No Good PC Software?

jhoff80 · 03-28-2009, 12:11 AM

Okay, first of all, I don't mean to sound negative, but how come all PC ebook readers are absolutely horrible? I have mostly .epub stuff now, so I'm not tied to any format, and so I've tried many.

I used to use a Nokia n800 tablet with FBreader for reading, which was fine, but I wanted something with a larger screen and better capabilities. I ended up getting a HP tc1100 tablet off eBay, not solely for eBook reading but I figured it'd be something it'd do well, with a 10" screen and active digitizer for handwriting notes if necessary.

That was the first mistake I found that I made, assuming that there would be a good PC eBook reader which would let me hand-write notes on my books. There's MS Reader for Tablet PCs, which is okay but has limited annotation capabilities, and then there are a few various programs for writing on PDFs, but none of those are really all that ideal for reading with, not to mention PDF not exactly being the most convenient format.

So, now having had to give up on what seemed like it'd be a large benefit for the PC, I decided to try out a few other programs. I'd used FBreader before, so I attempted that on the PC... except honestly it seems very no-frills on a larger than 4.3" screen, with just a tree view of the library, and no searching I'd heard Stanza was good on the iPhone, so I tried the PC version, and again, seems like it'd be decent on a very small device, but not on a PC.

What I've settled on now, is Adobe Digital Editions, but I'm not satisfied with that at all either. The interface looks great, but no sorting by series, it's based on Flash so it's slow as hell, it doesn't remember that I don't want the damn sidebars to show up ever, and as I mentioned above with other programs, there's no way of marking things up.

Is it just that nobody really cares about developing this for the PC because of the generally poor form factor for reading, or am I just being harsh, or what exactly is the problem here?

kovidgoyal · 03-28-2009, 01:36 AM

Use the calibre viewer, the only feature you mention it doesn't have is annotations and that's on my TODO list.

jhoff80 · 03-28-2009, 02:55 AM

You know, I actually used Calibre to convert a lot of things to epub, but hadn't even considered using it as an actual viewer.

You're right that except for annotations that it does everything I'd want though I'd suggest a bunch of little tweaks, like an option for thumbnail view of covers instead of the cover flow-esque mode (the thumbnail view is one of the best things about Digital Editions), and maybe being able to double click on a book title and directly open the viewer, but even still, I'm much happier with it than anything else right now.

Oh, and the option to have the viewer go into the same window as the main program would be nice too (as in, instead of making a new window, just hide the library stuff and show the viewer there), though that's not a big deal.

(As for the suggestions I have, should those be added one at a time to the tracker on the site, I'd guess, as opposed to all in one post?)

Edit: Though strangely enough, one book I just tested that was converted to epub doesn't appear to wrap the text to the next line if it doesn't fit, but it doesn't seem to happen in a few of the other similarly converted books I attempted. It's also one of the few books I have that is showing in Courier, so maybe it's an issue from during the conversion, I don't know.

And it doesn't remember that I don't want the toolbars visible when reading, but other than that, it's doing much better than anything else.

Also, adding something like "last read" to the database would be very useful, with the default of never if it hasn't been read yet.

kovidgoyal · 03-28-2009, 03:12 AM

You can press v to launch the viewer on the current book, and all your other siggestions are already in the tracker, of which a grid base cover view is the most likely to happen in the next few months

As for not wrapping, that happens when the html in th eepub is non reflowable, for example with <pre> tags.

jhoff80 · 03-28-2009, 04:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

You can press v to launch the viewer on the current book, and all your other siggestions are already in the tracker, of which a grid base cover view is the most likely to happen in the next few months

Aaah, awesome... though the V key thing doesn't work when using a slate tablet PC without a keyboard.

It's not that big a deal to just click the viewer button in the toolbar, but I'd personally prefer it to be more like Windows Explorer, where a double-click launches the viewer, and to rename you would click twice but more slowly.

HarryT · 03-28-2009, 07:06 AM

The Windows version of MobiPocket Reader is excellent - IMHO.

03-28-2009, 12:11 AM	#1
jhoff80 Enthusiast Posts: 34 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2009 Device: none	No Good PC Software? Okay, first of all, I don't mean to sound negative, but how come all PC ebook readers are absolutely horrible? I have mostly .epub stuff now, so I'm not tied to any format, and so I've tried many. I used to use a Nokia n800 tablet with FBreader for reading, which was fine, but I wanted something with a larger screen and better capabilities. I ended up getting a HP tc1100 tablet off eBay, not solely for eBook reading but I figured it'd be something it'd do well, with a 10" screen and active digitizer for handwriting notes if necessary. That was the first mistake I found that I made, assuming that there would be a good PC eBook reader which would let me hand-write notes on my books. There's MS Reader for Tablet PCs, which is okay but has limited annotation capabilities, and then there are a few various programs for writing on PDFs, but none of those are really all that ideal for reading with, not to mention PDF not exactly being the most convenient format. So, now having had to give up on what seemed like it'd be a large benefit for the PC, I decided to try out a few other programs. I'd used FBreader before, so I attempted that on the PC... except honestly it seems very no-frills on a larger than 4.3" screen, with just a tree view of the library, and no searching I'd heard Stanza was good on the iPhone, so I tried the PC version, and again, seems like it'd be decent on a very small device, but not on a PC. What I've settled on now, is Adobe Digital Editions, but I'm not satisfied with that at all either. The interface looks great, but no sorting by series, it's based on Flash so it's slow as hell, it doesn't remember that I don't want the damn sidebars to show up ever, and as I mentioned above with other programs, there's no way of marking things up. Is it just that nobody really cares about developing this for the PC because of the generally poor form factor for reading, or am I just being harsh, or what exactly is the problem here?

03-28-2009, 02:55 AM	#3
jhoff80 Enthusiast Posts: 34 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2009 Device: none	You know, I actually used Calibre to convert a lot of things to epub, but hadn't even considered using it as an actual viewer. You're right that except for annotations that it does everything I'd want though I'd suggest a bunch of little tweaks, like an option for thumbnail view of covers instead of the cover flow-esque mode (the thumbnail view is one of the best things about Digital Editions), and maybe being able to double click on a book title and directly open the viewer, but even still, I'm much happier with it than anything else right now. Oh, and the option to have the viewer go into the same window as the main program would be nice too (as in, instead of making a new window, just hide the library stuff and show the viewer there), though that's not a big deal. (As for the suggestions I have, should those be added one at a time to the tracker on the site, I'd guess, as opposed to all in one post?) Edit: Though strangely enough, one book I just tested that was converted to epub doesn't appear to wrap the text to the next line if it doesn't fit, but it doesn't seem to happen in a few of the other similarly converted books I attempted. It's also one of the few books I have that is showing in Courier, so maybe it's an issue from during the conversion, I don't know. And it doesn't remember that I don't want the toolbars visible when reading, but other than that, it's doing much better than anything else. Also, adding something like "last read" to the database would be very useful, with the default of never if it hasn't been read yet. Last edited by jhoff80; 03-28-2009 at 03:09 AM.

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03-28-2009, 01:36 AM	#2
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,319 Karma: 27111242 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	Use the calibre viewer, the only feature you mention it doesn't have is annotations and that's on my TODO list.

03-28-2009, 03:12 AM	#4
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,319 Karma: 27111242 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	You can press v to launch the viewer on the current book, and all your other siggestions are already in the tracker, of which a grid base cover view is the most likely to happen in the next few months As for not wrapping, that happens when the html in th eepub is non reflowable, for example with <pre> tags.

03-28-2009, 07:06 AM	#6
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383099 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	The Windows version of MobiPocket Reader is excellent - IMHO.

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