Quote:
Originally Posted by lisak
See? Told you so.  Don't be afraid, these glitches will return. But if you do find out what combination makes this one pop out, let me know. |
I thought I'd found one (turning the page in a book), but it doesn't seem repeatable. I did notice a trend of, after turning a page, having to hit a button to get the program to pop up, and then having it come up fine when I do it again from the same page in the book. I'm still not sure that's not a real phenomenon, buuut...
After trying this a few times, it seems like it's almost 50/50 as to whether any individual insertion of the card will make the dictionary pop up correctly. I
am pretty certain that the error was happening consistently for a period and then seemed to go away almost completely. Having just tried again from the main screen (without changing the screen, and having had it work the first time), the error popped up about two out of 10 times I put in the card.
If I had to guess, I think it has something to do with the computation/input cycles of the Reader itself. I can't determine any pattern right now, but since the error happens without warning during a series of identical "tests," the conclusion would seem to be that popping the card in at certain moments causes the program to launch differently (or not launch at all, as I've noticed happening with all of the versions). So, it seems it's possible to catch the Reader at a bad moment in its processing cycle, which is the only possible determining factor I can pin down.
I don't remember this "have to hit a button" thing happening with Clemenseken's old versions (of which I tried two, I think), so it might be good to go back and compare the "launching" aspect of the code and see if there are any changes there to explain what happened. Keep in mind that I can't guarantee that there wasn't this exact problem Clemenseken's version and I just didn't notice it or notice it or encounter it.
Another error that I got during my testing, which I haven't been able to repeat at all, was when I accidentally exited the dictionary by popping the card out, it took me back to first page of the book. Moving to a later page and exiting the dictionary by either hitting the exit button or popping the card out would keep taking me back to page one. It kept doing this and didn't stop until I went and tried it on another book, at which point the problem went away and didn't come back when I re-entered the same book it originally popped up in. I'm not sure that this was caused by popping my SD card out, but it does seem to have, once again, shown that the launching of the dictionary can interfere with normal processing cycle of the Reader (in this case somehow setting the current page to "1" and resetting that value/not letting it change until I exited the book). This book wasn't on the card, but it sounds similar to the problem =X= described (and I wasn't double pumping the exit button, although that problem has gone away completely and I'm not sure that I wasn't just describing a phenomenon that only existed in lisak's first version, or was being caused by using the mixed-up dictionary files...I'll have to do that full re-install soon and report back on any changes). Until then, other than the oddball error I just described, exiting the program has taken me right back to the page I was on with no trouble.
It seems to me like the most likely route to a solution to this problem is to somehow insulate the program from the Reader firmware's functioning and/or the card itself. You said that you could move the autorun.js file onto the reader by having the xml file point to the script on the internal memory, which seems like a likely solution to the battery problem and might just fix a lot of the other errors I've been describing. I'm pretty certain that it
is the script running off of the card that's causing the battery drain, since accessing data off an SD card is a known drain on the 505's battery (people on here were reporting that they only get a few hundred page turns per charge when reading books off of an SD card, with the same problem true to a lesser extent when reading off of the Duo slot). As you can imagine, any active accessing of the data on the card (like it would do as it runs the script, unless it's running from an internal buffer or something fun like that) is going to cause that same kind of drain, so having the actual script moved to internal memory should give everybody using the dictionary a little more battery life at the very least.
As for the line clearing thing, that explanation does make sense to me, and I'd say that you're probably right that in thinking that leaving the function the way it is going to be essential for a lot of people. I do think it's something that should go in any future "settings" menu.
Just one other little thing that can wait until later: the "> PAGE < <Cursor> next/previous word" thing at the bottom needs to be fixed, or most likely should just be taken out to make more space for the definition. I'd also argue for taking out about half of the grey blank space up toward the top for the same reason, though all of this can obviously wait until a more finalized version.