Cool Reader on Android

[Dopedangel]

Originally Posted by bobcdy

Jabby,
Thanks for the joeclark ref. I looked it over; yes, one can use reduced size to emulate smallcaps although it gets a bit clunky when there are difference 'cases' involved because the upper case A must be larger than the lower case A. When one reduces size one also reduces glyph thickness so that of the reduced-size looks lighter than that the full-size upper case A. With different 'cases' together the different glyph thicknesses often look a bit bizarre. In joeclarks examples he was careful to use bold face for both emulated and true smallcaps, and not to show combinations of mixed large and small case gyphs.

As for using my own fonts in CR and Mantano, I have a number of mobi ebooks where the creators have used bold text for ALL the text - when I use my own font that has very light-weight glyphs, this overcomes the v. dark bold text and makes reading the book more enjoyable in CR. I haven't had that problem with epubs although if someone made a bold text epub I would use the same very light-weight font in Mantano.

Using the test epub from here it looks like small caps defined in css dont work but when defined in the html as <small> they seem to work. But I dont know much about css etc so I could be wrong

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=148097

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Dopedangel

Using the test epub from here it looks like small caps defined in css dont work but when defined in the html as <small> they seem to work. But I dont know much about css etc so I could be wrong

That will be because "Small Caps" applied as a font to say "AbcDef" would display "ABCDEF" where using the html <small> would give "AbcDef" . AIUI "Small Caps" is a font, normally matching the font used in the document, the way to use it in css would be to create a class which used the matching font and apply that. Still wouldn't work if the font wasn't embedded in the epub or the UA didn't support embedded fonts.

BobC

[Drad]

ooh, Thanks. That's interesting

[androidrooting]

This is amazing. I never realized there is some kind of Cool Reader Thanks

[goldberry]

Is there anyway to create a widget for CR that you can have say on a Nexus screen similar to the Google "My Library" widget?

[citac]

Originally Posted by goldberry

Is there anyway to create a widget for CR that you can have say on a Nexus screen similar to the Google "My Library" widget?

Oh that would be cool!

[LGN]

I can't figure out how to only use the css inside the epub. Seems toggling it doesn't do anything. But I feel thats the biggest problem with most software readers, as most first set up a style for books themselves before (if even possible) using the books css. Now I always tested my ebooks on 3 eink readers but its a nagging problem with software readers especially on android it seems.

[icallaci]

Originally Posted by LGN

I can't figure out how to only use the css inside the epub. Seems toggling it doesn't do anything. But I feel thats the biggest problem with most software readers, as most first set up a style for books themselves before (if even possible) using the books css. Now I always tested my ebooks on 3 eink readers but its a nagging problem with software readers especially on android it seems.

I absolutely agree with this. I cannot seem to get ANY android ereader software to follow the epub's css. Why is this? Currently I use Marvin on my iPad, but I have a new Galaxy Note 2 that I wanted to try out for reading. Marvin renders the epub's css almost perfectly, and it also allows overriding the css if you want. I expected the same from the android software, especially because of all the rave reviews. But NONE of the android software will use the css, except for maybe one or two things like justify or bold. I am giving up and going back to Marvin exclusively.

[Bald Eagle]

Cool Reader can use the CSS inside an ePub, just not the ones from the current calibre, where the @page and @font-face directives are in an extra page_styles.css (just as they were in the pre 0.7 times). In ePubs where they are inlined and just the styles.css is linked it is used just fine. Maybe its just simply the unexpected 2nd link that throws Cool Reader off.

Additionally I have found that Cool Reader displays an empty TOC when Calibre uses HTML-escapes (e.g. '%20' instead of just ' ' as it did earlier) in the toc.ncx.

Aldiko handles both cases just fine.

Is there an option to set the number of items where grouping (i.e. the creation of additional directories in the author and title view) set in? I don't think that 15 books are enough to justify the creation of 2 additional levels. I believe the 10 mentioned in the manual is much too low, 100 in a flat list would be more like it ...

[icallaci]

I've found Cool Reader to be the best at using an epub's css, but it still doesn't use ALL of the css. For example, a lot of epubs do not indent the first paragraph of a chapter or a new section, but those paragraphs ARE indented in Cool Reader, even when specifically told to use the internal css. Not a big issue, but annoying. Taken together, 100 little annoyances like that get in the way of my enjoying what I am reading.

[LGN]

Please note I'm talking from a ePUB producer's kind of view. Having the CSS issue does cause me to look into more detail what might cause virtually all of the linked css to be ignored. It's almost like back to the drawing board and finding if there is another cause of the CSS not working other than the CSS elements are just not supported.

I'm actually compiling a list of ereaders on which the ePUB look as intended. And those who do it without needing to tweak the settings first are getting a spot on the top of my list. Also the lack of ePUB3 support if dissapointing.

But I hope that by tweaking the structure of my CSS itself will help getting more compatibility. But I find it weird that virtually all readers push their own css to the front instead of using it as optional. I hope this will improve, and that goes for all software readers.

[icallaci]

I would love to see your list when you finish it. What surprises me most is that Marvin on the iPad renders the epub's css almost perfectly (and what isn't perfect is on the developer's list to fix), while android software virtually ignores the internal css while garnering reviews that barely mention this major (to me) annoyance.

[Jabby]

Originally Posted by icallaci

I've found Cool Reader to be the best at using an epub's css, but it still doesn't use ALL of the css. For example, a lot of epubs do not indent the first paragraph of a chapter or a new section, but those paragraphs ARE indented in Cool Reader, even when specifically told to use the internal css. Not a big issue, but annoying. Taken together, 100 little annoyances like that get in the way of my enjoying what I am reading.

Go to Options>CSS and check "Enable document internal styles". Then tap "Defaukt paragaph formatting". Then tap "First line indent" and select the dash option (above the "no indent" option. The hyphen means to use the ebooks css - any other option overrides the internal css.

[icallaci]

Originally Posted by Jabby

Go to Options>CSS and check "Enable document internal styles". Then tap "Defaukt paragaph formatting". Then tap "First line indent" and select the dash option (above the "no indent" option. The hyphen means to use the ebooks css - any other option overrides the internal css.

I tried this on 3 different ebooks, but no luck. It simply ignores the internal CSS.

[Jabby]

Originally Posted by icallaci

I tried this on 3 different ebooks, but no luck. It simply ignores the internal CSS.

Very curious. As it happens, the book I'm reading now uses no indent on the first paragraph of a chapter. As I vary the indent parameter, CoolReader acts as expected (I'm running the latest version - XXXXX.33).

If you upload one of the problem books, I would be happy to help you figure out what is going on.