BeBook Question

[jwsheets]

I have a BeBook. I am running Windows XP om my PC. Will OpenInkpot work with my set up? ANd if so, where would I get it?

Thanks

[wallcraft]

Yes. All Hanlin V3s, including the BeBook, are supported. See OpenInkpot 0.2 Installation Guide.

Currently, OpenInkPot does not export your BeBook's filesystems over USB, like all other ebook firmwares do. In order to get ebooks onto the device, you can either use an external SD card reader or implement SSH access. SSH has been tricky to get going under Windows.

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

Yes. All Hanlin V3s, including the BeBook, are supported. See OpenInkpot 0.2 Installation Guide.

Currently, OpenInkPot does not export your BeBook's filesystems over USB, like all other ebook firmwares do. In order to get ebooks onto the device, you can either use an external SD card reader or implement SSH access. SSH has been tricky to get going under Windows.

All that you say is very true, but (you knew there had to be a 'but') I think that some of us have had very good results using WinSCP to transfer books from a WinXP PC to OpenInkpot. Since it is a GUI, it is very easy to use if you know where to store your books in the OI filesystem. The storage location is /mnt/storage

[Frankr]

I love the OpenInkpot firmware. They are doing a great job. I have the bebook and I add or delete books by using the sd card in a card reader. It only takes a few second to remove the card, use a usb card reader and do what I need to. Thank You OpenInkpot Team.

[ascherjim]

Originally Posted by Frankr

I love the OpenInkpot firmware. They are doing a great job. I have the bebook and I add or delete books by using the sd card in a card reader. It only takes a few second to remove the card, use a usb card reader and do what I need to. Thank You OpenInkpot Team.

But can you satisfactorily manage your author folders in that way (rather than using WinSCP as Dave_S recommends), or don't you use author folders? Or do you just read your titles directly from the card and not load them into main memory?

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by ascherjim

But can you satisfactorily manage your author folders in that way (rather than using WinSCP as Dave_S recommends), or don't you use author folders? Or do you just read your titles directly from the card and not load them into main memory?

Before I learned about WinSCP from some kind person here, I loaded books via the SD into my folder structure with no problem except for the multiple button clicks involved. My folder structure is for book type like FB2, HTML, EPUB, etc, and then Author folders inside those file type folders.

[ascherjim]

Originally Posted by Dave_S

Before I learned about WinSCP from some kind person here, I loaded books via the SD into my folder structure with no problem except for the multiple button clicks involved. My folder structure is for book type like FB2, HTML, EPUB, etc, and then Author folders inside those file type folders.

In most current snapshot (20090903) "Context" menu doesn't seem to provide a cut/copy/move option (that I can discern) within OI to be able to facilitate such moving around of titles within folders. What, if anything, am I missing here?

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by ascherjim

In most current snapshot (20090903) "Context" menu doesn't seem to provide a cut/copy/move option (that I can discern) within OI to be able to facilitate such moving around of titles within folders. What, if anything, am I missing here?

Yes, you are correct that the undocumented snapshots beginning in August of this year do not have the file handler capability. Madshelf was totally revamped when the August snapshots came out, and the filesystem was also changed to jffs2 filesystem. Apparently the file operations will be added back in, but have not been added back in yet.
So it appears that you have jumped ahead of the OpenInkpot snapshot download linked to from the OpenInkpot site's main page. The undocumented snapshots have new features and some missing features compared to the documented snapshot.
If you want OI to work exactly like the documentation describes then you need to go back to the officially released snapshot instead of an undocumented one. Unfortunately, that introduces a complication. The August snapshots modified the storage filesystem to jffs2, and the released snapshot does not support jffs2, and neither do any of the Hanlin clone firmware packages. So, that means to go back you need to reformat the storage filesystem back to FAT16.

[ascherjim]

Originally Posted by Dave_S

Yes, you are correct that the undocumented snapshots beginning in August of this year do not have the file handler capability. Madshelf was totally revamped when the August snapshots came out, and the filesystem was also changed to jffs2 filesystem. Apparently the file operations will be added back in, but have not been added back in yet.
So it appears that you have jumped ahead of the OpenInkpot snapshot download linked to from the OpenInkpot site's main page. The undocumented snapshots have new features and some missing features compared to the documented snapshot.
If you want OI to work exactly like the documentation describes then you need to go back to the officially released snapshot instead of an undocumented one. Unfortunately, that introduces a complication. The August snapshots modified the storage filesystem to jffs2, and the released snapshot does not support jffs2, and neither do any of the Hanlin clone firmware packages. So, that means to go back you need to reformat the storage filesystem back to FAT16.

Fortunately, for me, the WinSCP option (with the benefit of the installation instructions for it I received from Dave_S) works fine for me in moving titles and folders around, so I am not handicapped by use of the latest unofficial OI snapshots which don't yet provide this internal mechanism for doing so. And even if they did, as Dave_S has suggested above, the WinSCP option is arguably preferable (being less cumbersome) than the previous internal OI mechanism for accomplishing this.

[dottedmag]

Copy/move implementation from previous Madshelf version was ugly and quite non obvous (It was copy/cut/paste on files). Does anyone have ideas or maybe a working example of easy to use file operations on such devices?

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by dottedmag

Copy/move implementation from previous Madshelf version was ugly and quite non obvous (It was copy/cut/paste on files). Does anyone have ideas or maybe a working example of easy to use file operations on such devices?

I do not know of working examples, but I can think of ways that the previous method could be implemented in a more convenient way. In the old method when a file was tagged to be moved from the SD card to internal memory, the user had to return focus to the internal memory. The inconvenience was that upon returning focus to the internal memory the user was put back into the root of the file system, and then had to navigate back through the folders to get to the place to copy the SD card file to. It would be much easier, IMHO, if there was some mechanism that preserved the previous focus location when moving back and forth between the SD card file system and the internal file system. It would also be convenient to be able to tag multiple files for movement between the two file systems. I really liked the ability to delete a book when I was finished reading it, so that the file system only contained unread books.

Right now, I am pretty happy with the convenience that WinSCP provides for file manipulations, so I never have an SD card in the SD card slot anymore. I think that there is also equivalent software for Mac users, and I imagine that Linux users may already have functionality like that available to them too.

[cloggy]

As I do not get SSH access working with the Hanlin V3ext (I already opened a ticket for it (OI goes into panic mode as soon as I plug the USB cable)), I'm still using snapshot 20090508. I store the books on my SD card and copy the book I want to read from the SD card to the main storage and once finished, I delete it. I don't have that many problems with the file manipulation options of snapshot 2090508 but if a few more user friendly options can be added, it will be sufficient for most I think.
Example: If I want to copy a book from the SD card to the Hanlin storage, I should get, once I select COPY, the option where to copy to rather than:
1) switching back to the main storage
2) select edit and
3) paste.

..and if you want to copy another book, you have to redo everything..

Maybe a similar structure should be in place to copy a book from storage to SD card...

PS. I'm a bit confused why many of us are able to use SSH to connect to the reader and as many of us don't....think it must be something in the Windows OP system/driver as without the driver installed, it works OK. Without the driver installed, there is no problem but as soon as it is installed, OI goes immediately in panic mode.... Tonight, I'll try to connect the reader to a Windows/7 system..to be continued..

Regards...Dick

[cloggy]

OK, I've found the culprit... BCMWLTRY.EXE..If I suspend this program (using SysInternals' Process Explorer), I can get access to IO using WINSCP, panic mode and I can copy books. I'll add this to my ticket.

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by cloggy

OK, I've found the culprit... BCMWLTRY.EXE..If I suspend this program (using SysInternals' Process Explorer), I can get access to IO using WINSCP, panic mode and I can copy books. I'll add this to my ticket.

http://www.processlibrary.com/directory/files/bcmwltry/

bcmwltry.exe is the tray bar process for the Broadcom Corporation Wireless Network software. This process gives you easy access to the software related the product above and can be removed to free up system resources.

Seems to be unnecessary stuff anyway, so it should be safe to follow the advice above and just delete it.

[cloggy]

Correct. I've removed it, didn't notice any problems with my WiFi connection and the best of all, I now have access to OI using WinSCP. So, for now, I'll stick with today's snapshot...