Hello,
I bought an
Italica eReader about 3 weeks ago, which works pretty well, considering its 99 Euro price-tag.
Nearly all ebooks/documents in various formats that i've tested were easily readable (not: an old book scanned as lowres images.pdf, by Google), the page turn speed is ok, and even (micro)SDHC cards with more than 4GB work normally, although Italica says the eReader is NOT compatible with SDHC.
The firmware (EM2 variant/ icon interface) looks similar to the Elonex EB621's.
However there are certain things, that aren't as comfortable as they could be, and since the firmware is based on Linux, I'm curious if there are ways to improve, change, or add new functionality to it.
http://www.italica.com/?p=258&lang=en <italica firmware download. manuals are down.
If someone wants to look into it.
-skin
I've read about the kewler skin mod for the Cool-er. is it possible to make it compatible with my Italica, somehow?
If not, can i just overwrite images in the
eb600e/fs.tgz/fs.tar/skin/ or
eb600em/fs.tgz/fs.tar/skin/ directories, and repackage everything?
Or could it brick the device?
(A custom POWER OFF screen would be nice... but it shouldn't be the only thing the eReader can display.
)
-changing position of commands in menus/
mapping different commands on buttons
examples:
1) Normally the + and - buttons resize the font, but if you're listening to music, they control the volume.
is it possible to leave the font resize function on the buttons and put a volume command in the menu?
(or change the volume/font resize behaviour for the + - buttons back and forth otherwise)
2) If you want to go fullscreen, you have to open the menu, navigate to "more..." and from there to "fullscreen".
It would be smarter to have the fullscreen option in the first menu, if possible. (and maybe exchange its menu position with "bookmark" wich is already a button command)
3)When the + button is pressed while viewing an image (standard view), the display refreshes, but it doesn't change anything. logically it should go into zoom mode.
-mp3 player bug
I don't intend to use the reader as an mp3 player excessively, but since it has the feature, it should at least play the songs in the correct order.
The thing is, if I choose e.g. song 40, it plays that song, then song 1, song 2, song 41, 1, 42, 2, 3, 43 ... or something similar. In other words, instead of just playing the next song on the list, it keeps going back to the first "page" of songs and plays one or two of those and THEN it plays the next song on the list.
Is there a cure for this bug?
-mp3 player controls while reading
As i've written before, when reading while listening to mp3s the + and - buttons are volume changers.
Other then that everything is ebook related, so there is no way to skip a track, open a playlist/ other mp3, while reading.
whishful thinking:
up/down buttons could be used for mp3 skipping/selection, while left/right is still for page turns.
while reading let the OK/center button open the normal menu, while the "menu" button would open a new mp3 related menu.
-changing details
1)you should be able to decide how far the "camera jumps" when pressing a direction on a zoomed in pdf or image
(is that something "hardcoded" or a changeable variable somewhere?)
2)let me decide if i want to see the cover thumbnails or file extension icons in the explorer view. (or write the file extension somewhere anyway.)
3)always start in fullscreen view. (or remember fullscreen status for every book)
4) what about .ogg support?
(and no, i'm not a total noob, i know that some of these changes/wishes might be a tiny bit unrealistic.)
-changing the whole firmware
AFAIK some Netronix EB600 clone firmwares are exchangeable.
Is it possible and does it make sense to put another firmware on an italica?
-the fear of bricking
... when is it justified?
What can i test without worries?
Since Italica released the whole firmware, not just upgrades, and has this procedure where you put in a new SD card, just with the firmware on it, and then press 2 buttons and reset at the same time to boot from SD and install the firmware anew, is it save to say, that if something goes wrong, this procedure with the original fw would fix it?
That's all for now,
for reading everything, I hope you have some
answers for me.
P.S: Please excuse my misuse of the english language.