12-30-2012, 10:02 AM | #376 |
pokrývač kridiel
Posts: 1,525
Karma: 3300000
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Bratislava, Slovakia
Device: 3*iPad, SamsungNote & Tabs, 2*OnyxBoox, Huawei 8″, PocketBook
|
Massive update! Can't wait. Almost deserving of a Version 2 designaton rather than 1.2.
(The only thing I'd miss after this one goes live is that inability to compare the relative length of books among each other. It's always a mystery, whenever I start reading a new book in Marvin, trying to figure out how long that book is going to be. Difficult to estimate the reading time required for a particular book if you have no idea how long any book really is. This destroys a bit the electronic "metaphor" relative to the world of paper books where all you need is to take a look at any book made of paper to get a rough idea of its demands in terms of reading time. Is it a slim novel like Conrad's Heart of Darkness? Or just a short story/novelette like Kafkas's Verwandlung? Or a mammoth like Tolstoy's War and Peace? A booklet of several pages' length? There's currently no easy way to tell them apart in Marvin.) |
12-30-2012, 10:04 AM | #377 |
Addict
Posts: 1,215
Karma: 1836966
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Malta, Europe
Device: Marvin for iOS
|
Faterson, I'm working on that and almost nailed it. It probably won't make into 1.2 but in the following one.
|
12-30-2012, 10:05 AM | #378 |
pokrývač kridiel
Posts: 1,525
Karma: 3300000
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Bratislava, Slovakia
Device: 3*iPad, SamsungNote & Tabs, 2*OnyxBoox, Huawei 8″, PocketBook
|
|
12-30-2012, 11:01 AM | #379 |
Zealot
Posts: 115
Karma: 260
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Suffolk, England
Device: sony prs505, kindle, ithing
|
Hi Kris - thank you for all the work you've done on Marvin. It looks really good and I'm looking forward to discovering the good things in the next update.
I'm one of e people who keeps my Calibre library in Dropbox. I know what I see is limited to 1000 books, but I'm puzzled about how the most recent are selected. I can only see a few of the books I have uploaded in the past week (It's difficult to check back further). I upload through Calibre, removing DRM, and then convert everything to epub. Do you have any idea what I've done so that I can't see all of them? Are you planning access to OPDS2 catalogs in the future? I know everybody has their favourite Stanza feature, and accessing my books via my own catalog kept in the public folder of my Dropbox folder was mine. Great work. |
12-30-2012, 11:09 AM | #380 |
Addict
Posts: 1,215
Karma: 1836966
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Malta, Europe
Device: Marvin for iOS
|
Hello Rachel. I cannot find a way to ask Dropbox to give me the 1000 most recent files. Dropbox just gives me the first 1000 ePubs it finds and they are sorted afterwards by Marvin. I'm afraid I have no control on it. In the next update you'll be able to selectively pick which Dropbox folder to get books from (although, I don't think this will help in your particular case).
Yes, the next version supports OPDS catalogs with authentication and search support, as well as a built-in web browser designed to download ePubs straight into Marvin. You can also access you Calibre library from it. |
12-30-2012, 12:45 PM | #381 | |
Wizard
Posts: 1,674
Karma: 3111989
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Jianghu
Device: PW1, PW5, iPhone SE 2016, iPhone 13 Pro, iPad Pro 9.7, iPad Pro 2021
|
Quote:
|
|
12-30-2012, 01:27 PM | #382 |
pokrývač kridiel
Posts: 1,525
Karma: 3300000
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Bratislava, Slovakia
Device: 3*iPad, SamsungNote & Tabs, 2*OnyxBoox, Huawei 8″, PocketBook
|
Very superfical, slap-dash assessment of iOS e-readers by DearAuthor, whoever that is. Sorry, but Bluefire in its thousand+one varieties can't polish Marvin's shoes in terms of quality. Saying it supports DRM-protected EPUBs and PDFs changes nothing about that.
|
12-30-2012, 05:48 PM | #383 |
Connoisseur
Posts: 58
Karma: 29738
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Banstead Surrey England
Device: Ipad Air and Ipad Mini with retina (using Marvin)
|
Interesting!
Tried out Airfile - useful for some situations, not mine. Does not, as far as I can tell, sort by new file, but by new folder, so not useful for the above discussions in my opinion. Agree with Faterson re simplistic review of apps by Dear Author - it's very easy to make professional-sounding pronouncements with little to back them up. |
12-30-2012, 05:55 PM | #384 | |
Wizard
Posts: 1,674
Karma: 3111989
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Jianghu
Device: PW1, PW5, iPhone SE 2016, iPhone 13 Pro, iPad Pro 9.7, iPad Pro 2021
|
Quote:
|
|
12-30-2012, 05:57 PM | #385 | |
Wizard
Posts: 1,674
Karma: 3111989
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Jianghu
Device: PW1, PW5, iPhone SE 2016, iPhone 13 Pro, iPad Pro 9.7, iPad Pro 2021
|
Quote:
|
|
12-30-2012, 06:19 PM | #386 | |
pokrývač kridiel
Posts: 1,525
Karma: 3300000
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Bratislava, Slovakia
Device: 3*iPad, SamsungNote & Tabs, 2*OnyxBoox, Huawei 8″, PocketBook
|
Quote:
The way I see it, if you wish to read DRM-protected EPUB books, Bluefire might be the best out there, but not because it's "better than Marvin" -- it's because Marvin does not compete with Bluefire in that department. When it comes to DRM-free EPUB books, Marvin wipes the floor with Bluefire. You could compare them feature by feature, and Marvin seems a step ahead of Bluefire in each of them. I don't mean to slight Bluefire -- competition is a good thing, and maybe this will inspire Bluefire to try and catch up with Marvin. The biggest difference to me between the two apps, though, has been their "look and feel" -- Marvin seems lightning-fast and fluid, whereas Bluefire strikes me as clunky, jerky, as if it were a struggle for it to display the books. Don't know about you guys, but I've had trouble performing some basic tasks in Bluefire, like tapping & holding a word and drawing the right and left selection markers to their desired positions. But, I'm perfectly willing to give Bluefire (as well as MegaReader, etc.) another try in future. Like I say, competition is a good thing. The more these apps compete among each other, the more us readers are going to profit. And it's slightly comical to observe the behemoths of iBooks and the Kindle app in their lethargy and utter complacency -- it's as if they weren't interested in competition at all, so sure they are of their position, and so happy about their mediocrity. |
|
12-30-2012, 06:43 PM | #387 | |
Wizard
Posts: 1,674
Karma: 3111989
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Jianghu
Device: PW1, PW5, iPhone SE 2016, iPhone 13 Pro, iPad Pro 9.7, iPad Pro 2021
|
Quote:
And I agree about Bluefire feeling "clunky, jerky,"; I never use it and only keep it around as a 'just in case' measure, should I ever need it for DRMed ePubs, though I liberate all my books, whatever format they come in. I used to use iBooks for ePubs but Marvin has kicked that to the curb |
|
12-30-2012, 08:59 PM | #388 |
pokrývač kridiel
Posts: 1,525
Karma: 3300000
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Bratislava, Slovakia
Device: 3*iPad, SamsungNote & Tabs, 2*OnyxBoox, Huawei 8″, PocketBook
|
Feature suggestions:
Last edited by Faterson; 12-30-2012 at 09:05 PM. |
12-31-2012, 03:35 AM | #389 |
Addict
Posts: 1,215
Karma: 1836966
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Malta, Europe
Device: Marvin for iOS
|
Hi Fatersion. Regarding point 1, it already does that. Could you double check?
The other points are very valid and I added them to the to do list. Thanks. |
12-31-2012, 04:24 AM | #390 |
pokrývač kridiel
Posts: 1,525
Karma: 3300000
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Bratislava, Slovakia
Device: 3*iPad, SamsungNote & Tabs, 2*OnyxBoox, Huawei 8″, PocketBook
|
You're right, Kris, I apologize. "Smart-snapping" works 100% correctly.
(I must have inadvertently switched over to the 5-page flip while testing this, which exhibits the other behaviour, which is correct as well.) |
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
iPad users: Meet Marvin, an iOS ePub reader | GRiker | Devices | 4 | 06-20-2013 10:16 AM |
Workflows to use Calibre with iOS Apps: Good Reader-PDFs, Marvin-epub, Kindle-mobi? | crashnburn | Calibre | 4 | 06-14-2013 04:49 PM |
Calibre metadata not seen by Marvin on iPad | bubbas45 | Apple Devices | 13 | 06-10-2013 09:19 PM |
Best Epub reader for Ipad 2 ? | JPS | Apple Devices | 39 | 07-27-2012 03:55 AM |
Best 2-up landscape ePub reader for ipad | provis | Apple Devices | 5 | 11-06-2011 12:09 AM |