KOReader: a document reader for PDF, DJVU, EPUB, FB2, HTML, ... (GPLv3)

[phoenix512]

Koreader is great but regarding the fact that it hasn't zoom and pan feature. It's useless for me. It's a little strange for me why Koreader doesn't have such basic feature?

[chrox]

Originally Posted by ignacy

I have recently bought a Kindle Paperwhite 2 and installed KOReader, specifically koreader-nightly-20140425 (+ KUAL v2.3, MKK v20140214 & jailbreak), a few dictionaries and Tesseract 3.02. I am really impressed by the software, so kudos to the developers and all those who made this magnificent work!

There are a few minor things that don't seem to work, and since I haven't found any information about it, I thought I'd ask here before creating a bug ticket on GitHub.


Is that behavior normal for the version I have? (The latest version as I'm typing this.)

And some things that you might want to add in the future:

Thank you.

Thanks for the report.

• Sometimes the wiki pages may not reflect the latest release considering that Koreader is still in rapid development. I updated the manual page and corrected the part you mentioned to avoid misleading.
• The "Highlight" and "Add Note" functions are currently absent and are disabled. Probably we could write the lookuped word to Kindle's vocabulary builder.
• "Translate" and "Share" in highlighting dialog aren't implemented neither. Since we have an HTTP request facility in Koreader now, it's relatively easy to implement a translator via "Google Translate".
• This bug is fixed in https://github.com/koreader/koreader/pull/566.

In order to track bugs and feature requests more efficiently, we suggest users of Koreader report at Koreader's issue tracker as far as possible.

Feature requests:

• This should be duplicated with https://github.com/koreader/koreader/issues/515. We are considering rewrite a more graphic frontlight widget like the one in native system.
• The free zooming and panning features for PDF/DJVU document can be implemented in the future, but the priority may be relatively low. Because it needs horribly many refreshes to panning to regions of interest after manually zooming to certain levels. We provide several predefined zoom levels and the text reflowing mode to avoid this as much as possible. Please try with those options first before the free zooming is implemented.
• I opened an issue for full text search here.

[chrox]

Originally Posted by phoenix512

Koreader is great but regarding the fact that it hasn't zoom and pan feature. It's useless for me. It's a little strange for me why Koreader doesn't have such basic feature?

As I replied to @ignacy,

The free zooming and panning features for PDF/DJVU document can be implemented in the future, but the priority may be relatively low. Because it needs horribly many refreshes to panning to regions of interest after manually zooming to certain levels. We provide several predefined zoom levels and the text reflowing mode to avoid this as much as possible. Please try with those options first before the free zooming is implemented.

I personally never use the free zooming and panning features of the native PDF reader in my Kindle Paperwhite. I am wondering if anyone seriously uses those features at all in E-ink devices.

[phoenix512]

Originally Posted by chrox

As I replied to @ignacy,


I personally never use the free zooming and panning features of the native PDF reader in my Kindle Paperwhite. I am wondering if anyone seriously uses those features at all in E-ink devices.

For PDFs like newspapers publish online. The zooming options on Koreader are not enough. Re-flow just produce a mixed up text which is unreadable. fitting options also cannot select a specific part of the page. Kindle has a good feature for these kinds of situations by double tapping on the part of the page, it automatically zoom to that part. Koreader doesn't has this unfortunately.
what I'm trying to say is for pages with complicated structures and many columns and pictures you should have zooming option. At least something like a simple 200 300 400% zoom option is essential.

[chrox]

Originally Posted by phoenix512

For PDFs like newspapers publish online. The zooming options on Koreader are not enough. Re-flow just produce a mixed up text which is unreadable. fitting options also cannot select a specific part of the page. Kindle has a good feature for these kinds of situations by double tapping on the part of the page, it automatically zoom to that part. Koreader doesn't has this unfortunately.
what I'm trying to say is for pages with complicated structures and many columns and pictures you should have zooming option. At least something like a simple 200 300 400% zoom option is essential.

That should make sense for complicated page layout. And it's what the "regional zooming" option is intended to solve. But for now the "regional zooming" option is undocumented and is still under development.

[ignacy]

Thank you for your prompt reply, for updating the manual, for the links to the relevant tickets and for opening a new ticket for the full text search, chrox!

Originally Posted by chrox

The "Highlight" and "Add Note" functions are currently absent and are disabled.

I just found it funny that the Highlight option works when you select more than one word, but it doesn't for a single word. (Though I have to admit that you rarely want to highlight a single word!)

Originally Posted by chrox

"Translate" and "Share" in highlighting dialog aren't implemented neither.

Personally, I'm not interested in the Share function, but a Translate function that uses Google or Bing would definitely be a nice feature.

Once again, thank you for your support. I love KOReader and it's really nice that you take users' input to improve it!

[donMaranzano]

Can I write and search in Russian?

[jsv]

Originally Posted by donMaranzano

Can I write and search in Russian?

Well, KOReader supports Cyrillic input (the keyboard layout for some reason being phonetic ЯЖЕРТЫ). But there are not many uses for that keyboard presently, as neither full-text search nor note taking are implemented yet.

[gloriousglib]

Just installed the latest version of Koreader. On this version I've found a slight glitch which prevents me from opening any books :/ When I click the home button within a book, Koreader goes directly back to Kobo Start Menu rather than the file manager. Since I have Koreader set to open the last accessed book on launch, I have no way of opening a new book...

[knc1]

Originally Posted by gloriousglib

Just installed the latest version of Koreader. On this version I've found a slight glitch which prevents me from opening any books :/ When I click the home button within a book, Koreader goes directly back to Kobo Start Menu rather than the file manager. Since I have Koreader set to open the last accessed book on launch, I have no way of opening a new book...

Wrong forum - this is the Kindle dev forum.
Try the Kobo dev forum.

[hawhill]

Yep, that version had a bug - on Kobos. So it is indeed Kobo specific. Koreader, however, of course isn't and its bugs might very well be universal. One source code base can now create bugs on Kindle, Kobo and Android platforms - wheeee :-)

[anton79ru]

Originally Posted by hawhill

a bug

Hate to bother you, mate, but it happened again. Entire pages of a pdf were erased as i marked text in reflow mode. I retained the damaged file, but it's a confidential document. Can I send it to you via private mail or you're not interested?

[hawhill]

Thank you very much for the offer! I'll get back to you if I need it - but to replicate the problem, probably any PDF would be able to trigger the error. I hope I can find time for this soon.

[anton79ru]

Originally Posted by hawhill

I hope I can find time for this soon.

No hurry - I have accomplished my dissertation! I owe you one, because I can't imagine how I'd have made it without KOReader, seriously. With my family and a full time job, I really needed a tool that would enable me to read all the materials 'on the go' and you guys made it possible. Thank you.

[anton79ru]

I have another point though. It is my understanding that currently, looking up words in the dictionary works in such a way that whenever there's a perfect match, it's the only suggestion available. No other options.

Problem:
For example, I don't understand the meaning of "un truc qui me chiffonne" in French. There's a perfect match for "chiffonne" as a noun meaning something like a branch of a peach tree. Not even close. I'm interested in the verb "chiffonner", whereof "chiffonne" is 3rd person singular. The translation is thus "a thing that bothers me".

Another example is the adjective "farfelue". I look it up and the dictioary says, "fem. of farfelu". I cannot select "farfelu", 'cause it's not in the text. So I have to grab my phone and look there.

Solution:
Even when there is a perfect match in the dictionary, is it possible to also suggest translation for words that are one or two characters different from the selected word?