Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
eReader is the name of the program used to display eReader format eBooks.
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And before that it was called Palm Reader, and the original version was called Peanut Reader.
It was first developed by Peanut Press, an early ebook publisher targetting Palm OS handhelds. It displayed files in PML format, an early markup language supporting color, embedded images, hyperkinks and text attributes, and PalmDOC files, a form of plain text file compressed to save space in memory and decompressed on the fly by the reader.
Palm bought Peanut Press and made them the Palm Digital Media division, and called the product PalmReader. The freeware version was distributed with most Palm OS devices. An enhanced payware version offered a more attractive UI and support for custom fonts, but was otherwise unchanged.
Palm sold the Digital Media division to Motricity, a B2B mobile content solutions provider, who renamed it eReader. They also operated the Palmgear and Pocketgear sites offering software for PalmOS and PocketPC devices. Motricity seemed to view the sites as "We eat our own dogfood" examples of the mobile content solutions they could provide, and eReader was allowed to languish. They sold commercial ebooks through the site, but their selection lagged farther and farther behind their competitors.
Motricity then sold the eReader operation to Fictionwise, and Fictionwise was in turn bought by Barnes and Noble.
The eReader viewer application is freeware, and available for Android, Blackberry, iPhone and iPod Touch, Linux, Macintosh, OQO, PocketPC, Symbian, Windows, and Windows Mobile. eReader files are supported as a legacy format by the Barnes and Noble nook, which uses ePub as the primary format.
You can get the viewer here:
http://www.ereader.com/ereader/software/browse.htm
There is also a payware WYSIWYG app for creating PML format books called Ebook Studio, and a freeware app called DropBook you can use to generate eReader texts if you wish to write PML code by hand. You can get them here:
http://www.ereader.com/ereader/softw...studio_win.htm
http://www.ereader.com/ereader/help/dropbook/
And if you happen to have a Palm OS device and the original Peanut Reader, you can still read any PML formatted book. There have been no changes in the file format or markup language.
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Dennis