902 Pocketbook 902: first impressions and questions - Page 13

pietrokc · 01-10-2011, 09:43 AM

Thanks for your reply, LoneTech. I understand the issue better now.

I was just rereading the thread and someone said that, as regards microSD cards, one should have "at least a class 4 card" if one has a lot of books in it. I don't understand why that is; naively I would expect even very slow cards to be enough for the modest need of transferring files under 5MB, which I would imagine is the majority of ebooks. (Certainly the vast majority of mine.)

Indeed I would expect that either the whole file is transferred to RAM when one starts to read it, or only the page you are reading is retrieved from the card when you get to it. In the first case I can certainly endure even a 5-second wait for the book to load (enough to transfer 10MB with a class 2 card), after which things would be fast; and in the second case I imagine that each page is only a few kilobytes, and very quickly transmitted by any card.

physics · 01-10-2011, 01:09 PM

Hi all-

I'm considering purchasing a Pocketbook 902 to replace my Kindle DX because of the better pdf/djvu file support, but was wondering if someone who has one could take a few minutes to answer a few questions:

1) Does either of the pdf viewers support internal links in pdfs and/or at least a linked table of contents?

2) For text pdfs, is there a search function?

3) I know that the pdf viewer doesn't automatically remove margins like the Kindle DX, but that there is a zoom feature. A lot of my pdfs come from scans of books; hence the right and left pages have different margins. If someone else has pdfs like that, do you find that you need to rezoom after every page? Or can you usually find a setting that works for both right and left pages?

4) Is there the ability to zoom in the viewer for djvu files?

5) Is there the ability to search for words in the viewer for djvu files?

If anyone has any suggestions/comments in comparing the DX and the 902 for pdf reading, I'll take all the advice I can get.

Thanks so much!

LoneTech · 01-10-2011, 04:25 PM

1. Both pdf viewers support table of contents. Internal links work by simply tapping (for 903) in AdobeViewer, not in pdfviewer. Bind a button, for instance volume up or down, to Links mode for use without stylus.

2. There is a search function, but it is broken; pdfviewer doesn't find anything and AdobeViewer hangs when trying to find more (perhaps after the last instance?). Likely will be fixed at some point.

3. I can usually find a setting that works well enough. Still, proper fit to contents mode, or odd/even placement, could be nice...

4. Yes, the djvu viewer zooms just like the pdf ones - except for reflow.

5. Yes, djviewer supports text search (case insensitive, matches parts of words).

physics · 01-10-2011, 08:44 PM

Thanks so much LoneTech! If you have a moment, I have one more question: can you add bookmarks to pdf files, like in the Kindle DX? So that I can mark the page I was reading if I need to go back to find something, or such. Thanks again!

LoneTech · 01-11-2011, 12:28 AM

Yes. Bookmarks appear in the table of contents, as do notes (which are images of a bit of the screen you select). If the book has no table of contents, firmware 2.0.4 has a bug in pdfviewer that also prevents it showing the bookmarks. AdobeViewer, however, works. Bookmarks placed in pdfviewer also do not appear in the main menu Notes function, which provides quick access to all bookmarks or notes you have placed (it leads to the table of contents for each book).

I have chosen to bind a long press on the menu (contents) button to placing a bookmark. It seemed to make sense. It's accessible in the quick menu too.

It would be better if bookmarks could also be named. Notes can have a bit of text, but it's only visible once the note is expanded to show its image. And if the last viewer for a book is pdfviewer, jumping into it from the Notes table of contents doesn't go to the right page, nor are AdobeViewer bookmarks visible in pdfviewer (or vice versa). Could get confusing. Mostly you'll want to stick to AdobeViewer as it is now, which is also the default.

italianReader · 01-11-2011, 03:37 AM

Just a question about the dictionary. How does it work? I mean, is selecting a word and performing a lookup a simple task?

parkher · 01-11-2011, 03:23 PM

Yes, pretty simple.

I have it mapped on long OK, so 1 press instead of 2 to get to it.

So, after pressing and holding OK, the dictionary shows up.

Then you have to select the word you want to look up. You do this with arrows.
Initially you have to navigate from the 1st word on the top line, and the dictionary shows up at the bottom.
If the word you need is in the bottom half of the page, you can press UP and get from the top line to the bottom line at once, the dictionary then moves to the top.
So you only need to navigate up-down no more than through half of the page.

Similarly, you only need to navigate through half of the line, however, by moving beyond the line you do not get to the other end of the same line, you get to the next/previous line, so you have to keep this in mind when navigating, in order to minimize the number of required arrow presses, otherwise you may overshoot.

If you need to use the dictionary again on the same page, the last chosen word is remembered and the top/bottom location of the dictionary as well.
So then you have to navigate starting from that word, not from the top of the page.

Also, there are some things you can do on the dictionary menu bar (to which you can get by pressing short OK): to choose the single word or the compact multi-word mode, to switch to another dictionary, to fetch the virtual keyboard.

However, if you want to look up a word that was not on the page, but was used in the dictionary itself to describe another word, or in an example, you cannot select it, you have to type it in with the virtual keyboard, unfortunately. Or to scroll to it in the multi-word mode, which is in most cases even worse than typing it in.
They could add another button to the menu bar to allow choosing a word inside the visible dictionary page.

italianReader · 01-12-2011, 06:01 AM

Thank you very much parkher.

omoplata · 01-13-2011, 01:32 AM

Hi all,

I'm also interested in the things the member 'Physics' who has posted here is interested in. Djvu file support and text searching within the books. I'd like to ask a question about searching.

In the review videos I've seen of the PB902 and PB602, the on screen keyboard used for typing the search words works like this. The alphabet of the keyboard is divided to several segments (five as I remember). Once you choose one of those your choice narrows down to a smaller set and you carry on until you can choose one letter or number. This seems to be the fastest way possible to type in a device like the PB902/PB602 which has no touch screen or off screen keyboard. Does PB903/PB603 use the same kind of keyboard?

I'm waiting for the US release of PB603 (903 is too big for me), and I'm hoping the touch screen will make interaction faster. But it's not going to be that fast if it uses the same kind of keyboard. If so, I might as well go for a PB302, where you can just tap on the keys on the on screen keyboard.

JimStar · 01-27-2011, 07:28 AM

Unfortunately, ePub format support in 902 is POOR at this moment (last 2.0.4 firmware).
Technical books (e.g. purchased in O'Reilly online store), and not only technical books if they have formatting - can't be read on 902 (and on all devices with this firmware) if they are in ePub.

Despite the fact that 2.0.4 firmware has TWO readers for ePub - AdobeViewer and fbreader:

AdobeViewer is totally useless for two reasons:
1. If the page is not fully filled with text (and in technical books it is at every step) - the time of going to next page is about one half minute! That is terrible, I can make a coffee waiting that will be done...
2. In AdobeViewer totally not works dictionary - it opens but can not select words and finally crashes (and I'm not a native English speaker, I need it).

Fbreader is useless twice: it just renders the pages with some text LOST. And do not formats the remaining text properly (must be centered text is to left of page).

That is the page of one of ePub books as it is seen in the windows reader application:

And this is the screenshot of PocketBook Pro 902 with this ePub opened in fbreader. You can see - the LOT of important text is lost:

So, I have 902, but I read the O'Reilly books on computer so far... (Do not offer PDF to me, format with not changable font size is format for paper of appropriate size, but not for electronic screens, it brokes my eyes)...

PS. Sorry my English. Sorry my opinion (for PDF-lovers).

JimStar · 01-30-2011, 01:23 PM

At first, sorry my English.

So I carried out some research.
AdobeViewer library problem is common to all devices, so it will not work properly with ePub files in all devices that use it. PocketBook - uses it if you open ePub file with AdobeViewer. So, it will not work properly with ePub and it not works with dictionary in ePub files opened in AdobeViewer.

But in FBreader - PocketBook has a stupid BUG that I've found. With ePub files that have formatting. In the file XHTMLReader.cpp (my comments are in the code):

Code:

void XHTMLReader::characterDataHandler(const char *text, int len) {
        if (myPreformatted) {
                if ((*text == '\r') || (*text == '\n')) {
                        myModelReader.addControl(CODE, false);
                        myModelReader.endParagraph();
                        myModelReader.beginParagraph();
                        myModelReader.addControl(CODE, true);
                }
                int spaceCounter = 0;

                //Look at this loop 
                //If we got a string that has a whitespace as its first character,
                //then spaceCounter will be ALWAIS set to FULL LENGTH OF STRING,
                //so ALWAIS such a string will be not printed on the screen!
                //A stupid BUG in all production versions of devices...
                while ((spaceCounter < len) && isspace((unsigned char)*text)) {
                        ++spaceCounter;
                }

                myModelReader.addFixedHSpace(spaceCounter);
                text += spaceCounter;
                len -= spaceCounter;
        }
        if (len > 0) {
                myModelReader.addData(std::string(text, len));
        }
}

All what PocketBook developers need to make - is to add current count of witespaces to the string pointer:

Code:

while ((spaceCounter < len) && isspace((unsigned char)*(text + spaceCounter))) {
        ++spaceCounter;
}

It's all. At this time developers not fixed it and not answered to my mail. And banned me on their russian forum.

LoneTech · 01-30-2011, 01:43 PM

Plain bug indeed. It has been fixed in upstream fbreader, so the question is why PocketBook doesn't track changes.

troll05 · 01-30-2011, 02:06 PM

Just post your Version of the Fbreader somewhere here and contact Forkosigan via "Urgent PM"

mtravellerh · 01-30-2011, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JimStar

At first, sorry my English.

So I carried out some research.
AdobeViewer library problem is common to all devices, so it will not work properly with ePub files in all devices that use it. PocketBook - uses it if you open ePub file with AdobeViewer. So, it will not work properly with ePub and it not works with dictionary in ePub files opened in AdobeViewer.

But in FBreader - PocketBook has a stupid BUG that I've found. With ePub files that have formatting. In the file XHTMLReader.cpp (my comments are in the code):

Code:

void XHTMLReader::characterDataHandler(const char *text, int len) {
        if (myPreformatted) {
                if ((*text == '\r') || (*text == '\n')) {
                        myModelReader.addControl(CODE, false);
                        myModelReader.endParagraph();
                        myModelReader.beginParagraph();
                        myModelReader.addControl(CODE, true);
                }
                int spaceCounter = 0;

                //Look at this loop 
                //If we got a string that has a whitespace as its first character,
                //then spaceCounter will be ALWAIS set to FULL LENGTH OF STRING,
                //so ALWAIS such a string will be not printed on the screen!
                //A stupid BUG in all production versions of devices...
                while ((spaceCounter < len) && isspace((unsigned char)*text)) {
                        ++spaceCounter;
                }

                myModelReader.addFixedHSpace(spaceCounter);
                text += spaceCounter;
                len -= spaceCounter;
        }
        if (len > 0) {
                myModelReader.addData(std::string(text, len));
        }
}

All what PocketBook developers need to make - is to add current count of witespaces to the string pointer:

Code:

while ((spaceCounter < len) && isspace((unsigned char)*(text + spaceCounter))) {
        ++spaceCounter;
}

It's all. At this time developers not fixed it and not answered to my mail. And banned me on their russian forum.

Welcome. Plain bug indeed, but, to put things right:

You were not banned for this and ebook.org does not belong, in any way, to PB.

JimStar · 01-30-2011, 03:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mtravellerh

You were not banned for this

That is YOUR version. But things are more complicated: moderators of this forum let to сompromised users to insult me again and again, and banned ME when I answer to them. Instead of banning these fluders. So, you can say - "they have banned me for insults", but it is obviously for what I was banned.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mtravellerh

and ebook.org does not belong, in any way, to PB.

But it has moderators that act to favor of PB.

O, even this is not true... Not moderators only, as seen.
Look at this please (screenshot of entry to this forum):

This is in Russian: "Official forum of the PocketBook company", "Information Support: http://pocketbook-int.com/".
So, this is all the same russian PocketBook forum.

01-10-2011, 04:25 PM	#183
LoneTech Zealot Posts: 135 Karma: 7767 Join Date: Oct 2010 Device: PocketBook Pro 903	1. Both pdf viewers support table of contents. Internal links work by simply tapping (for 903) in AdobeViewer, not in pdfviewer. Bind a button, for instance volume up or down, to Links mode for use without stylus. 2. There is a search function, but it is broken; pdfviewer doesn't find anything and AdobeViewer hangs when trying to find more (perhaps after the last instance?). Likely will be fixed at some point. 3. I can usually find a setting that works well enough. Still, proper fit to contents mode, or odd/even placement, could be nice... 4. Yes, the djvu viewer zooms just like the pdf ones - except for reflow. 5. Yes, djviewer supports text search (case insensitive, matches parts of words). Last edited by LoneTech; 01-10-2011 at 04:34 PM.

01-11-2011, 12:28 AM	#185
LoneTech Zealot Posts: 135 Karma: 7767 Join Date: Oct 2010 Device: PocketBook Pro 903	Yes. Bookmarks appear in the table of contents, as do notes (which are images of a bit of the screen you select). If the book has no table of contents, firmware 2.0.4 has a bug in pdfviewer that also prevents it showing the bookmarks. AdobeViewer, however, works. Bookmarks placed in pdfviewer also do not appear in the main menu Notes function, which provides quick access to all bookmarks or notes you have placed (it leads to the table of contents for each book). I have chosen to bind a long press on the menu (contents) button to placing a bookmark. It seemed to make sense. It's accessible in the quick menu too. It would be better if bookmarks could also be named. Notes can have a bit of text, but it's only visible once the note is expanded to show its image. And if the last viewer for a book is pdfviewer, jumping into it from the Notes table of contents doesn't go to the right page, nor are AdobeViewer bookmarks visible in pdfviewer (or vice versa). Could get confusing. Mostly you'll want to stick to AdobeViewer as it is now, which is also the default. Last edited by LoneTech; 01-11-2011 at 12:37 AM.

01-11-2011, 03:23 PM	#187
parkher Evangelist Posts: 467 Karma: 369018 Join Date: Nov 2010 Device: BL Alita/Mimas/Ares, OB Note2/Note, KA One/H2O/HD, S PRS T2/T1, PB 902	Yes, pretty simple. I have it mapped on long OK, so 1 press instead of 2 to get to it. So, after pressing and holding OK, the dictionary shows up. Then you have to select the word you want to look up. You do this with arrows. Initially you have to navigate from the 1st word on the top line, and the dictionary shows up at the bottom. If the word you need is in the bottom half of the page, you can press UP and get from the top line to the bottom line at once, the dictionary then moves to the top. So you only need to navigate up-down no more than through half of the page. Similarly, you only need to navigate through half of the line, however, by moving beyond the line you do not get to the other end of the same line, you get to the next/previous line, so you have to keep this in mind when navigating, in order to minimize the number of required arrow presses, otherwise you may overshoot. If you need to use the dictionary again on the same page, the last chosen word is remembered and the top/bottom location of the dictionary as well. So then you have to navigate starting from that word, not from the top of the page. Also, there are some things you can do on the dictionary menu bar (to which you can get by pressing short OK): to choose the single word or the compact multi-word mode, to switch to another dictionary, to fetch the virtual keyboard. However, if you want to look up a word that was not on the page, but was used in the dictionary itself to describe another word, or in an example, you cannot select it, you have to type it in with the virtual keyboard, unfortunately. Or to scroll to it in the multi-word mode, which is in most cases even worse than typing it in. They could add another button to the menu bar to allow choosing a word inside the visible dictionary page. Last edited by parkher; 01-11-2011 at 03:48 PM.

01-30-2011, 01:23 PM	#191
JimStar Enthusiast Posts: 46 Karma: 100000 Join Date: Jan 2011 Device: Kyobo eReader, Sony PRS-950, PocketBook Pro 902, PocketBook 360	At first, sorry my English. So I carried out some research. AdobeViewer library problem is common to all devices, so it will not work properly with ePub files in all devices that use it. PocketBook - uses it if you open ePub file with AdobeViewer. So, it will not work properly with ePub and it not works with dictionary in ePub files opened in AdobeViewer. But in FBreader - PocketBook has a stupid BUG that I've found. With ePub files that have formatting. In the file XHTMLReader.cpp (my comments are in the code): Code: void XHTMLReader::characterDataHandler(const char text, int len) { if (myPreformatted) { if ((text == '\r') \|\| (text == '\n')) { myModelReader.addControl(CODE, false); myModelReader.endParagraph(); myModelReader.beginParagraph(); myModelReader.addControl(CODE, true); } int spaceCounter = 0; //Look at this loop //If we got a string that has a whitespace as its first character, //then spaceCounter will be ALWAIS set to FULL LENGTH OF STRING, //so ALWAIS such a string will be not printed on the screen! //A stupid BUG in all production versions of devices... while ((spaceCounter < len) && isspace((unsigned char)text)) { ++spaceCounter; } myModelReader.addFixedHSpace(spaceCounter); text += spaceCounter; len -= spaceCounter; } if (len > 0) { myModelReader.addData(std::string(text, len)); } } All what PocketBook developers need to make - is to add current count of witespaces to the string pointer: Code: while ((spaceCounter < len) && isspace((unsigned char)*(text + spaceCounter))) { ++spaceCounter; } It's all. At this time developers not fixed it and not answered to my mail. And banned me on their russian forum.

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01-10-2011, 09:43 AM	#181
pietrokc Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Los Angeles Device: none	Thanks for your reply, LoneTech. I understand the issue better now. I was just rereading the thread and someone said that, as regards microSD cards, one should have "at least a class 4 card" if one has a lot of books in it. I don't understand why that is; naively I would expect even very slow cards to be enough for the modest need of transferring files under 5MB, which I would imagine is the majority of ebooks. (Certainly the vast majority of mine.) Indeed I would expect that either the whole file is transferred to RAM when one starts to read it, or only the page you are reading is retrieved from the card when you get to it. In the first case I can certainly endure even a 5-second wait for the book to load (enough to transfer 10MB with a class 2 card), after which things would be fast; and in the second case I imagine that each page is only a few kilobytes, and very quickly transmitted by any card.

01-10-2011, 01:09 PM	#182
physics Enthusiast Posts: 41 Karma: 729 Join Date: Dec 2010 Device: Kindle DX	Hi all- I'm considering purchasing a Pocketbook 902 to replace my Kindle DX because of the better pdf/djvu file support, but was wondering if someone who has one could take a few minutes to answer a few questions: 1) Does either of the pdf viewers support internal links in pdfs and/or at least a linked table of contents? 2) For text pdfs, is there a search function? 3) I know that the pdf viewer doesn't automatically remove margins like the Kindle DX, but that there is a zoom feature. A lot of my pdfs come from scans of books; hence the right and left pages have different margins. If someone else has pdfs like that, do you find that you need to rezoom after every page? Or can you usually find a setting that works for both right and left pages? 4) Is there the ability to zoom in the viewer for djvu files? 5) Is there the ability to search for words in the viewer for djvu files? If anyone has any suggestions/comments in comparing the DX and the 902 for pdf reading, I'll take all the advice I can get. Thanks so much!

01-10-2011, 08:44 PM	#184
physics Enthusiast Posts: 41 Karma: 729 Join Date: Dec 2010 Device: Kindle DX	Thanks so much LoneTech! If you have a moment, I have one more question: can you add bookmarks to pdf files, like in the Kindle DX? So that I can mark the page I was reading if I need to go back to find something, or such. Thanks again!

01-11-2011, 03:37 AM	#186
italianReader Connoisseur Posts: 74 Karma: 340 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: onyx boox 60	Just a question about the dictionary. How does it work? I mean, is selecting a word and performing a lookup a simple task?

01-12-2011, 06:01 AM	#188
italianReader Connoisseur Posts: 74 Karma: 340 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: onyx boox 60	Thank you very much parkher.

01-13-2011, 01:32 AM	#189
omoplata Member Posts: 11 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2011 Device: none	Hi all, I'm also interested in the things the member 'Physics' who has posted here is interested in. Djvu file support and text searching within the books. I'd like to ask a question about searching. In the review videos I've seen of the PB902 and PB602, the on screen keyboard used for typing the search words works like this. The alphabet of the keyboard is divided to several segments (five as I remember). Once you choose one of those your choice narrows down to a smaller set and you carry on until you can choose one letter or number. This seems to be the fastest way possible to type in a device like the PB902/PB602 which has no touch screen or off screen keyboard. Does PB903/PB603 use the same kind of keyboard? I'm waiting for the US release of PB603 (903 is too big for me), and I'm hoping the touch screen will make interaction faster. But it's not going to be that fast if it uses the same kind of keyboard. If so, I might as well go for a PB302, where you can just tap on the keys on the on screen keyboard.

01-27-2011, 07:28 AM	#190
JimStar Enthusiast Posts: 46 Karma: 100000 Join Date: Jan 2011 Device: Kyobo eReader, Sony PRS-950, PocketBook Pro 902, PocketBook 360	Unfortunately, ePub format support in 902 is POOR at this moment (last 2.0.4 firmware). Technical books (e.g. purchased in O'Reilly online store), and not only technical books if they have formatting - can't be read on 902 (and on all devices with this firmware) if they are in ePub. Despite the fact that 2.0.4 firmware has TWO readers for ePub - AdobeViewer and fbreader: AdobeViewer is totally useless for two reasons: 1. If the page is not fully filled with text (and in technical books it is at every step) - the time of going to next page is about one half minute! That is terrible, I can make a coffee waiting that will be done... 2. In AdobeViewer totally not works dictionary - it opens but can not select words and finally crashes (and I'm not a native English speaker, I need it). Fbreader is useless twice: it just renders the pages with some text LOST. And do not formats the remaining text properly (must be centered text is to left of page). That is the page of one of ePub books as it is seen in the windows reader application: And this is the screenshot of PocketBook Pro 902 with this ePub opened in fbreader. You can see - the LOT of important text is lost: So, I have 902, but I read the O'Reilly books on computer so far... (Do not offer PDF to me, format with not changable font size is format for paper of appropriate size, but not for electronic screens, it brokes my eyes)... PS. Sorry my English. Sorry my opinion (for PDF-lovers).

01-30-2011, 01:43 PM	#192
LoneTech Zealot Posts: 135 Karma: 7767 Join Date: Oct 2010 Device: PocketBook Pro 903	Plain bug indeed. It has been fixed in upstream fbreader, so the question is why PocketBook doesn't track changes.

01-30-2011, 02:06 PM	#193
troll05 Harmless idiot Posts: 3,411 Karma: 2154829 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Zuhause Device: PB622, Nexus7, Sony PRS 350, Tolino und nur noch wenig toter Baum:(	Just post your Version of the Fbreader somewhere here and contact Forkosigan via "Urgent PM"