Freda Ebook Reader for Windows and Android

[Jim Chapman]

Originally Posted by toddos

Have you considered using the Silverlight Toolkit's LongListSelector?

That is a very good point. I did try it out when it was first released, and I found the performance quite poor. But I know they've done a load of work on it since, so I should look at it again.

[toddos]

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

That is a very good point. I did try it out when it was first released, and I found the performance quite poor. But I know they've done a load of work on it since, so I should look at it again.

Well, you may have to do some work with your data source to make it work well with virtualization (I haven't used LongListSelector so I'm not sure what's required). But "choppy scrolling on large lists" is the very definition of the problem that virtualized list controls solve, and LongListSelector is a virtualized list control

[Jim Chapman]

Originally Posted by toddos

Well, you may have to do some work with your data source to make it work well with virtualization

By happy chance, I have (in the last release) done some work on my data source - which used to be a binary file, and which is now a LINQ query. So it may work nicely; I will keep you posted.

[martinohsk]

Hello everyone,

I'm new to Calibre and freda and hope that someone here can help me.

I'm able to successfully see, download and read books from my Calibre library on my WP7.5 device (Nokia Lumia 800), but when I try to do the same with newspapers (e.g. The Economist, The Daily Mirror, Sydney Morning Herald) I can see the newspapers, but after selecting a newspaper freda always crashes when I press either the "Download" or "Open" button. Upon crashing I am dumped back to the WP Apps menu.

I have no problem opening and reading the same newspaers using Calibre's built-in reader. I can also successfully see, download and read the same newspapers using ABookReader.

Has anyone else come across this problem and is there a solution?

(I'm running Calibre 0.8.40 on Windows 7 and freda 2.5 on my Nokia Lumia 800.)

[jimm98y]

Hello, I started using Freda since the last (2.5) update ind it is so far the best ebook reader out there. I love the Skydrive support added in the last version, but as I'm one of the people who like to carry the entire ebook collection in their device (mobile data connection is quite expensive and very limited (150MB FUP) here in the Czech Republic) and I miss the ability to download the entire Skydrive folder content (300+ ebooks) at one click - it is quite annoying to download all those ebooks one by one. It is just a suggestion, but it would be a great feature in the next version of Freda.

[Jim Chapman]

Originally Posted by martinohsk

Hello everyone,
selecting a newspaper freda always crashes when I press either the "Download" or "Open" button.

Thanks for reporting the issue. I have tried to reproduce it using my Calibre/Freda setup, but I can't. That probably means that there's some difference between our Calibre configurations ... . So to help me investigate the issue, can I ask you to do a couple of things for me please:

1) Please find one of the newspaper epub files in your Calibre folder on your PC and email it to me, so I can do some testing
2) On the Calibre main library screen, please select one of the newspaper files, and look at its metadata [right-click, menu item 'edit metadata', sub-menu item 'edit metadata individually' ]. Take a look at the metadata text (probably in a 'comments' pane on the right hand side of the screen), and if it is very long, please delete it. The current Freda version has a bug that causes problems in the case of books with large amounts of metadata text.
3) After one of the failed downloads, please restart Freda then go to the 'support' page and tap the 'email for support' button. That will send me a log file that may help me investigate the issue.

Thanks for your help,

Jim (jim@turnipsoft.co.uk)

[Jim Chapman]

Originally Posted by jimm98y

the ability to download the entire Skydrive folder content (300+ ebooks) at one click.

I plan to add this feature in the next version of Freda.

[martinohsk]

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

Thanks for reporting the issue. I have tried to reproduce it using my Calibre/Freda setup, but I can't. That probably means that there's some difference between our Calibre configurations ... . So to help me investigate the issue, can I ask you to do a couple of things for me please:

Jim, sorry I didn't reply earlier.. I somehow missed the email notification of your response.

1) I've just emailed a copy of "The Economist" to you from my Calibre folder.

2) Yes the metadata for these news epubs is very long, and deleting it seems to fix the problem, although not immediately. After deleting the metadata I was immediately able to successfully download to my bookshelf in Freda, but when I selected it to read in the bookshelf it crashed again. However when I restarted Freda (it may have been the second or third time, I'm not sure) I successfully selected and opened to read.

3) I've also just emailed the logfile corresponding to "The Economist" file in 1 above via the "email for support" button.

Many thanks for your responsiveness. With your 2nd suggestion I at least have a workaround I can use in the meantime.

[Jim Chapman]

I've got a new release (2.6) of Freda ready for beta-testing. I've just emailed my regular beta-testing team with a link - but if you're interested in testing the program (and you've not received an email from me in the last few minutes) please contact me and I will sign you up to the beta-testing group.

The new version includes assorted new features, such as:

• The main screen is now a panorama style display with a pretty background image (which you can turn off if it annoys you)
• The bookshelf uses a metro-style virtualising list box (which means it can list all your books - I tested it up to 1000 books, and performance was still OK). If you sort by author or title, you'll get a jump-list view.
• OPDS, SkyDrive and DropBox sources provide a 'get all' bulk download feature, that will let you download all the books shown on the current screen (or you can select only some of them if you prefer).
• The book info display is a proper screen, and allows you to edit the book title and author if you want.
• The main screen (now a panorama) includes a 'more' tab with shortcuts to popular options, and a 'feedback' screen.
• The control panel on the book screen is reorganised (I added a 'go to' feature, and made the bookmark screen look more Metro-like)
• The program now supports FB2 format as well (but doesn't yet handle embedded images)
• The settings screen now includes a tab for controls - which shows you what areas on the book page have particular control actions associated with them, and lets you change these actions.
• <CODE> and <PRE> content is now displayed in a fixed-width font (though not very prettily)
• You can backup and restore your bookshelf and sources to your SkyDrive. This affects only the list of books and source definitions - it does not back up/restore settings, presets or bookmarks. It also doesn't do anything with the book files themselves (and actually, I doubt I will ever want to implement that because it might put Freda dangerously close to being a 'tool for content piracy').
• Performance is generally somewhat faster.
• Memory usage is lower, and if you want to ensure really low memory usage, there is a special 'low memory mode' setting that you can use to do that - mainly it works by turning off the background images in the UI, and by insisting on keeping more book data in (slow) IsoStore, rather than (faster) program memory. This mode gets set automatically if the program detects that it's running on a low-spec device.
• If you have a book which uses <DIV> rather than <P> to mark paragraphs, the previous version of Freda would not understand this, and would not apply paragraph formatting (e.g. line breaks) correctly. There is now an advanced setting ('divs are paragraphs') that you can use to tell Freda to treat DIVs as if they were Ps.
• SkyDrive credentials get remembered consistently (in the previous version, there were some situations where a user was being asked to re-authenticate every time they accessed SkyDrive).
• Advertising is no longer shown on the bookshelf/sources page. Instead, it appears on an interstitial page that comes up the first time you open a book, and from time to time thereafter.
• You can now set a password (it's in the settings screen) - and thereafter you will need to enter that password before the program will start.
• The UI is translated into German and French. Anyone willing to translate any to other languages would earn my eternal gratitude ... also the opportunity to have your name on the credits screen, and the offer of a pint of beer.

[starrigger]

This is just for phone users, not PDA users, is that right, Jim?

[Jim Chapman]

Originally Posted by starrigger

This is just for phone users, not PDA users, is that right, Jim?

That's right I'm afraid - this is just a release for Windows Phone.

[Sweetpea]

You can sign me up for your beta-testing group, if you want. There are some features in this beta that fix some major problems I have with Freda at the moment. There's a PM in your box with my info.

[Daniel Kalal]

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

I've got a new release (2.6) of Freda ready for beta-testing.

That's good news, Jim. Thanks for this. Will this release offer copy-text? It isn't listed, but I can hope... The random advertisment will certainly be more effective (for the advertiser), but I'm hoping that there will also be a not-free-Freda that will be available.

[Jim Chapman]

Originally Posted by Daniel Kalal

Will this release offer copy-text? It isn't listed, but I can hope.

Unfortunately no. Of course you can copy individual words by tapping on them then selecting the word text in the 'dictionary' or 'translate' screen. But for selecting and copying larger blocks of text, there is no way. I didn't manage to come up with an acceptable UI for the select action.

Originally Posted by Daniel Kalal

I'm hoping that there will also be a not-free-Freda that will be available.

There will. I intend to call it 'Freda+'.

[Jim Chapman]

Version 2.6 adds new features including:

• Improved Metro-style appearance (including a jump-list view of the bookshelf)
• FB2 format
• Ability to backup and restore the bookshelf using SkyDrive
• Better handling of CODE, PRE and DIV elements
• Advertising no longer displayed on the main front screen
• Bulk-download feature to get multiple books at once
• Low-memory mode for better performance on low spec phones
• Password lock
• French, German, Swedish and Slovak UI localisation
• Numerous stability and performance fixes

For more details, head over to http://www.turnipsoft.co.uk/freda , and to download the app, find it on Marketplace at http://windowsphone.com/s?appid=c1e3...4-00237de2db9e . There is a video demo at http://youtu.be/tWFH8mkGZ3Y .