[Archived] Marvin ePub reader for iPad

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by holymadness

Kris,

Not all feedback in this thread is equal. Do what's right for your vision of what a superior reading product should be, whether or not it responds to the whims of every critic.

People who say your product is unusable may not be the best givers of advice.

The thing to do is to ask for an explanation of why something is important if you don't see it as such and then maybe it will be more important then it first looked.

[ssholloway]

Originally Posted by kguil

Following many requests, I added a small (but hopefully) useful feature for the next version. You can now use a gesture to quickly cycle through themes without going into the menu.

Many thanks. I was going to suggest something like this once the latest release was ready since I didn't want to overwhelm you with requests before then.

[Faterson]

Originally Posted by kguil

OK. I'll let the cat out of the bag. Marvin is coming in pink (but no hello kitty). Really.

More colour options for the app itself are a great idea! Although red is my favourite colour, I prefer a darker shade of red, not the light-red variety that Marvin currently uses, which reminds me of the old Soviet flag, and that was one tough era in my part of Europe. Hopefully a darker shade of red will be available, although this is the least important feature I can think of.

On a related note: when you read a book in "Night Mode" (light-on-dark) and switch over to the TOC or highlights listing, the page fairly blinds you because it's always black-on-white. It would be nice if the style of those TOC and bookmarks and highlights pages approximated whatever style is currently activated in Marvin. If the book itself is light-on-dark, then let those TOC and highlight pages be light-on-dark, too. Again, a none-too-important feature, but nice-to-have.

[eVeNtInE]

Does this support translation? I'm currently thinking of buying an iPad as it seems to have the best range/likelihood of getting an ereader with adequate translation ability – it seems no single ereading app or programme currently incorporates this properly.

What I mean by translation is that you could tap on a word, click translate and then the word would be translated by Google Translate or WordReference. It's obviously possible to do this via going to the site's page, but WordReference has a search engine that you can incorporate into your web browser address bar, so if I type enfr: <word> for example, then I'll automatically be brought to the definition. Perhaps the app would be able to do that automatically.

This is genuinely the most frustrating thing about ebook readers and apps at the moment. They could be perfect for reading foreign texts if this was properly incorporated, but nobody seems to be doing it. I'd genuinely pay like 20euro for the app if I could find one that does this, and I really think that if someone incorporated it, they'd be able to get a huge following among people who want to read foreign texts, but aren't at the level where they can use a foreign dictionary as an adequate way to translate. I'd definitely recommend it to a tonne of people.

[JSWolf]

How does one get to the ToC?

[eVeNtInE]

Does this have a proper translate function?

As in, can it use Google Translate or WordReference to translate via a tap? If not, I'd definitely definitely recommend trying to incorporate that. It's genuinely the most frustrating thing about ereaders at the moment for me, that they don't properly utilise the web translation services available to them.

I'm considering buying an iPad at the moment just because it seems the most likely platform to find an app that might eventually incorporate them. I wouldn't really be interested in many apps, but I'd definitely pay like 20euro if I could find one that did just that one thing. I think a lot of people would be really interested in it too, because foreign dictionaries are only really useful for people at a high enough level already, and even as a college student in a language, I find them a right pain to use. I'd definitely recommend it to a lot of people.

As regards implementation, you could try implement them directly, or if that's not possible due to licencing etc...I know WordReference has a search engine script that you can incorporate into your browser, so if you type fr:en <word> into your address bar for example, you'd automatically be directed to the page with the english translation of a french word. Maybe that could be used in some way?

There's literally no feature I want more out of an ereader than that. Paragraphs, spacing, all that can be unattractive if I could just have that one thing. And I think it'd be a hugely popular feature too.

[Faterson]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

How does one get to the ToC?

Second icon to the left at the top of your screen. (Next to the "Home" icon.)

Once there, you can switch between the ToC, the list of bookmarks, and the list of highlights/notes.

You can also export all your highlights and notes into an XHTML file with a single tap of your finger, and starting from the upcoming Version 1.2, you'll also be able to import bookmarks/highlights/notes back into Marvin -- your own bookmarks/highlights/notes, or anyone else's. That's Marvin's no. 1 killer feature for me; I know of no other iOS app that can do this!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Faterson

Second icon to the left at the top of your screen. (Next to the "Home" icon.)

Once there, you can switch between the ToC, the list of bookmarks, and the list of highlights/notes.

You can also export all your highlights and notes into an XHTML file with a single tap of your finger, and starting from the upcoming Version 1.2, you'll also be able to import bookmarks/highlights/notes back into Marvin -- your own bookmarks/highlights/notes, or anyone else's. That's Marvin's no. 1 killer feature for me; I know of no other iOS app that can do this!

Thank you. With the ToC showing sections instead of the actual ToC, I was able to see that I need to fix the toc.ncx file to add in a few entries.

[Faterson]

eVeNtInE, look at the previous pages of this thread, and you'll see we've already discussed the translation features for Marvin in some detail. Kris said he'll likely incorporate a dedicated button to take you to the Wictionary translation of the word, and another button to launch a 3rd-party, external dictionary app from within Marvin. I recommend the Lingvo app to you -- it features lots of top-quality dictionaries, from top publishers like Collins, both definition dictionaries and translation dictionaries for many language pairs.

WordReference could be something for Kris to look at, in addition to Wictionary.

We haven't mentioned Google Translate so far, but actually that's a great idea. Maybe Kris can come up with yet another (dedicated but optional) button for Google Translate within Marvin. Although the quality of translation, especially of entire sentences, tends to be very poor in Google Translate, the service can actually be useful for getting a (very) rough idea of what a stretch of foreign-language text says.

[Faterson]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

the ToC showing sections instead of the actual ToC

Right. The ability, in Marvin, to switch between the actual ToC and the list of sections, is another awesome Marvin feature that I've encountered nowhere else in this clarity. In Marvin, you can reasonably navigate even within such EPUBs whose ToC are non-existent or messed up, thanks to the sections list.

[eVeNtInE]

Yeah, I just saw the previous mentions alright, but Google Translate (and WordReference, especially wordreference) would be very very useful, so hopefully my post was at least useful in suggesting those .

[kguil]

@ssholloway Yes. I added theme cycling with gestures yesterday following a number of email requests. It's awesome.

@Faterson The themes are something extra that people will be able to purchase if they want to support the app. I hope to be able to keep Marvin free otherwise. I'd rather have this than a donate button as suggested earlier.

I'll look into extra colours.

You are right about the ToC etc... blinding in night mode. I'll fix this.

@eVeNtInE The version after 1.2 will support something even better than translate and Wiktionary. You'll be able to create your own button with custom behaviour including access to external dictionary apps if they have a custom URL scheme (more on this later).

[Philantrop]

Kris, if I may suggest one thing: Do not got with In-App purchases (IAP).

In reviews in popular tools like AppZapp & others, IAP lead to at least a slightly negative mention. Furthermore, in many comments on apps in the AppStore, you'll find people complain about IAP.

Personally, I don't like IAP either. I actually look at apps to see if they have IAP and try to avoid them. Even though *I* know how to look for them, a lot of people don't. E. g. my kids don't and we've had it happen several times that they were severely disappointed. Even my wife fell for such apps a few times and didn't take that too well. :)
It's a bit like hidden costs - just annoying and it diminishes the enjoyment of an app and tarnishes its reputation.

I rather know up-front about the cost, pay once and am done with it and I think I'm not the only one. Thus, I'd suggest to think about this issue a bit more and come up with a price for the app that suits you.
(Oh, and people claiming they'd pay a very-high-price-compared-to-the-average-for-iOS-apps are usually those who eventually don't buy at all. ;) )

Looking at the competition, most ebook readers for iOS are free, yes, but those who do have a fixed price or feature IAP to make them usable, average at a sum of EUR 2,87. (You can verify that using the Wikipedia comparison, as usual. :) )
Consequently, *I* would look at tier 3 or 4.

*If* you really want to go the IAP way, I'd suggest to go what I like to call the "Jasmine way". Jasmine, a popular YouTube client, does have *one* non-annoying IAP that enables parental controls, a rather non-essential function according to many reviews. In the GUI, the author clearly states that this is basically both an IAP as well as a "Donate" button to support further development. While I still don't like IAP, this is at least more transparent and honest than most IAP. While we don't need parental controls (my wife and I are most likely more efficient at that ;) ), I bought that IAP, knowing I'd support that guy. The same would be true for Marvin and you. (I'd still not go that way if I were you, though. :) )

Of course, all of the above is rather subjective but based upon prior experience and observation of the AppStore since it opened. In the end, it's entirely your decision, of course, and from your interactions in this thread, I trust you're going to make a good decision either way but I wanted to speak to speak my mind about this.

[kguil]

Hi Philantrop,

Thanks for the interesting take on IAP.

For the record, I do not intend to hide any feature or functionality behind IAP. All of Marvin's features, even the major ones, are and will remain free.

The idea was to have a tiny piece of non-essential, totally capricious, functionality that people could go for to support development. It is pretty much like the "Jasmine" model you're referring to. There wouldn't be any nag screens or message boxes popping up either.

I'll collect some other feedback and make up my mind. Any other opinions?

[Philantrop]

"interesting take on <something>" - that's what I say when my colleagues come up with a totally ridiculous point of view, too... ;-)
(Of course, this doesn't ever apply to any of *my* ideas/beliefs! )