Freda - ebook reader program for Windows Mobile

[T_Frain_K]

I experienced an "Out of memory" picture complete with an "Sorry: book is too large to load." Error which closes the book i read, if i flip to pages too fast while it is still paginating. (i.e. after i changed color)

While you´re at it, I would like to flip throug pages by sliding my finger horizontally over the screen instead of vertically. But that´s just me dreaming Nevermind. I´ll get used to it

[emai7s2]

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

Thanks for the feedback - very timely because I am building release 1.0 just now, for release over the weekend. So there is just time for a minor tweak to add a couple of larger font sizes.

Hi Jim,

The talk of fonts inspired me load a couple of files in text format that I thought might present a good challenge for Freda. One of the files contained Cyrillic characters (Здравствуйте!), the other Pinyin (e.g., Lǜchá) and Mandarin (e.g. 绿茶).

To my surprise, Freda rendered the Cyrillic quite well. It got about 80% of the Pinyin right, and none of the Mandarin.

Do you think Freda will be able to render all these character sets properly at some point? It's about 75% of the way there already.

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by emai7s2

I don't know if this is the place to ask, but - was it difficult upgrading from WM2003 to WM 6.1? And is it worth the effort?

If yes, maybe you could provide some simplified tips/links on how to do it - I had the impression that the upgrade was a pretty convoluted process.

If you read this thread https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?p=690809, you'll see a bit of my experience with the upgrade (toward the end of the thread).

This page has good information on how to do it, with further links as needed.
http://www.mobilitysite.com/boards/t...-question.html

Was it worth the hassle? I don't have enough experience with it to say--except that the biggest advantage is probably that with the upgrade, you don't lose everything if your battery dies, or if you take too long to do a swap.

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

In terms of colour settings:

What is it that's working 'only up to a point'? The form should let you select any colour combination that Windows Mobile is capable of displaying ... so am I missing something?

I set the color to red text on black. Then I went to tweak it, and no matter what I set it to, it remains at red on black. Custom colors are unavailable, but I don't know if that's a system limitation or the program.

On another matter, did I miss where you can activate page taps for changing pages? I do like to be able to turn that on, but if there's an option for it, I missed it.

[Jim Chapman]

Originally Posted by emai7s2

Hi Jim,

The talk of fonts inspired me load a couple of files in text format that I thought might present a good challenge for Freda. One of the files contained Cyrillic characters (Здравствуйте!), the other Pinyin (e.g., Lǜchá) and Mandarin (e.g. 绿茶).

To my surprise, Freda rendered the Cyrillic quite well. It got about 80% of the Pinyin right, and none of the Mandarin.

Do you think Freda will be able to render all these character sets properly at some point? It's about 75% of the way there already.

Interesting. Freda really just relies on Windows .NetCF to handle character encoding. In the release version (imminent) I give you more options to tweak the encoding, but if the epub file is created with the right encoding information, it shouldn't need tweaking anyway. If your book is encoded in UTF-8 or UTF-16 it should basically work. My code does assume things like:
- words are separated by whitespace characters
- pages are read from top to bottom
- lines are read from left to right; this rule applies both to letters and numbers
I'd be interested in making sure that Freda does properly handle any UTF-8/16 encoded epub for a language that follows these rules (I think Cyrillic, Pinyin and Mandarin do ... whereas Arabic, Hebrew and assorted South-East Asian languages do not). I'm not going to try to deal with all possible ANSI code pages, because (1) most of these code-pages aren't installed on most devices (2) I don't have any devices or images to test them on (3) if you really want to read a book that's been encoded with some funky ANSI variant, you have the option of re-coding it in UTF-8 or -16. Right-to-left languages and languages with unusual definitions of whitespace will have to wait a bit longer (my 'justification' code is already really ugly; my heart sinks at the thought of having to deal with it!).

Anyone with a language they'd like to see working on Freda is invited to send me a sample UTF-8 or UTF-16 epub text and some indication of what it should look like when properly rendered, I will put in some effort on it, once I've got release 1.0 shipped.

Thanks,

Jim

[Jim Chapman]

Originally Posted by starrigger

I set the color to red text on black. Then I went to tweak it, and no matter what I set it to, it remains at red on black. Custom colors are unavailable, but I don't know if that's a system limitation or the program.

Strange - it shouldn't be remaining stuck on red. Can you confirm that when you exit the dialog, you are using the OK soft-key at bottom left? (and not the small 'ok' control at the top right). Bizarrely enough, the Windows NetCF standard behaviour of that 'ok' control is that it does 'Cancel'. This, although it is the OS default, is really hostile; in the release version (watch this space ... maybe tomorrow?) I fix it so that button also does the OK function.

Originally Posted by starrigger

On another matter, did I miss where you can activate page taps for changing pages? I do like to be able to turn that on, but if there's an option for it, I missed it.

There isn't an option for it in the beta test version that you have. The release version will implement the option. It's building now ...

Cheers,

Jim

[Jim Chapman]

Originally Posted by T_Frain_K

I experienced an "Out of memory" picture complete with an "Sorry: book is too large to load." Error which closes the book i read, if i flip to pages too fast while it is still paginating. (i.e. after i changed color)

I've found and fixed some of these bugs. So if they are still there in the release 1.0 version, please do send me bug reports.

Originally Posted by T_Frain_K

While you´re at it, I would like to flip throug pages by sliding my finger horizontally over the screen instead of vertically. But that´s just me dreaming Nevermind. I´ll get used to it

The release 1.0 version will give you this option.

Thanks for using Freda,

Jim

[ddavtian]

Jim, thanks for the program.

I'm running it on HTC Touch Pro 2 as well (custom ROM, 6.5 with Sense 2.5). It didn't work when installed on SD card (I think you mentioned it already), working fine from main memory. One of my ePubs from Sony store is around 18Mb, Freda opened it quickly, no problem.

If you plan to continue developing it, can you please add a release number? I downloaded it 30 min ago, I'm guessing it's still the beta version. Looking forward to 1.0.

David

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

Strange - it shouldn't be remaining stuck on red. Can you confirm that when you exit the dialog, you are using the OK soft-key at bottom left? (and not the small 'ok' control at the top right). Bizarrely enough, the Windows NetCF standard behaviour of that 'ok' control is that it does 'Cancel'.
Jim

I was clicking OK at the top right. Had no reason to think it meant anything other than...er, OK. Especially since that button appeared inside the dialog box I was working in.

I just tried it clicking the lower left OK, and that worked correctly.

[ddavtian]

Originally Posted by ddavtian

If you plan to continue developing it, can you please add a release number? I downloaded it 30 min ago, I'm guessing it's still the beta version. Looking forward to 1.0.

My mistake. Version and build number are shown when the reader starts. I was looking for this info within menu.

[Jim Chapman]

Hi Folks,

It's here: version 1.0 of Freda is now released. The attached ZIP file contains the files you are most likely to need:

• freda6.msi - for WM6, for install from the desktop PC using ActiveSync
• freda6.cab - for WM6, for direct CAB install on the handheld
• freda5.msi - for WM5 and WM 2003, for install from the desktop using ActiveSync
• freda5.cab - for WM5, for direct CAB install on the handheld

Main new features:

• CSS Style sheets are recognised, with some limitations
• Controls/gestures can be customised
• Line spacing, indent and justification can be customised
• ... and a bunch of other features and fixes

See the freda home page for more details, and for alternative download locations.

Any problems or questions, please let me know.

Thanks,

Jim
[note: edited to fix a problem with the 'presets' feature. This archive should now install v1.0 build number 325. If you have an earlier build number, you may want to re-install (or you can just apply the work-around, which is to create an empty 'presets' folder under Freda's program folder).]

[pilotbob]

Jim,

Congratulations on the 1.0 release. Seems like a lot of people are enjoying this reader.

BOb

[ccadi]

When selecting menu can current time be shown above menu just so I can return to reality on time

Love the program Jim, thanks for developing

[T_Frain_K]

Thank you. I really like the new horizontal swiping trough pages

A question though: at the home page you provided two screenshots showing freda in landscape mode - How can I activate that?

PS: Presets do not seem to work - load as well as save presets results in an error which closes the application.

[Jim Chapman]

Originally Posted by T_Frain_K

A question though: at the home page you provided two screenshots showing freda in landscape mode - How can I activate that?

If the phone's screen is in landscape mode, Freda will use landscape mode. How to put the phone into landscape mode is a different question - and different phones will have different controls for doing that. One nice solution (if you have a phone with a gravity sensor) is to use the 'G-Sensor' program (you can find it with Google).

Originally Posted by T_Frain_K

PS: Presets do not seem to work - load as well as save presets results in an error which closes the application.

Oops - a bug got past me! As a short term fix, you can create an empty 'presets' folder in the program folder (for example, if Freda is installed in \program files\freda , I want you to create \program files\freda\presets).
I will upload corrected versions of the install files soon. [now uploaded]
Jim