PRS-650 Zoom-in mode killer problem

[sahbi]

Dear all
What options do I have to get the following functionality in my PRS-650 while reading PDFs like so:
- landscape mode
- text with S fonts(no reflow)
- zoomed in 'till margin are completely away
now this is fine, after reading the text on the display the only possibilty I have to access the next portion of text is to:
1- touch the "Unlock" button on the upper right corner
2- now comes the screen with the the scrollbar, touch the down arrow
3- touch the "Lock" button on the upper corner again
so this is real annoying, and if I want to turn the page, I have to execute like a five steps thing and that's a killer, so assuming I exclude all solutions to convert my PDFs, how can I execute a swipe and I'm on the next portion of text (and this is how it should be)while I'm in zoom-in mode.
Any suggestion is welcome (no matter the difficulty level) I'm willing to do it, Thank you.

[quisvir]

PRS+ gives you the option of panning while in zoomlock mode, so you can drag the page. Another option is to use briss to remove the margins from the pdf. You can then read more comfortably in landscape mode without zooming, or in a '1 column split' in portrait mode (with the next version of PRS+).

Lastly, your post should probably be moved to the 'regular' Sony Reader section; this is the developer section

[Rizla]

Prs+ is a must have for handling pdf's.

[sahbi]

Thanks for the replies.
@quisvir
You can guess(if you read my post twice)that if I posted here means that I'm addressing the developers folks.
In my post I said that I'm excluding all conversion solutions, and this for good reason, if you manipulate any of the [Crop|Media|Trim|Bleed]Box on a pdf with any tools out there (from briss to Adobe acrobat pro, passing by some ghostscript tools)you are loosing informations(Bookmarks, toc, etc...) and the PSR-650 will not render it as on a pc, all in all you will get the same view with some black boxes on the right and left.Useless to say that I already tested that from the simple tools until "refrying" the PDFs with Distiller, with the same disappointing results.
Maybe I must say that I'm willing to read my "Programming" ebooks on the PRS-650, and that's why I don't want any reflow, so the pages must keep their orignal state, for clarity.
@Rizla
Now about PRS+, panning is not a solution, can PRS+ do the following for me:
- while in zoom-in mode, when I swipe the page, get me to the next portion of text in the current/next page and render the page with the same zoom-in amount while keeping the same position right and left.

[quisvir]

sahbi:
I can only speak from my own experience, which is that briss at least retains a pdf TOC (I don't use pdf features other than that). In combination with a 1-column split, I find pdf's perfectly readable.

The feature you talk about is not currently in PRS+, and I'm afraid it's not planned for a future version either. If you would like to see it added, you can post a feature request here. If you're interested in coding it, I'd be happy to give you some pointers to get you started.

[sahbi]

@quisvir
I think from all the posts on this and other forums, everyone is having troubles reading PDFs, and though the proliferation of useless(for the PRS-650) cropping software it would be nice for all PRS-x50 users if one could implement the described functionality, I think this will resume in adding this capability to the piece of software responsible for the rendering of the pdf files(.so file maybe). As you are a contributor you surely know it already, I have no idea how is PRS+ implemented, is this a kind of LFS for eReader or there are some dlls as layer to call the sony thing?Please Can you enlighten me.

[quisvir]

PDFs will always be difficult for any device with a limited screen size. Note that the 1-column split feature is new to PRS+ (the coming release is the first that offers it), and it mimics the behaviour you're talking about - although it does require margin removal beforehand.

PRS+ is mostly Javascript; you can find the source here. In essence it is loaded on top of the existing firmware.

Personally, I would say these are the major obstacles in coding the feature you describe:
- It requires keeping track of where a user is on a page in zoom lock, which is quite hard. And although it might seem obvious to have a 'top part' and a 'bottom part', if there are margins at the top and bottom, that's not so obvious anymore (coordinate-wise). Also, the sony code that is responsible for these things is quite hard to understand.
- If the user is continously reading in zoomlock mode, presumably the zoom lock buttons are covering part of the page, so we'd have to remove those (not easy). Then of course, the question is how to get out of zoomlock.
- Lastly, it would involve overruling page turn behaviour but only under certain conditions. This would actually be the easiest part.

So in all, I doubt it's worth all the effort...

[sahbi]

At first sight I think the developer by Sony have implemented
the Zoom-in mode in a manner that they take a screenshot
and diplay it, that's why selecting text is not working in zoom-in mode.
My first thoughts were to locate the lib or exec responsible of
rendering the pdf, to dump the export/import tables and all the stuff
and redirect the call of interest to do the lacking functionality someone needs inside
another selfmade lib we can add to the firmware. But as you said
maybe it's too much work, to get this done. So I think I will have to live
with those annoying navigation problems.Thanks anyway.

[quisvir]

I decided to take another look at this, after I found myself reading a pdf in zoomlock mode and having the pan to the top after every page turn. It turns out, it's actually very easy to have it move to coordinates 0,0 after a page turn. This doesn't take margins into account of course, but at least the new position is a lot closer to where I want to be than otherwise (especially when viewing large pages with a high zoom factor). Since it won't be added to prs+ until after the coming version, here's the bit of code. You can add it to the body of ViewerSettings_x50.js, and then make a custom build.

Fskin.kbookZoomOverlay.doNext = function () {
	this.getModel().doNext();
	if (this.isZoomLock) kbook.model.doSomething('scrollTo', 0, 0);
}

Hope this helps alleviate some of the annoyance

[Mark Nord]

Originally Posted by quisvir

.... Since it won't be added to prs+ until after the coming version, ..

Hi quisvir,

why not employ your clone-repository for all your new enhancements, not going into 2.0.15? (Last modification was 24. Sept. 2011)

Regards
Mark

[quisvir]

Hi Mark,

Basically because I made a bit of a file mess locally, making a lot of changes and doing a lot of testing (without doing any commits). So after v15, I'm going to step by step commit to main whatever code is approved, and then merge (i.e. overwrite most of) my clone. Then I'll have a clean slate to start doing normal commits to my clone again.