Windows Phone & Freda+ thoughts

[Jessica Lares]

I've had a Nokia Lumia 520 for a little over a month now and thought I'd share some opinions on it.

The OS itself is very nice for my impaired eyesight. (Probably mentioned it before here, but I'm totally blind in my left eye and legally blind in the other.) Big fonts, big keyboard, and generally just a lot of big text. Not crazy big, but big enough to make it enjoyable to use further away from your face compared to most phones.

The screen is pretty good too. Much brighter than my MacBook Pro's screen even. The whites look great, and you get a really nice vivid color.

I'm using Freda+ as my choice of ebook reader app. The customization is great. You can do it right to the RGB numbers, aswell as set the margins and line spacing. The best part is that you can save all your settings as different presets and change to them very easily within the book you're currently reading.

Works with Dropbox, SkyDrive (what I'm using), and Calibre.

My screenshots don't do it any justice. But anyway, I'm enjoying it and thought I'd pass it on.

[Jim Chapman]

Glad you like the app!

You may be interested to know that I'm going to be putting out a major update to the app within the next few weeks. Nokia were kind enough to offer me some time with a Microsoft UI design expert, and he gave me all kinds of useful hints. I think the result is a significantly more 'polished' app, in any case.

I'll also be taking the opportunity to migrate the app onto Windows Phone 8 (so far it is still a Windows Phone 7 app, which runs on WP8 in a kind of 'comaptibility' mode). That will mean it's possible to open books directly from web sites and email attachments (and also from the storage card, though I have some more programming to do, to get that working).

I'll post an update on MobileRead at https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=103358 once I've got that new release up and running. And I'll always be glad to receive feedback (in forum, or by email to jim@turnipsoft.co.uk, or via the app's feedback screen, as you prefer).

[Jessica Lares]

WOW, an update for Windows Phone 8! How exciting!

I can't wait to see the results. Still no chance of custom fonts? Will be nice to have the SDcard integration anyway.

Will subscribe to the main thread and look out for it.

Thanks for responding!

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Jessica Lares

WOW, an update for Windows Phone 8! How exciting!

I can't wait to see the results. Still no chance of custom fonts? Will be nice to have the SDcard integration anyway.

Oh, it still can get some nice upgrades, not everything is as I would like it to be but it's still great It was the first app I installed when I got my new 920...

[booklover6]

I just got a Nokia Lumia 520. I tried Freda but didn't see any option to adjust margins. Is that only in the + version? Also couldn't get it to go to landscape.

ETA I found the manual and figured out how to change the settings.

[pencema]

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

Glad you like the app!

You may be interested to know that I'm going to be putting out a major update to the app within the next few weeks. Nokia were kind enough to offer me some time with a Microsoft UI design expert, and he gave me all kinds of useful hints. I think the result is a significantly more 'polished' app, in any case.

I'll also be taking the opportunity to migrate the app onto Windows Phone 8 (so far it is still a Windows Phone 7 app, which runs on WP8 in a kind of 'comaptibility' mode). That will mean it's possible to open books directly from web sites and email attachments (and also from the storage card, though I have some more programming to do, to get that working).

I'll post an update on MobileRead at https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=103358 once I've got that new release up and running. And I'll always be glad to receive feedback (in forum, or by email to jim@turnipsoft.co.uk, or via the app's feedback screen, as you prefer).

Can you make it work this time? Seriously, I recently purchased Freda+ and can't get it to open en e-book. I downloaded the book from my PC using OneDrive (successor to SkyDrive). The book appears on the app page, but won't open.

[Jim Chapman]

Originally Posted by pencema

Can you make it work this time? Seriously, I recently purchased Freda+ and can't get it to open en e-book. I downloaded the book from my PC using OneDrive (successor to SkyDrive). The book appears on the app page, but won't open.

Hi there,

Is there any particular reason why you posted your question here, instead of using the 'email for support' feature on the program? I'd generally recommend using that feature to ask for help, because it will send me information about what version of that program you are running, what OS build you are running it on, and what errors the program has recently logged. Without that information, I can't give you any very specific advice about the SkyDrive/OneDrive problem you are experiencing. I can confirm that the feature does, in general still work. The most common difficultly with getting books from SkyDrive/OneDrive is that the link drops part way through the download, meaning that you end up with a corrupted download, which can't open. The best answer to that is to select 'download again' (for instance, using the tap-and-hold menu from the bookshelf display). But I can't say for sure whether that is the problem in your case.
If you'd care to tap that 'email for support' button, I will see what I can do to help.
Thanks,
Jim

[pencema]

In the program it says Freda is a free reader for reading electronic books. I paid a buck for Freda+, but that's beside the point. It further says that it reads ePub (DRM-free), FB2, HTML and TXT format books. The ones I've downloaded are MOBI format. They show up in the bookshelf, but when I open or try to read them, I get a blank screen with 1/1 at the bottom.

I'll try email for support.
pencema

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

Hi there,

Is there any particular reason why you posted your question here, instead of using the 'email for support' feature on the program? I'd generally recommend using that feature to ask for help, because it will send me information about what version of that program you are running, what OS build you are running it on, and what errors the program has recently logged. Without that information, I can't give you any very specific advice about the SkyDrive/OneDrive problem you are experiencing. I can confirm that the feature does, in general still work. The most common difficultly with getting books from SkyDrive/OneDrive is that the link drops part way through the download, meaning that you end up with a corrupted download, which can't open. The best answer to that is to select 'download again' (for instance, using the tap-and-hold menu from the bookshelf display). But I can't say for sure whether that is the problem in your case.
If you'd care to tap that 'email for support' button, I will see what I can do to help.
Thanks,
Jim

[robko]

Originally Posted by pencema

In the program it says Freda is a free reader for reading electronic books. I paid a buck for Freda+, but that's beside the point. It further says that it reads ePub (DRM-free), FB2, HTML and TXT format books. The ones I've downloaded are MOBI format. They show up in the bookshelf, but when I open or try to read them, I get a blank screen with 1/1 at the bottom.

I'll try email for support.
pencema

Umm, seriously, based on what you've posted MOBI is not listed as a supported format so I think you owe the developer an apology for claiming he needs to fix the program because it doesn't work. If you'd like them to add support is one thing, but claiming it doesn't work because you can't open an unsupported format is a stretch.