreen keyboard looks a bit more fancy (at least on the 903).
3) remove packages
4) improved pocketnews

further comment to 1): initially I was frustrated because I thought they just changed the default font. and unfortunately the font which was selected was a very low contrast one. So this became a nice surprise when I noticed that you can actually change this font in the settings now.

further comment to 3): apparently you can deinstall packages now (I haven't tested it).

For me it was rather annoying (as mentioned now many times in various threads) to learn that the games folder was not renamed but deleted and a new folder was created with the name applications. Now, over at the German forum, I report the progress on the development of an really improved RSS Newsreader (which downloads the whole articles and processes them). And I had in my "games" folder some prototype scripts which are all gone now . This obviously could have been avoided with an official change log.
Actually at this point I want to say a big thank you to LoneTech and sergeyvl12. I actually managed to get started on my RSS project and it works very neatly so far.
If there is an interest in using this application on english feeds I could open a thread in this forum as well.

further comment to 4): the headline is now linked to the article. But the article is not downloaded. Instead it just opens midori and displays it there. Obviously thats much better than it used to be but for what is the point of that? If you need to be online to read the news and if the webbrowser is started for each article you want to read in full, I bet you're much better off to read the news straight away in the webbrowser. But this is not what I found to be the point of an RSS Reader. The RSS reader I aim at developing is downloading not only the feed but the whole article so that you have them on-the-go.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by sergeyvl12

No, I don't use the virtual keyboard.

Not quite clear for me your poterm problem description. Please specify the steps to reproduce it and I'll try to help

The first post in this thread provides a link to LoneTech's server, where he hosts the poterm application built using his SDK. I copied the poterm.ini file to the root of the internal hard drive, and poterm-menu.app to the same place (and later to the applications directory). Prior to upgrading the firmware, selecting the app in the "Games" utility would pop up a terminal, rotated into landscape mode. After upgrading, selecting the app within the "Applications" utility just results in the display being rotated to landscape mode, but then it immediately returns to the Applications utility rather than staying in the terminal. I tried editting the poterm.ini file to change the default orientation and logfile location, but neither change had any effect. The display still changes to landscape mode and there is no logfile created anywhere.

The default location for the logfile is in the games directory, so I tried creating that again when I had the internal drive mounted on my PC. Unmounting it, trying the application unsuccessfully, and mounting it the drive again afterwards showed that the games directory was automatically deleted. Strange!

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by skydive

@rkomar: Can you provide feedback and impression of the new FW update? It is worth to upgrade? Any fixings? How about note taking? Did they make other things that were working ok and then make 'em worst?

thanks!

I think that @review gives a good account of the changes. It's possible that the fonts in PDF documents look a bit better, but I could be mistaken about that. The keyboard works exactly the same as before, it's just rendered more nicely (it looks like an animated keyboard now rather than simple characters inside some big boxes). I use the NA firmwares, which I don't think had the package removal problems. Apart from my problems with poterm.app, I haven't noticed anything else being worse than before. Aside from the improvements mentioned by @review, the only other thing I noticed was that the speaker sound made the first time you press a button when the device is in sleep mode seems to be quieter now; I have to listen carefully to hear it now. So, at least one other bug has been fixed in this release!

I would say that if you don't use poterm, you shouldn't be afraid of installing this upgrade.

[skydive]

Thanks !! I did it, during the upgrade process, there was and image s error, everything just install ok....

thanks!

What is poterm?

Originally Posted by rkomar

I think that @review gives a good account of the changes. It's possible that the fonts in PDF documents look a bit better, but I could be mistaken about that. The keyboard works exactly the same as before, it's just rendered more nicely (it looks like an animated keyboard now rather than simple characters inside some big boxes). I use the NA firmwares, which I don't think had the package removal problems. Apart from my problems with poterm.app, I haven't noticed anything else being worse than before. Aside from the improvements mentioned by @review, the only other thing I noticed was that the speaker sound made the first time you press a button when the device is in sleep mode seems to be quieter now; I have to listen carefully to hear it now. So, at least one other bug has been fixed in this release!

I would say that if you don't use poterm, you shouldn't be afraid of installing this upgrade.