New Reader with great pdf-support: Mantano Reader (like aldiko+ezpdf)

[peaceridge]

Got it! Thanks. Do you know how to synchronize Mantano with Dropbox, rather than putting books in one by one?

Originally Posted by SCION

Select "More" where the choices are Apps, Widgets, Wallpapers, More. Then select Mantano. The app will open, then navigate to the book you want the shortcut for. You can repeat the steps for different books.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by SCION

How are you doing this? Are you long pressing on the home screen and selecting Shortcuts? I'm thinking it doesn't apply to Honeycomb (Android 3.x). Seems we lost the ability to do shortcuts. We only have the option to place the last book read in the notification bar (bottom right of home screen). But this must be selected in Mantano Settings.

Edit: I was wrong. We still have Shortcuts. Just set up a different way now. I now have shortcuts to the books I'm reading. The book covers are tiny (sized for a phone). Wish there was a way to make them bigger for tablets.

Glad you got it figured out! On my phone the shortcut covers are tiny too and squished. They need to work on that.

[SCION]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Glad you got it figured out! On my phone the shortcut covers are tiny too and squished. They need to work on that.

OK, so it's not normal at all. Will have to request it be tweaked. They've done so much. Hate to be anal about shortcuts.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by SCION

OK, so it's not normal at all. Will have to request it be tweaked. They've done so much. Hate to be anal about shortcuts.

I think they just need to change the size generated on the book covers and it will look much better. Right now they are too skinny to see what they are.

[SCION]

Originally Posted by peaceridge

Got it! Thanks. Do you know how to synchronize Mantano with Dropbox, rather than putting books in one by one?

I only know how to do the OPDS catalog using a Dropbox public folder. Even with that you can't download in bulk. To get books onto the device, you can just copy and paste your calibre library into /mnt/sdcard/books or wherever you wish. Mantano can import them in bulk. Just point it to that directory to sync.

[Eskarina]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

I can use my content server, but use the basic page (http://myipaddress:8080) or the mobile one (http://myipaddress:8080/mobile).

I tried this and it didn't work. When I use this in Aldiko, it kicks me out to my web browser to view my Calibre library. For Mantano, nothing.

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Try using http://myipaddress:8080/opds instead. The http://myipaddress:8080/stanza link may be using some deprecated format/entries that are unsupported in Mantano. I'm not exactly sure what formats Mantano supports. ePub and PDF, definitely, but I don't know if it supports any others. If your ebook isn't in a supported format, it's likely showing up in catalog but you might be getting an error when trying to download because there's no compatible format available.

All my books are either epub or PDF formats. I tried this and it didn't work on my nook color or on my android phone. I was afraid it might have had something to do with my setup but others on this thread have had problems and Project Gutenberg doesn't work either.

My wishlist for the next update:

1) A fix or workaround for the custom catalog issue.
2) Use of entire font family of a custom font. I can live with using the default font for italics. But I'd really like bolded text to show up
3) (Minor) - a way to adjust margin size without having to edit a theme would be really nice as some books have really wide margins. Perhaps include it as an option under display settings alongside font size?
4) Please, please, pretty please with cherry on top, include proper 2 page landscape where the the font size doesn't need to be microscopic.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by Eskarina

All my books are either epub or PDF formats. I tried this and it didn't work on my nook color or on my android phone. I was afraid it might have had something to do with my setup but others on this thread have had problems and Project Gutenberg doesn't work either.

My wishlist for the next update:

1) A fix or workaround for the custom catalog issue.

Quick question, what version of Calibre are you using? Also, are you using the Calibre Content Server or creating static pages with calibe2opds?

The Project Gutenberg feed is fairly complicated which is why Mantano may be having trouble with it.

Calibre's is fairly simple, though, so Mantano shouldn't have much trouble with it. I should mention, I'm using version 0.8.13 of Calibre. I'm not sure if there have been any changes made to the content server in newer versions.

[Eskarina]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Quick question, what version of Calibre are you using? Also, are you using the Calibre Content Server or creating static pages with calibe2opds?

The Project Gutenberg feed is fairly complicated which is why Mantano may be having trouble with it.

I'm using version 0.8.20 of Calibre and I use the content server. Mantano can see, search, and browse through my catalog regardless of whether I use http://myipaddress:8080/opds or http://myipaddress:8080/stanza. I just can't download a book. I tried Project Gutenberg because I wanted to see if the problem was with my calibre set up or Mantano and Mantano can't see the Project Gutenberg catalog.

The Project Gutenberg feed is fairly complicated which is why Mantano may be having trouble with it.

I'm new to all this and it was the only other catalog I could think of to try.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by Eskarina

I'm using version 0.8.20 of Calibre and I use the content server. Mantano can see, search, and browse through my catalog regardless of whether I use http://myipaddress:8080/opds or http://myipaddress:8080/stanza. I just can't download a book. I tried Project Gutenberg because I wanted to see if the problem was with my calibre set up or Mantano and Mantano can't see the Project Gutenberg catalog.

When browsing via the http://myipaddress:8080/opds link, does an icon for ePub or PDF show up to the right of the ebook? What version of Mantano are you using? I've tested Mantano 1.6.2 on an LG Thrive, Samsung Galaxy S 4G and Samsung Nexus S and all appear to be working fine, bar the issue with covers. My Nook Color's battery is completely drained at the moment so I'll have to wait a bit before I can test using that.

While downloading from http://myipaddress:8080/stanza definitely won't work, it seems weird that the http://myipaddress:8080/opds link works in some devices but not in others.

[Section8]

I'm using mantano 1.6.2 on a Nook Color, trying to download from /opds on Calibre 8.21. I get an epub download button for each book, also pdf for a few in that format. I can't download any of them, in either format. I can open the detail view for any book and get some of the metadata (summary and tags at least) but the cover is blank in the detail view.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by Section8

I'm using mantano 1.6.2 on a Nook Color, trying to download from /opds on Calibre 8.21. I get an epub download button for each book, also pdf for a few in that format. I can't download any of them, in either format. I can open the detail view for any book and get some of the metadata (summary and tags at least) but the cover is blank in the detail view.

Figured out what the issue is. Mantano doesn't like having a port number for the downloads. I was running calibre through a reverse proxy that's why downloads were working for me. If I try connecting directly to the content server, I also get a download failed error.

If port 80 is available on your system, I suggest changing the port setting for calibre's content server to port 80. The calibre server would then be on http://myipaddress/opds which should work with Mantano (covers and thumbnails still won't work, though). For those that are able to do this, switching to port 80 would make for a quick fix.

However, Mantano developers definitely need to fix this (and other bugs) in their app.

Bugs:

• No legacy support for OPDS 0.9 catalogs.
• Port numbers not supported in acquisition/download links.
• Some OPDS compliant catalogs are unsupported (e.g. Project Gutenberg).

Feature Requests:

• UTF-8 support for catalog and metadata.
• Legacy support for Stanza formatted catalogs.
• Allow editing of catalog titles and links.
• Add option to also download/save metadata and covers from catalog for downloaded ebooks.
• Tighter integration between catalogs and ebooks (Stanza on iOS shows if the ebook has already been downloaded from a catalog).
• Download all option.

[blak4dr]

I for one can't change the port number as I run calibre server on a dedicated server with the latest version 0.8.24 and I have two different librairies that use two different port numbers. That dedicated server runs a website as well so port 80 is taken by apache.
I guess I'll just have to wait for Mantano's developpers to figure it out. Calibre being one of the major library software out there that provides opds library support, it would,in my opinion, be a mistake on their part to ignore it.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by blak4dr

I for one can't change the port number as I run calibre server on a dedicated server with the latest version 0.8.24 and I have two different libraries that use two different port numbers. That dedicated server runs a website as well so port 80 is taken by apache.
I guess I'll just have to wait for Mantano's developpers to figure it out. Calibre being one of the major library software out there that provides opds library support, it would,in my opinion, be a mistake on their part to ignore it.

If you're already running Apache, why not create a reverse proxy or virtual host for Calibre? The reason I didn't even notice the issue in the first place was because I was accessing Calibre via reverse proxy.

Calibre command line

calibre-server.exe -p 8081 --max-opds-items 30 --url-prefix /calibre1 --with-library "C:\path\to\calibre1"
calibre-server.exe -p 8082 --max-opds-items 30 --url-prefix /calibre2 --with-library "C:\path\to\calibre2"

httpd.conf for reverse proxy

ProxyRequests Off

<Proxy *>
    Order Deny,Allow
    Deny from all
    Allow from 10.0.0.0/255.255.255.0
</Proxy>

<Location /calibre1>
 ProxyPass http://127.0.0.1:8081/calibre1
 ProxyPassReverse http://127.0.0.1:8081/calibre1
 SetEnv force-proxy-request-1.0 1
 SetEnv proxy-nokeepalive 1
</Location>

<Location /calibre2>
 ProxyPass http://127.0.0.1:8082/calibre2
 ProxyPassReverse http://127.0.0.1:8082/calibre2
 SetEnv force-proxy-request-1.0 1
 SetEnv proxy-nokeepalive 1
</Location>

OPDS feed links:
http://myipaddress/calibre1/opds
http://myipaddress/calibre2/opds

Obviously, you'd need to change the deny/allow stuff for your network/usage scenario, and the ports/paths/usernames/passwords to reflect your calibre set-up. You would also need to load the necessary dependencies (mod_proxy and mod_proxy_http at a minimum, I forget what else).

[Sweetpea]

That won't work for me... I can't run Calibre on port 80 as that's my main IIS site. And I'm not a pro in maintaining IIS, I only know how to make use of it...

But, as my site itself does work and downloads from the browser are opened in Mantano by default, I'm not bothered much by it.

[Jean-Marie]

Dear all,

I apologize if we are not very present these days on MR, but we're still working very hard on our application and complementary projects. We'll tray to catch up the conversation asap, but I have an important news today, I wanted to share it with you.

We’ve decided to further widen the audience of our book reading application, by replacing the 7-days Trial version by an unlimited Free version, available on the Android Market (https://market.android.com/details?i....android.trial) or on our website for those who cannot access this market: http://www.neovento.net/tmp/MReader-free-1.6.3.58.apk. Of course we need funding to keep improving the app, developing new features, providing support, and supporting the Adobe DRM.

We follow the now well established model:

• The free version is supported by ads
• The paid version is ads-free, and provides a Priority Access to our Customer Support.

The Customer Support will be open to Bug Reports and Feature requests from all users, but support will be provided only to paid users. A community support forum is available to allow our users helping each others.
We know this Free version was expected by a lot of people, we hope it will match their expectations.

The paid version is of paramount importance for us, don't forget to purchase it if you appreciate our work. Thanks a lot to all our existing customers and MobileRead readers for their confidence, their patience and so precious feedback.

Besides the free version, the 1.6.3 release provides the following changes:

• Improved: Highlights now appear in the list of notes
• Bugfixes

Enjoy!

Best regards,

Jean-Marie