MobileRead Forums - View Single Post

Xenophon · 04-11-2007, 01:48 PM

There're 10 numbered buttons on the Reader. Sony should easily be able to get me to any book with no more than three or four button presses. Here's how!

Assume I've chosen to view my books 'by author'. Additionally, assume I have 900 books on the Reader -- not too much of a stretch, as I have nearly 500 right now, and my SD card is only about 1/2 full.

The initial display of authors looks like this:

Allston, Aaron -- Ball, Margaret
Bard, Of Avon -- Clarke, Sir Arthur
Cook, Glen -- Douglass, A.

and so on, up to
"10. Weber, David -- Zelazny, Roger"

I pick a button (say, number two). The new display shows me that subset of authors, divided into 10 groups. These could have as few as a single author, or could contain many. Doesn't matter. I keep selecting until I have a single author. At that point, if there's more than 10 books to choose from, do the same with that subset of titles.

Note that you get roughly a factor of 10 fan-out per button push. 3 buttons to pick one of 1000 books, four to pick one of 10000.

The same approach works fine for books by title. It's not so good for 'By Date' as I might have a few hundred books all added on the same day. It would even be good for 'By Collection' -- if I could put collections on the SD card as well as in main memory.

There's no excuse for making me scroll through 50 pages of titles!

There's even LESS excuse for making me scroll through all those titles when I'm viewing 'By Author'. Just show me the #$%$%^^&&* list OF AUTHORS dag nab it! Don't show me books until either I pick an author or there're fewer than 10 books to show!

Xenophon

P.S. Just in case anyone from Sony reads this, don't worry about IP in the idea -- there's tons of prior art, AND it probably doesn't leap the bar for being a patentable idea anyway.

04-11-2007, 01:48 PM	#2
Xenophon curmudgeon Posts: 1,487 Karma: 5748190 Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Redwood City, CA USA Device: Kobo Aura HD, (ex)nook, (ex)PRS-700, (ex)PRS-500	Hierarchy on the Reader There're 10 numbered buttons on the Reader. Sony should easily be able to get me to any book with no more than three or four button presses. Here's how! Assume I've chosen to view my books 'by author'. Additionally, assume I have 900 books on the Reader -- not too much of a stretch, as I have nearly 500 right now, and my SD card is only about 1/2 full. The initial display of authors looks like this: Allston, Aaron -- Ball, Margaret Bard, Of Avon -- Clarke, Sir Arthur Cook, Glen -- Douglass, A. and so on, up to "10. Weber, David -- Zelazny, Roger" I pick a button (say, number two). The new display shows me that subset of authors, divided into 10 groups. These could have as few as a single author, or could contain many. Doesn't matter. I keep selecting until I have a single author. At that point, if there's more than 10 books to choose from, do the same with that subset of titles. Note that you get roughly a factor of 10 fan-out per button push. 3 buttons to pick one of 1000 books, four to pick one of 10000. The same approach works fine for books by title. It's not so good for 'By Date' as I might have a few hundred books all added on the same day. It would even be good for 'By Collection' -- if I could put collections on the SD card as well as in main memory. There's no excuse for making me scroll through 50 pages of titles! There's even LESS excuse for making me scroll through all those titles when I'm viewing 'By Author'. Just show me the #$%$%^^&&* list OF AUTHORS dag nab it! Don't show me books until either I pick an author or there're fewer than 10 books to show! Xenophon P.S. Just in case anyone from Sony reads this, don't worry about IP in the idea -- there's tons of prior art, AND it probably doesn't leap the bar for being a patentable idea anyway.