Feedbooks.com: Beta released

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by RWood

If there can be only one choice for the Sony -- all bold or select words bold -- I favor select words bold. Pump up the font size if needed; but, retain the ability to make some words bold and other not. All bold is hard for me to read for more than a page or two. (It is a lot like all caps or shouting, fine for a moment but not a whole book.)

Currently we use something similar to BBCode in our database for bold ([ b ] and [/ b ]). We'll never do something such as full bold books for the templates that are available and cached but we might add it as an option for custom PDF files.

Originally Posted by LockeCole

Wow, this site is great. I finished adding my first book, very easy. My only suggestion would be to allow for adding things further up the list. For example, if you forget a chapter, you have to remove all of the chapters you added after that one to fix it. Some way to choose where to place a chapter/part/etc would be helpful.

I also had a problem adding text.For example, I had finished a chapter, clicked ok, it was saving. I moved on after it was taking a while and when I checked a few chapters later, it was still 'saving'. I had that happen once. I don't think I did anything different then I did before or after that. It may have just been a net error of some sort, but I thought I'd mention it regardless.

I love the site and plan to help build it up as much as I can. Thank you so much for this service.

Locke

You did a great job with these 3 books, I just previewed them and now they're available to everyone.
I'm not satisfied too by the interface for the editing, although all this Ajax/Prototype makes it more intuitive than most websites filled with forms, I believe that we can really improve the whole thing, make it better looking and a bit more user friendly.
As for the order of those elements, a bit of drag & drop may do the trick...
We're trying not to add too many clickable elements on this page and rely instead on BBcode like features for more advances usage (I'll post a full list of these later...).
Well, I'm glad you loved the website overall, we'll be adding more and more features in the coming weeks/months.

[LockeCole]

Oh, another suggestion, being able to find authors with partial matches or different order matches.

For example, if I search for Frank Baum, Baum Frank, Lyman Frank Baum, or even Baum Lyman Frank, I get a negative match. If it doesn't match exactly, including punctuation, (in this case Baum, Lyman Frank) it claims the author isn't yet in your library. It'd be helpful to search Baum and get a selection page with all people with Baum somewhere in their name.

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by LockeCole

Oh, another suggestion, being able to find authors with partial matches or different order matches.

For example, if I search for Frank Baum, Baum Frank, Lyman Frank Baum, or even Baum Lyman Frank, I get a negative match. If it doesn't match exactly, including punctuation, (in this case Baum, Lyman Frank) it claims the author isn't yet in your library. It'd be helpful to search Baum and get a selection page with all people with Baum somewhere in their name.

Well the search itself is pretty advance stuff but it needs some tuning (you can already do google-like searches, for example if you want a book in french you can use language:fr, you can use double quotes for exact matches etc...).

I guess you're talking about the process of adding a book right ? In this case it's not a real search, just a LIKE query on the sql, but it's an autocomplete form. You don't need to write everything, just type in Baum or Frank and it'll pop up with a list of names, just click on the right one and it'll be OK. It's the same thing when you edit the book with the "types", an autocomplete form.

[LockeCole]

Funny, it doesn't do that on my end at all. Perhaps that's because I'm using Opera, I'll try Firefox and IE and get back to you.

[LockeCole]

Ok, I just noticed, it DOES do it on Opera, but for whatever weird reason the box with the names pops up in the top left corner of the browser. I assume it's Opera's fault more than the coding of the page.

[LockeCole]

Yeah, it works just fine with Firefox and IE.

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by LockeCole

Funny, it doesn't do that on my end at all. Perhaps that's because I'm using Opera, I'll try Firefox and IE and get back to you.

Yes, we tested the whole thing mostly with Firefox and IE (had a tough time with IE). I'll add a message and an activity indicator, this way it'll be more obvious that the field is an autocomplete one.

[LockeCole]

Sorry to bug you again. I hope I don't end up becoming a nag.

I'm trying to add a book that is in parts, Part 1 had chapters 1-7, Part 2 resets the chapters (1-12).

However, when I click chapter under part 2, it starts at Chapter 8.
I've tried leaving the page and coming back(I've found it solves some glitches I ran into before). However, that doesn't help at all, no matter what I try it keeps coming up Chapter 8.

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by LockeCole

Sorry to bug you again. I hope I don't end up becoming a nag.

I'm trying to add a book that is in parts, Part 1 had chapters 1-7, Part 2 resets the chapters (1-12).

However, when I click chapter under part 2, it starts at Chapter 8.
I've tried leaving the page and coming back(I've found it solves some glitches I ran into before). However, that doesn't help at all, no matter what I try it keeps coming up Chapter 8.

Yeah I know about this one too, got to find a way to correct it. Actually when you'll generate the PDF, it'll be Chapter 1 and not Chapter 8 so it's just a glitch with the display when editing, not with the database or the PDF generated in the end.

[Hadrien]

Updated a few things:

- Corrected the bug with editing, if you add a chapter to a new part, it'll be "Chapter 1"
- Added a full page with top downloaded books/authors (100 of them). You can use filters to select different languages/periods. Quite usefull for the types too, let's say you're browsing "Science Fiction", well, just click on the "Top Downloads" and you'll get top downloads for science fiction: http://www.feedbooks.com/discover/to...searchby=books
- Same thing for "Recently Added"

I'm still lacking enough feedback on what the font and font size for the Sony & iLiad templates should be. I'll make a new sample for these too, showing bbcodes and foreign languages in it too (russian, japanese and chinese).

[LockeCole]

Originally Posted by Hadrien

I'm still lacking enough feedback on what the font and font size for the Sony & iLiad templates should be. I'll make a new sample for these too, showing bbcodes and foreign languages in it too (russian, japanese and chinese).

IMO, the files for the Sony Reader have the font a bit too big. However, I find the illiad font size to be just right for me, so I don't much mind, I just use those files instead.

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by LockeCole

IMO, the files for the Sony Reader have the font a bit too big. However, I find the illiad font size to be just right for me, so I don't much mind, I just use those files instead.

Not the best choice. In this case you should edit your Custom PDFs settings. This way it'll be the right size (90x120mm) and you can select another font size.

[Strether]

I downloaded Austen's Pride and Prejudice to the Reader and noticed that the size function on the Reader is disabled. Something about PDF that causes that? It reads OK, but I admit I would have bumped it up a level if I'd been able. Formatting is wonderful, though.

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by Strether

I downloaded Austen's Pride and Prejudice to the Reader and noticed that the size function on the Reader is disabled. Something about PDF that causes that? It reads OK, but I admit I would have bumped it up a level if I'd been able. Formatting is wonderful, though.

PDF is a per-page format, that's why you can't change the size with the button. Since we generate these files on the fly, you can easily use the custom size PDF option and select a larger font or even another one.

[Strether]

Hadrien, excuse my ignorance. I think I changed both the size and font on the download, but I'm not sure. Is there a way of looking at the downloaded PDF file on the desktop and finding out what the font name and size are? Looked under Properties, but it's not there. Am used to dealing with Word, which always displays both prominently.