What would you like to see in a firmware update?

[brudigia]

Originally Posted by HarryT

LIT appears to be something of a "de facto" standard on the "dodgy eBooks" Usenet Newsgroups; that's the only reason I can think of that people may want it. As you say, though, it's trivially convertable to mobi, so there's really no issue either way.

I have been reading ebooks for close to 8 years, first on PDAs and now on the Cybook.
With respect to the PDAs, I have loaded on my Axim all of the readers available, and for no particular reason I can point to, I keep going back to the MSReader. Might be the ClearType fonts (because I recognise that everything else is horrible and truly basic with MSReader, from the background color, which you cannot change to the primitive facilities of searching and I could go on and on), might be some imponderable, (it was after all my first reader, embedded in my first HP PDA) but that is my preference, at least on PDA.
I have therefore a lot of books in that format, some of which I still consult and which I am happy to let go or have the time to convert to prc.

Of course one can convert any format to any other format (DRM allowing), but it takes time and may not be as easy as it seems to do it right, what with front page, other images, etc, etc.

If I take the reasoning to the extreme, I could use have one format only supported by my ebook reader, as long as I have the tools to convert any other format to this one. But it does not seem to me to be a good thing, from the commercial point of view.

That is why I think that the more formats are supported, the better. Look at BeBook support. I do not know whether the formats they support are actually well supported, the forums are not clear on that, but the number of supported formats is really big, almost nothing is left out.
This is not to complain about my Cybook, I am more than happy with it, but can one not hope for it to become better ?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

LIT appears to be something of a "de facto" standard on the "dodgy eBooks" Usenet Newsgroups; that's the only reason I can think of that people may want it. As you say, though, it's trivially convertable to mobi, so there's really no issue either way.

Well, it is not trivial to convert any lit file to mobi. Often they have done strange things with the html code so it will be hard to read if you do not fix it first.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tompe

Well, it is not trivial to convert any lit file to mobi. Often they have done strange things with the html code so it will be hard to read if you do not fix it first.

Yes, I've come across a couple like that myself. One example had lots of footnotes, with each footnote in a separate file. They displayed "sequentially" in the LIT version, but one to a page in the Mobi, which didn't look very good. That's the exception, though; most books seem to convert very well.

[DDHarriman]

Great news pdurrant! Thanks!

Now besides Pdf reflow do they say anything about ePub? (even if not in short term…)

Best regards,

[pdurrant]

I've reported all the news I got.

I'm sure (but without any inside knowledge) that they have plans for ePub support, but I think it's a complex job to support it properly, even without supporting DRM variations of it.

Originally Posted by DDHarriman

Great news pdurrant! Thanks!

Now besides Pdf reflow do they say anything about ePub? (even if not in short term…)

Best regards,

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I've reported all the news I got.

I'm sure (but without any inside knowledge) that they have plans for ePub support, but I think it's a complex job to support it properly, even without supporting DRM variations of it.

It's highly unlikely they'd be able to support the DRM version of it. It's well-known that Mobi insist on "DRM exclusivity" on the devices that they license the Mobi Reader to.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by brudigia

That is why I think that the more formats are supported, the better. Look at BeBook support. I do not know whether the formats they support are actually well supported, the forums are not clear on that, but the number of supported formats is really big, almost nothing is left out.

Personally I'd rather have a small number of formats which are well supported, rather than a large number poorly supported. Yes, the BeBook supports more formats than the Gen3, but both its PDF and MobiPocket implementations are, from the reports of users, significantly poorer than those of the CyBook. Eg, the MobiPocket implementation on the BeBook doesn't support dictionary lookup, and you can't load your own fonts onto the device.

That may change in the future, of course, but that's the way it is currently.

[brudigia]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Ah, yes, I see what you're saying.

Metadata for the book are contained within the book itself (ie in the .prc or .mobi file). You are correct in saying that in the Windows Desktop MobiPocket Reader you can make local changes and those changes are stored in the ".mpb" file for the book, and they don't get transferred to the CyBook.

However, MR user "tompe" has written a VERY easy-to-use tool called "Mobi2mobi" which allows you to very easily edit the metadata of a MobiPocket book, and such changes WILL show up on the Gen3.

I found the time to try it. It works beautifully. Thanks a lot.

[leequick1]

I guess, that I probably am in the group of people who read "a lot", my purchased ebooks are somewhere around 800 plus. Most are in the ereader or mobipocket version, about 75 or so are in the RB format. If I go to any reader other than my palm or my cybook I will only choose one that can do either or both formats (ereader or mobipocket). That is why I really hope that the bookeen company finds a way to get the ereader on the cybook. Is there another reader out there that does do both or is the palm pda the only device that does both.
I think the idea of making a wish list is good, but only if the company is looking at what we are saying and pays attention to anyone who comes up with another reader that does more than the cybook does. I am one of the owners with the funds to go out and get another like the Iliad or any another if it does this stuff better. I would prefer to stick to the bookeen because it is light and I love the size, it mixes well with the mac and I now have enough of the correct sized purses to toss it into.
lee

[slayda]

Faster bootup.