Oeps - UI error (page numbers again)

[Olympus]

While I waited for my CyBook I could not participate in the never ending discussion on page numbers.
Now that I finally have my CyBook in my hands (great weight improvement compared to my GEB 1150) I noticed a User Interface error.
I just sent this e-mail to Bookeen, hopefully they will incorporate the RFC and fix the UI error.
----------------------------------------
Dear Sir,
For some weeks I am a happy reader using your Cybook Gen3 and never want to use my Gemstar GEB 1150 anymore.

However there is some room for improvement:
- Please please tell me where I can see which (relative) page I currently reading so I can use the menu-option: Go To >> Page … after I have demonstrated your great CyBook and people always flip through my current book
- Would it be possible to change the functions of the buttons on the side so I can use these buttons for flipping to the next page.
I prefer to read with one hand and the reader is not well balanced when I operate the bottom-button with my thumb.

Keep up the good work while I paitently wait for the (promised) functionality changes in the next firmware update.

Kind regards,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, the Netherlands
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and to everybody who claim that page-numbers are irrelevant: please provide me with some hints how I can go back to the last page I read, while my guest/kids were kind enough to GoTo - First Page /Last Page????

[rixte]

Mmm, not that its the most helpful thing in the world, but I tend to try to hit the 'add bookmark' right before adding anything over to someone who is curious about the Cybook. I think it'd probably be as easy to get into a habit of doing that as it would be to glance at a page number before handing the device over.

Other suggestion is eyeballing the line at the bottom for percentage and then calculating it out roughly based on the total page count, although that's more annoying.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by Olympus

While I waited for my CyBook I could not participate in the never ending discussion on page numbers.
Now that I finally have my CyBook in my hands (great weight improvement compared to my GEB 1150) I noticed a User Interface error.
I just sent this e-mail to Bookeen, hopefully they will incorporate the RFC and fix the UI error.
----------------------------------------
Dear Sir,
For some weeks I am a happy reader using your Cybook Gen3 and never want to use my Gemstar GEB 1150 anymore.

However there is some room for improvement:
- Please please tell me where I can see which (relative) page I currently reading so I can use the menu-option: Go To >> Page … after I have demonstrated your great CyBook and people always flip through my current book
- Would it be possible to change the functions of the buttons on the side so I can use these buttons for flipping to the next page.
I prefer to read with one hand and the reader is not well balanced when I operate the bottom-button with my thumb.

Keep up the good work while I paitently wait for the (promised) functionality changes in the next firmware update.

Kind regards,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, the Netherlands
--------------------------------

and to everybody who claim that page-numbers are irrelevant: please provide me with some hints how I can go back to the last page I read, while my guest/kids were kind enough to GoTo - First Page /Last Page????

Well, you're gonna have to wait. However, if you can "guesstimate" your last page position, you can just enter a nearby number and 'go to' there. That's what I do in those ebooks which don't have a ToC.

Derek

[JSWolf]

In Mobipocket's software, page numbers are BROKEN! So don't expect Bookeen to FIX it for you. It's an underlying bug based on the way Mobipocket doies think with 64k blocks. The only way to actually get working page numbers and a number of other bugs fixed is for Mobipocket to scrap their reading software and start over from the ground up which I don't think will ever happen. So as for page numbers, they'll never be fully working/bug free.

[HarryT]

Jon,

You keep saying that the page numbering bug is "due to the 64k blocks" in a Mobi file, but I see absolutely no reason to think that this is the case. What makes you believe that it is?

[Ortep]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Jon,

You keep saying that the page numbering bug is "due to the 64k blocks" in a Mobi file, but I see absolutely no reason to think that this is the case. What makes you believe that it is?

I noticed a few times that when I page forward, lets say 20 pages, and then page backwards 20 pages I'm not at exactly the same spot were I left. There can be a displacement of one or two lines.

My guess was that it is the 'text flow'. When you page forward you'll start with the first word of a new line and the rest is filled in until the page is full. When you do that backwards there is the possibility that the flow algorithm gives you a slightly different page layout. That does not really matter if you end up with the same number of words on the page, but as soon as you have the situation were only one word more/less fits on the page, the next page will have a different starting point. From that moment on the shifting will worsen. Especially in the English language that is a real possibillity because of the one letter words like "I" and 'a'

[tribble]

And has anyone expirienced that page progress bar showing into the opposite direction, out of the page to the left? That happende to me.

And I agrree, we need pagenumbers. Even if it is to get just a feel for the "size" of the book.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Ortep

I noticed a few times that when I page forward, lets say 20 pages, and then page backwards 20 pages I'm not at exactly the same spot were I left. There can be a displacement of one or two lines.

My guess was that it is the 'text flow'. When you page forward you'll start with the first word of a new line and the rest is filled in until the page is full. When you do that backwards there is the possibility that the flow algorithm gives you a slightly different page layout. That does not really matter if you end up with the same number of words on the page, but as soon as you have the situation were only one word more/less fits on the page, the next page will have a different starting point. From that moment on the shifting will worsen. Especially in the English language that is a real possibillity because of the one letter words like "I" and 'a'

Yes, I agree with you entirely. It's a well-known "feature" of MobiPocket that paging "backwards" through the file does not precisely "undo" the effects of paging forwards - you often get a page starting in a slightly different position. I really don't think, though, that this has anything at all to do with the fact that the file is stored in 64k blocks, as Jon is suggesting.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Jon,

You keep saying that the page numbering bug is "due to the 64k blocks" in a Mobi file, but I see absolutely no reason to think that this is the case. What makes you believe that it is?

I do not get this either. I have told him that he is wrong many times but the same incorrect statement is repeated anyway.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

In Mobipocket's software, page numbers are BROKEN! So don't expect Bookeen to FIX it for you. It's an underlying bug based on the way Mobipocket doies think with 64k blocks. The only way to actually get working page numbers and a number of other bugs fixed is for Mobipocket to scrap their reading software and start over from the ground up which I don't think will ever happen. So as for page numbers, they'll never be fully working/bug free.

FBReader have working page numbers in mobi files if working means useful. They did that by not insisting on that paging forward once should update the page number with one.

The reason the page number works so strange is probably that they have used file position and that includes the markup. So if you have an html file with a lot of heading and other invisible markup in the beginning things will work very bad. This has nothing to do with 64K blocks.

[JSWolf]

if you go to the last page in a Mobipocket eBook and then page back, it will grab another 64k block from where you were. And the block you have now in memory may not be a 64k block.

Also, someplace on Mobipocket's support site they do say that while you can tell the eBook to use a larger font, that give the way the blocks work, that it's easy to go past it and not have the reader see the font change.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

if you go to the last page in a Mobipocket eBook and then page back, it will grab another 64k block from where you were. And the block you have now in memory may not be a 64k block.

Also, someplace on Mobipocket's support site they do say that while you can tell the eBook to use a larger font, that give the way the blocks work, that it's easy to go past it and not have the reader see the font change.

Ummm... Are you *sure*? I mean, it appears to me as if there are a *fixed* number of 64K blocks of text and Mobi only grabs the nearest 64K block - if the page-forward/backward crosses the 64K boundary.

But then, I'm still trying to grok the Mobi format and may have that completely bass-ackward.

Derek

[tompe]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

if you go to the last page in a Mobipocket eBook and then page back, it will grab another 64k block from where you were. And the block you have now in memory may not be a 64k block.

And? And even if this is true then they do not have to do it this way. Nothing in the format says you have to implement it stupidly.

Also, someplace on Mobipocket's support site they do say that while you can tell the eBook to use a larger font, that give the way the blocks work, that it's easy to go past it and not have the reader see the font change.

This has nothing to do with the fact that they have block. It has to do with random access of data (being able to jump to a text position without looking at all data before the position). You do not have to implement it this way and you can implement it so it works differently even if you have the blocks.

[Olympus]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

Well, you're gonna have to wait. However, if you can "guesstimate" your last page position, you can just enter a nearby number and 'go to' there. That's what I do in those ebooks which don't have a ToC.

Derek

So everybody is accepting the fact that:
a: the progressbarr doesn't give me the percentage but only a bar where I have even have to guess what percentage is represented
b: I own a multi dollar computer but still have to do the mathematics myself (thank god I (sort-of) learned those math-tables at elementry school - I can't imagine what an effort it whould be for the I-own-a-calculator-generation)

I WANT Pagenumber or a Percentage NUMBER on my screen, and GOTO that number being either page or percentage.

[Olympus]

I wonder:
Do people that can easily accept this major flaw also earmark p-books?

Personally I never earmark my p-books but just glance at the pagenumber should I close my book when I don't have a bookmarker available. Good habits die hard ;-)