Exporting annotations -could we hire a programmer?

[spaetz]

Originally Posted by Beryll Snyder

Actually I live by the motto: to the thinking person life is a comedy - to the emotional person a tragedy.
Okay, something constructive: in the Jetbook thread an Android discussion has started ...

Even at the danger of falling prey to a troll :-)...

As a background: I have been buying a Sony PRS505 when it came out, then an iRexDS1000, and now ordered an M92. I need to read A4/letter PDFs and annotate them with my scribbling, exporting everything into the PDF file for academic reading/reviewing.

I have seen more than enough vaporware announcements to only believe what is available on the market. Back then when I bought the iRex (whose hardware promptly broke after a few weeks just as iRex went bankrupt), everyone recommended to wait for the much-hyped PlasticLogic, which was just around the corner. They had announced it already!

I defer to Wikipedia, but this is the rough timeline of it:

• The firm was founded in 2000
• First factory opened 2003
• Announced device on November 30, 2004
• 2009, raised more than $200m in venture capital
• August 2010, they had cancelled their QUE proReader
• 2011, receive another $700m in venture capital,
• as of April 13 2012, the e-reader was unavailable for sale.

There are plenty more examples like these, so I'd rather have a device that I know exists than one that lives in the land of unicorns. ;-)

Is the software development process tedious and suboptimal? Heck yes, everyone thinks they need to reinvent the wheels and produce their own SDK where apps only work when developed for this SDK. I'd love to be running Android on my eink device, but given that most eink manufacturers (but Amazon and B&N/MS) are small fish, they don't have the weight or financial endurance to pull this off on their own. I'd rather recommend that manufacturers rally around a common project like openinkpot or whatever to pool their resources, but somehow I am doubtful I will see that in my life time.

[Beryll Snyder]

"There are plenty more examples like these, so I'd rather have a device that I know exists than one that lives in the land of unicorns. ;-)"

Nook Touch and (the latest)Sony are running on Android. So having eInk-devices use Android does not seem to be such a big deal.
And adapting some apps required for reading, editing and such cannot be very difficult and would be done fast - as long as programmers can earn some money with it. As to the unicorns: seems to me that people prefer rotten apples while the good ones are already in sight.

[kodomo]

Originally Posted by spaetz

AFAIK, you can *merge* your scribbles together with the original PDF into a new PDF which contains both. Apparently there is an issue in that not all PDF-processing tools can print the different PDF and scribble layers though, but I can not say anything on that (yet).

correct - and some applications (e.g., PDFXChangeViewer) can actually further edit the annotations (as opposed to scribbles).

W.r.t. the question why not to introduce modifications directly into the document, I can see several potential motivations:
- there was a ready-to-use software to do the annotations (pdf_viewer), so one didn't have to bother to reimplement things.
- there seem several ways to annotate things... if you look at pdf viewers that allow annotations and sketching, you'll notice that they are not necessarily compatible to each other
- one doesn't have to bother with document permissions (w.r.t. editing, saving of modifications etc...)

On the downside, the device can edit only its own modifications (stored in the sqlite3 database) in the original file, and not annotations which were previously merged or inserted by another softwre.

It would be _really_ handy though, if the M92 could edit comments in merged pdfs (and thereby comments inserted via compatible software).
Actually: is there a reader that can edit comments from other applications?

Although I'd answer 'yes' w.r.t. the question whether I'd contribute money to fund implementation of such a feature, I don't know how you'd do this without a rewrite (naboo_reader unfortunately is closed source).
Having a quick glance at the Adobe SDK, I see that its use is prohibited in projects under viral open source licensing... so one will not be able to do more than to plead to get access to the source.

Therefore, the actual question'd be imho: Is someone willing to reimplement the reader?

[PF4Mobile]

I would rather vote for porting an existing reader and develop that one further

[Beryll Snyder]

Originally Posted by PF4Mobile

is it a joke or what ? I do not see the thread...
however kamikaze explained here that Android on eInk is just day dreaming

Daydreamimg, hey?
Don't I love these "expert" opinions ...

"The Kyobo Mirasol e-reader has finally made the long trek from South Korea to North America.
This new e-reader runs Google Android 2.3 and ships with many reading apps to get you right into reading. It comes with Moon+ Reader, Aldiko, Nook, Kindle, and Kobo for Android. It is also bundled with services to allow you to install your own apps such as the Amazon Android Market and our own Good e-Reader App store."
from goodereader blogs

[catharsis]

Just saying that Mirasol is different technology than eInk, also refresh rate is bigger (15-30 fps), but the main resemblance is that it's also reflective display.

[PF4Mobile]

Originally Posted by Beryll Snyder

Daydreamimg, hey?
Don't I love these "expert" opinions ...

"The Kyobo Mirasol e-reader has finally made the long trek from South Korea to North America....

Where can I buy one from ?

[kodomo]

Originally Posted by catharsis

Just saying that Mirasol is different technology than eInk, also refresh rate is bigger (15-30 fps), but the main resemblance is that it's also reflective display.

Plus it needs a small amount of power at all times (not just for screen updates) and if I get this correctly from the youtube videos I've watched, it's got a limited viewing angle (imho one of the reasons to go for E-Ink for e-reader purposes).

Thus, I see it rather fit as a monitor than an e-paper replacement.
Unfortunately, I don't know anyone who already has one of the Mirasol devices - does anyone have hands-on experience with them? (...hm... this is getting off-topic, but I'm curious )

[mrevent]

@ users of M92: Has there been any progress regarding the topic of the thread with the latest firmware release?

[Mono]

I do not use this functionality (exporting annotations), but to my understanding it has been implemented in firmware months ago.

You can export annotations to a text file. Note, that there was/is an isssue that in certain pdf files spaces between words has been lost in exported annotations.

I do not have latest firmware instaled, so I cannot test the current state.

[PF4Mobile]

This topic is dead as the option is available via the standard firmware.