Elipsa 2E Quetion about state of elipsa 2e?

[ionabio]

Hello all,

I just bought an elipsa 2e and wanted to use it for a fusion of note taking and reading/annotating books.

Is there a summarized must dos and tinkering must haves when it comes to elipsa 2e?

The basic os or firmware seems very simple. Right out of the box I notice many things that could be solved as the device matures, and they seem software related than e-ink's screen limitation.
I am missing these features, or don't know how to do these. Has the community found workarounds for these?

- Export annotated pdf wirelessly:

I use google drive for example to (down)load a pdf. strangely when looking at the file system in PC it is in a folder as mimicing the google drive folder structure. however it doesn't sync back the annotated back? are there any ways to achieve this without connecting to PC?

- Adding extra template backgrounds in basic note taking:

Is there a way to add our own paper templates?

- Having similar Basic note taking features in pdf annotating?
like more pen thickness options?

- Having advanced note taking features embedded in basic note taking (or vice versa)?

This, I dont know why hasn't been investigated more internally (I imagin two different devs worked in it, or licensing of 3rd party libraries used)? are there any hacks or apps that makes it possible?

- More feature reach note taking that makes it closer experience to remarkable like having layers?

- News website / link aggregators? I hoped Pocket works, but almost all that I put in pocket doesn't end up on device (seems it is a website format problem?)

I haven't yet setup to connect calibre a I wish the google drive to be like a storage I use to transfer.

Are there any other must haves? KoReader I have seen mentioned alot, I failed to find information on stylus 2 support or annotating features.


Thank in advace for helping me using this device to its power

[Quoth]

The Note taking system is a cut down version of Nebo and has no integration with PDFs (or epubs). My Write Nebo on iOS and Android can import/export PDFs and even convert handwriting on them to text.

There are various export options for Nebo Notebooks on Elipsa and Sage. I've found the Sage better, but now only read and text annotate epub and use Nebo on the Nxtpaper 11 which gives real time preview of conversion.

I've used the reMarkable and it's more like a sketch app than notes. Inferior to Nebo and also the reMarkable only uses USB networking, folders (no meta data) and PDFs. I think they might have added Nebo text to reMarkable in a firmware update. It used to have no local text conversion.

So, no you can't integrate.

The My Write Nebo basic and advanced notetaking seriously limited by the slow eink. Just look at features and speed of Android or iOS. Also Google's offline handwriting recognition can be added (install Gboard and configure handwriting inc privacy) even to Android 8 and works well on an ancient phone much older than my eink Mars with Android. It's unusable on eink Android.

Using touch keyboard in epubs is better than pen as you can export real text.

The stylus is the same as any MS surface 3 or later type, though the optional BT/Onenote versions not needed. I've used the Kobo original pen and 2 models of 3rd party pen sold for MS Surface 3 or later (1 & 2 used Wacom). They were all identical on Elipsa and Sage.

Now I never use pen or Elipsa. Just Sage for epubs (and some smaller PDF manuals) and highlight/annotate with touch / onscreen keyboard.

USB is best for export to PC (Mac, Linux, Android, Chromebook etc).

I used KOReader for PDFs till Kobo added margin crop/zoom. It's only useful for badly formatted content as the native epub works with Calibre metadata such as Author, Title, Subtitle, Collection and Series. KoReader has a clunky way of doing a search on a Calibre metadata file, but otherwise is in the 1960s to 1980s for use as it has no library browsing / system, just file browsing, so painful with thousands of ebooks. A 32 G Flash ereader can store about 18,000 ebooks.

I use the Nxtpaper 11 tablet for PDFs, images, datasheets, colour, notes etc and it can probably use a 1T card, mine is 4G RAM, 128G Flash, 256G SD card and is as good as eink with a frontlight on. The eink only superior for novels and ambient light with frontlight off.

Calibre is the best solution to manage ebooks and PDFs. The Google Drive should only be used to collaborate or shard PD with friends. Otherwise it's useless.

I backup my Calibre when it's closed and can then update a different computer from that. Never use live Calibre on a Share or with Google Drive.

[ionabio]

Wow. Man thanks a lot for detailed comment. Mentioning ".nebo" file already opened a lot of possibilities that overlays wonder why they chose not to implement.

I am trying very hard to use the elipsa 2e as the main note taking simg it is a bit better experience writing on eink than back lit LED/lcd.

I just the nemo app on android and then tried exporting nebo file with few strokes from android and it "opened" the file in elipsa although with wrong page size.

Then tried importing a pdf to nebo android and exporting the file and elipsa couldn't open it.

Then i import a picture to nebo in android and exported it to elipsa and it could open it. But probably due to an unexpected behavior the strokes over picture were not drawn. When I switch back and forth the pages then it worked. Making this workflow useless due to the "bug".

Then couldn't find a way to directly open a nebo file back in android either.

I haven't setup a calibre environment and want to avoid it ad l9ng as I don't need it. For note taking i dont know how it would help. The news aggregation of it is good tool but too much to go for such an easy thing. For now I will just screenshot on android the article I want to read and put it as pdf to Google drive and open it like that. (I am learning a new language and want to read the news on the language together with dictionary and possibly note taking)

The base kobo stuff in elipsa has soooo much potential and they are pro ably using 10% of it?

I will probably do all things on my phone to put on Google drive and pick up from there on kobo and find tools for such there.

[Quoth]

You can import Kobo nebo files to Android / iOS version, but not vice-versa as the eink version is "cut down" to get it working.
The Kobo version of Nebo can't really import at all, only export.

[Barty]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I use the Nxtpaper 11 tablet for PDFs, images, datasheets, colour, notes etc and it can probably use a 1T card, mine is 4G RAM, 128G Flash, 256G SD card and is as good as eink with a frontlight on. The eink only superior for novels and ambient light with frontlight off.

Wow this has me intrigued. You say eink is superior for novels. Is that because of text clarity, or other factors?

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Barty

Wow this has me intrigued. You say eink is superior for novels. Is that because of text clarity, or other factors?

Only if the frontlight is off.
A 6" to 8" mono eink isn't going to manage tables, big images, comics, graphic novels, Print replica, PDF, interactive, animation, video etc. So works best for novels.
When the front light is on, it's more like OLED or LCD because the brightness is fixed and the colour temperature doesn't match ambient. Eink is also poor to abysmal for active stylus note taking.

The 11" Nxtpaper can be like paper to use if you switch off automatic, enable sRGB, disable all the reading / paper simulation features and manually set the brightness and colour balance to be similar to regular paper (not super bright copier, or coated inkjet, photo paper). Then it's like eink with a frontlight on, because the colour temperature and brightness is fixed as you move in chair, room or bed. With enough ambient light to read printed paper you can have front light off on any Carta mono eink, and Pearl with no overlays (IR touch, no frontlight layer) and like paper the brightness and colour temperature perfectly tracks/matches ambient. No-one has ever managed this for frontlights, OLED or LCD, in fact the automatic settings only work reasonably outdoors.

[ionabio]

Originally Posted by Quoth

...but not vice-versa ...
The Kobo version of Nebo can't really import at all, only export.

I was able to import on kobo the exported ".nebo" from my phone. although buggy, but it worked. I was even able to make a picture that I attached to that note show up on kobo. Maybe it is something they enabled in new firmware (I updated a couple of days ago).

[Quoth]

It's flawless from Kobo to Nebo on Android.

[HLS]

I love how we can write on books but note taking is not that great. Boox note seems to be the best for note taking. Even the Kindle Scribe notes is better but otherwise Elipsa is great for write-on-books and they do have a lot of templates compared to kindle/boox

[ionabio]

Originally Posted by HLS

I love how we can write on books but note taking is not that great. Boox note seems to be the best for note taking. Even the Kindle Scribe notes is better but otherwise Elipsa is great for write-on-books and they do have a lot of templates compared to kindle/boox

Right. My complaint for now is that development on the elipsa, at least, is very slow.
I also noticed that with the Libra color, you have some options for annotating PDFs, like pen thickness and color. For some reason, the thickness option, at least, is not present on the elipsa 2e.

I am still happy with elipsa 2e based on the price I paid. However, I see much more unrealized potential on the software side that I wish was there. I imagine the future elipsa will be color (since that is the big thing. We see how many Libra Color posts there are versus elipsa posts). Also, since they are approaching the release of a new elipsa (per some unconfirmed sources), I can only wish that they develop the software more quickly and release quality updates similar to the one that was released last year (the update had enhanced "basic note-taking," including handwriting recognition and shape recognition).
I am going to use it for note taking also. Maybe if i have disposable money in coming months will buy a boox but i like the size (not the price) of remarkable paper pro. I will consider them. At least remarkable also has big software disadvantages (and there it seems by choice. Like you said lack of reading capability and no front light).

Anyway, the conclusion I come to every day is that it is not the worst note-taking ereader and is still usable for me. I use Obsidian mainly, so my notes should somehow end up there, and neither of the devices are that compatible (and the Boox will be slow), so I can only wish their software becomes better and better with significant improvements.

Like, there is this beta game Sudoku. How hard would it be for them to recognize handwriting and numbers to use the pen instead of the numpad (otherwise I'd use my mobile anyway)?

Anyway, I hope there is an active development team working on updating the software.
One other major disappointment I had was based on their website. I first thought that not having the pen options for annotating PDFs or ePubs was because of a bug. I went to support and they requested various ways of resetting until I stopped them at a factory reset. I went on my own research online and saw no video or screenshot of the Elipsa 2e with those options, leading me to believe it is a Libra Color exclusive feature. I expected support to know this and point it out rather than suggesting useless restarts and asking me to factory reset. They could have just opened a ticket or feature request with their developers and be done with it. I mentioned it to them and they wanted me to factory reset before submitting a ticket to their development team. It was a bit frustrating, and support should do better.