Bluefire reader app

[Micah]

seajewel,
We don't currently over-ride publisher margin settings - even when "use publisher settings" it "on" - as we only "over-ride" specific CSS tags for specific settings we offer. I think we need to get more aggressive with that. I have books that have their own margin settings, and it drives me crazy when reading on my iPhone

[Micah]

Originally Posted by pamon

getting constant crashing on ipad 2 with jailbroken ios 4.3.3. anyone with any help?

There are several threads here on this forum about jailbroken devices and Bluefire Reader and work arounds. We link to one of those threads on our FAQ page here: http://www.bluefirereader.com/faq.html

FYI, we know how to fix it now, but unfortunately the trade-offs are too high for us to include it in an update, so the work-arounds are your best bet.

[Micah]

Originally Posted by soondai

Bluefire is pretty good. I really wish it had a dictionary (offline, please) and that links in the ePubs (to endnotes, etc) worked.

I'd definitely pay a few bucks if these features were added. Right now I use Kindle mostly, but really don't like having to convert to mobi and having not control over the huge margins.

Both of those features are high on our to-do list.

[avere]

I just wanted to add my +1 to some of the feature requests made by others. I too am a former Stanza user looking for a new reader. Bluefire comes really close to ticking all my boxes. Here's what I think would make it the perfect reader.
Thanks!

Originally Posted by artbatista

1. OPDS support.

2.- configurable tap zones

5.- an easier way to switch between day and night mode.

6.- likewise for an easier way to change brightness,

There's a huge market out there for a good book reader, and from what I can see no one is happy with the current offerings. You have an opportunity here to capture a large amount of orphan users, left adrift after Stanza's demise.

Also, a feature I would LOVE is syncing of reading location between iOS devices!

[avere]

I think they must have because the recent instapaper update has a hardware brightness control.

Originally Posted by kjk

Micah, did Apple ever make hardware brightness control a public API? I remember there was some minor uproar over them keeping it private, so only iBooks could control brightness from within the app (without resorting to some tricks).

[Micah]

Originally Posted by avere

I just wanted to add my +1 to some of the feature requests made by others. I too am a former Stanza user looking for a new reader. Bluefire comes really close to ticking all my boxes. Here's what I think would make it the perfect reader.
Thanks!

Also, a feature I would LOVE is syncing of reading location between iOS devices!

Yea, the sync would be awesome. I'm toying with where to store that data on the cloud. Would dropbox be a reasonable way to go there?

I'm curious, in regards to a quicker way to switch to night mode, why is that important? Meaning, I don't switch back and forth often one reading session - do you? My experience is that when I start reading at night, I open the settings and turn on night mode and hit save. Then read for a while. Granted a couple taps, and a wait time, but does not seem onerous to me....?

I'd have a similar question about brightness settings. FYI, we actually apply brightness tweaks immediately, and you don't have to "save" and can even "cancel" and it still applies. Seems odd I know, but since we don't have to "reflow" the book on this setting, we wanted to make it quick. Is the issue that you need a better "preview" of the setting - otherwise you have to go back and forth between the panel and the book? Or is it that you change the settings often in one reading session?

Stanza had the slide up/down way to set that, but my concern is that since we have scrolling in PDF's that it would be inconsistent across views, and that some folks would accidentally change it and be confused.

user added OPDS makes total sense, and we already support OPDS feeds in Get Books (e.g. feedbooks) but have not added "user added" feeds. I'd like to do that, and it will be interesting to see if Apple will allow that.

configurable tap zones are another one that makes total sense - especially for lefties. Would just a "lefty" mode suffice? Or are there other tap zone configs that are really useful?

[seajewel]

Originally Posted by Micah

I'm curious, in regards to a quicker way to switch to night mode, why is that important? Meaning, I don't switch back and forth often one reading session - do you? My experience is that when I start reading at night, I open the settings and turn on night mode and hit save. Then read for a while. Granted a couple taps, and a wait time, but does not seem onerous to me....?

<snip>
configurable tap zones are another one that makes total sense - especially for lefties. Would just a "lefty" mode suffice? Or are there other tap zone configs that are really useful?

My two cents: I think a quicker way to switch to night mode would be convenient. It is one of the options you would switch back and forth between fairly often, it's not like font choice or margins or other stuff that you might, for the most part, set once and not touch again until you get bored.

As for configurable tap zones, personally I'm not left handed but I do read and hold my reader with my left hand often, and then I have to make weird contortions in order to turn the page one-handed. Probably a way of configuring left side, right side etc is enough, although if I were to go even further, I would love to have an app or a reader that woudl let me designate both sides as Next Page, but if I tap on the top left corner I could go back, mainly so that if I switch which hand is holding the reader, I don't have to change the settings. Previous page is useful but of course used much less than next page.

My last plea, which you have read before, and which I've also sent an email about, is again the option to see the status bar of the iPhone at the top of the screen, to be able to see the time while reading. I got a rather pat response to the email that I can just hit the center of the screen to bring it up.. of course I already know this. I just prefer to not have to do that every time to check the time, as I tend to read mostly at night and like to keep an eye on the time so I don't lose out too much on sleep.

[Barty]

Kudos to Micah and team because this is the best contender for stanza replacement I've tried.

. Good, clean, polished UI.
. Handles ePub very well. Uses book's CSS. Even tricky stuff like float and drop cap. Compare that to some readers that can't even do bold and italic.
. It's read all the epubs I've tried, even books that stanza has trouble displaying or crashes on.

Things improved over stanza.

. Nice cover browser (I'm using iPad, the stanza version on which has no cover flow)
. Drm ePub.
. Fade transition.
. Reader appears more stable in my limited testing (have not seen exception or crash on particular book).
. Displays the cover.XHTML page correctly (stanza sometimes just gives a blank page)
. Full screen table of contents, so I can actually see the content in the toc!
. Bookmarking requires fewer clicks.

Things I miss from Stanza

. The brightness control thing. We all know what it is.
. No control over line spacing. Everything just feels too cramped without it.
. Search within book isn't good. I like to see a list of search results with a bit of context, and jump to it. Page / chapter number a plus.
. Limited font choice. I want to select any of the font installed on the iPad.
. Background image. I like using a texture, not just a solid color.
. No back, forward buttons.
. No xx/yy chapter position. I often like to know how many pages to go to finish current chapter.
. Calibre content server.
. Faster book open. I think stanza unzips and caches the books.
. Quicker access to font resizing with immediate full screen feedback..

Suggestions:
. Add icons for brightness control and night/day toggle next to the bookmark icon.
, put some kind of visual indicator for bookmarked page. Or better yet, have a discreet little semi transparent icon in the corner that acts as both indicator and action button you can tap on to add/delete bookmark
. Set the library icon apart from the others.

Note to jail breakers: if you have backgrounder installed, you need to add override for bluefire reader and set mode to either none or backgrounder. If you do NOT have backgrounder installed, you need to INSTALL it and set the override as describe. At least that is my experience on iPad 2 running iOS 4.3.3

Questions for Micah:

. Are you just inverting the colors for night mode? I'd much prefer to have separate colors settings for night mode. Also, in night mode the images all look like drawn outlines. This is ok sometimes, but most of the times I prefer to have them left unmodified.
. Image transparency support would be cool.

. I don't know if it's the jailbreak, but it won't save orientation lock. It saves my other settings. I looked in tv.bluefire....plist and see nothing that looks like orientation lock. Is there a key/value I can add manually?
. I got all excited when I saw userStyle.css. But it just gets overwritten. Bummer. What I love about stanza is it (ok, probably not intentionally) exposes the HTML template, CSS, and a bit of js so I can set my own CSS and bit of scripting (on the presentation side). I can do things like allow book's font size but at the same time enforce a minimum font size, use different fonts for headings, add text-shadow as a sort of poor man antialias. Etc. It'd be cool if you allow a bit of that, officially or unofficially.

P.S: I would gladly pay for this app.

[toomanybooks]

My key three itema to make this a better stanza would be:

Brightness slide control. I used this all the time in Stanza and still try to do it in other programs before I remember that that function isn't there.

True configurable tap zones. I am right handed but a prefer to hold the Ipod in my left hand. I would like to be able to set the zones so a tap in the left side on the top half goes back a page and a tap on the bottom half of the left side goes to the next page. Or an equivalent solution.

More fonts. Maybe the ability to import fonts.

[gwynevans]

Originally Posted by Micah

I'd have a similar question about brightness settings. FYI, we actually apply brightness tweaks immediately, and you don't have to "save" and can even "cancel" and it still applies. Seems odd I know, but since we don't have to "reflow" the book on this setting, we wanted to make it quick. Is the issue that you need a better "preview" of the setting - otherwise you have to go back and forth between the panel and the book? Or is it that you change the settings often in one reading session?

Stanza had the slide up/down way to set that, but my concern is that since we have scrolling in PDF's that it would be inconsistent across views, and that some folks would accidentally change it and be confused.

For myself, I don't use the night setting but I do drop the brightness when reading at night. Part of the desire for a slide adjustment is the ease of tweaking the value, as even without the need for a 'Save', the 'tap' (to show the bar), 'specific tap' to get the settings dialog, then slide, followed by another tap or two to get back to reading...

Would a setting for toggling (with the default being for PDF scrolling) be a way of 'safely' adding that?

[ATimson]

Originally Posted by Micah

I'd have a similar question about brightness settings. FYI, we actually apply brightness tweaks immediately, and you don't have to "save" and can even "cancel" and it still applies. Seems odd I know, but since we don't have to "reflow" the book on this setting, we wanted to make it quick. Is the issue that you need a better "preview" of the setting - otherwise you have to go back and forth between the panel and the book? Or is it that you change the settings often in one reading session?

I tend to read in lots of short sessions, rather than one long session; that means that I could need to change the brightness every 15 minutes or so of reading time.

Originally Posted by Micah

Stanza had the slide up/down way to set that, but my concern is that since we have scrolling in PDF's that it would be inconsistent across views, and that some folks would accidentally change it and be confused.

Could you maybe only do it while the tap screen is up (with clock, scroll bar, Library/Settings buttons. etc.)?

[Barty]

Originally Posted by ATimson

I tend to read in lots of short sessions, rather than one long session; that means that I could need to change the brightness every 15 minutes or so of reading time.


Could you maybe only do it while the tap screen is up (with clock, scroll bar, Library/Settings buttons. etc.)?

That's a good option. Another one is to have a specific swipe zone, like the left and/or right edge of the screen. I think when people swipe to scroll, they don't naturally do it at the edge, but more toward the center right?

[foosion]

I'd also vote for support for the Calibre library server and OPDS and syncing of reading location between iOS devices.

[artbatista]

Originally Posted by Micah

Yea, the sync would be awesome. I'm toying with where to store that data on the cloud. Would dropbox be a reasonable way to go there?

I'm curious, in regards to a quicker way to switch to night mode, why is that important? Meaning, I don't switch back and forth often one reading session - do you? My experience is that when I start reading at night, I open the settings and turn on night mode and hit save. Then read for a while. Granted a couple taps, and a wait time, but does not seem onerous to me....?

I'd have a similar question about brightness settings. FYI, we actually apply brightness tweaks immediately, and you don't have to "save" and can even "cancel" and it still applies. Seems odd I know, but since we don't have to "reflow" the book on this setting, we wanted to make it quick. Is the issue that you need a better "preview" of the setting - otherwise you have to go back and forth between the panel and the book? Or is it that you change the settings often in one reading session?

Stanza had the slide up/down way to set that, but my concern is that since we have scrolling in PDF's that it would be inconsistent across views, and that some folks would accidentally change it and be confused.

user added OPDS makes total sense, and we already support OPDS feeds in Get Books (e.g. feedbooks) but have not added "user added" feeds. I'd like to do that, and it will be interesting to see if Apple will allow that.

configurable tap zones are another one that makes total sense - especially for lefties. Would just a "lefty" mode suffice? Or are there other tap zone configs that are really useful?

Either Dropbox or something with iCloud? For the sync should be good.

I tend to move around a lot from brightly lit to dark areas, and maybe it's just me, but switching from day to night mode and back, frequently seems to keep me from getting fatigued.

As far as the brightness thingy, perhaps a compromise would be to set a narrow strip along the edges for that function. If the user swipes up or down away from the edges then scroll?

As far as OPDS, why would that be a problem, stanza, Megareader, i2reader and many more have had user "custom" OPDS feed support for years.

Finally, one thing I neglected to add to my suggestions, when in library view, there's no way to see the book description and other metadata that may be available in the ePub container.

Cheers

Art

[artbatista]

Originally Posted by Micah

configurable tap zones are another one that makes total sense - especially for lefties. Would just a "lefty" mode suffice? Or are there other tap zone configs that are really useful?

I think that configurable tap zones is the way to go. After holding an iPad for a while, I start switching hands when I get tired. In Stanza, one of the best features is that you could configure both tap zones to go anyway you want to. Ie., I had both setup to page forward, so I could hold the iPad in either hand and use that same hand's thumb to page forward.

Art