CC Beta V3.6.3a-e/V3.6.4 have been published.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by chaley

Thanks for letting me know.

Does auto-connect now do what you need? Have I left something out?

It does exactly what I expected.

Thanks!

Peter

[kaufman]

Originally Posted by chaley

It would be trivial to make the grid view contain 4 books and be 4 columns x 1 row. This would give you the functional equivalent of the horizontal list. However, I experimented with it and found that it is useless less than (3 wide x 1 high) and best (4 wide x 1 high).

If it's easy, I would like this.

I promise to use it as a 4 wide widget. Or perhaps 5 wide.

[chaley]

Release 3.6.4 has been published to the beta group. Unless there are major problems this identical release will be published to the rest of the world on Thursday.

Changes since V3.6.3e:

• Scaled thumb and text for the booklist widget. This makes it more usable on tablets.
• Add menu line to Book Details to remove a book from the widgets.
• Change the grid widget to 4 across, not scrollable in either direction.
• Change the booklist and cover list widgets to show 10 books. The stack widget remains at 6.
• [Bug Fix]Don't crash when clearing the auto-connect log twice with no intervening log message written to the log.

[Purple Lady]

Can you display the connection time in the settings menu? I thought I set it for 8:00, but it had 8:45 when I looked at it. To see what time it is set for I have to uncheck it and check it again. Also, when I use the keypad to change the time, it doesn't register the change. That's why I thought it was set for 8:00.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by chaley

Release 3.6.4 has been published to the beta group. Unless there are major problems this identical release will be published to the rest of the world on Thursday.

Changes since V3.6.3e:

• Scaled thumb and text for the booklist widget. This makes it more usable on tablets.
• Add menu line to Book Details to remove a book from the widgets.
• Change the grid widget to 4 across, not scrollable in either direction.
• Change the booklist and cover list widgets to show 10 books. The stack widget remains at 6.
• [Bug Fix]Don't crash when clearing the auto-connect log twice with no intervening log message written to the log.

I don't know what you did but the stack widget is more vertical than before. I use it in the 3x3 mode on my tablet, previously it went from corner to corner, now there seems to be a left an right margin causing the stack to narrow.

Also the same left and right margins seem to be on the book cover list. Before 3 covers fit exactly on my tablet on a 1x5 resize, now it is 3.5 covers and they are narrower. In order to get 3 covers to fit I now have to go 2 wide by 5 tall the same cover size as before (3 covers) now is 2 columns wide and no longer fits in the same spot. The covers are the same size in the 2x5 as they were previously in the 1x5, just now there is a left and right margin.

Hopefully you understood my rambling. I personally don't like the changes.

[kaufman]

Originally Posted by chaley

• Change the grid widget to 4 across, not scrollable in either direction.

I like it a lot. Like DoctorOhh, I think it could use less borders around the books, but its still very nice. My choice would be to make the covers as tall as possible with no borders at the top and bottom.

I tried a bunch of different shaped covers, and it handles all the sizes correctly with one issue. Take a look at the attached screenshot:



Shouldn't the covers be evenly spaced? It looks odd this way.


This has replaced the moon+reader widget. It might have been harder to switch, except the book id and extension were making me crazy.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

I don't know what you did but the stack widget is more vertical than before. I use it in the 3x3 mode on my tablet, previously it went from corner to corner, now there seems to be a left an right margin causing the stack to narrow.

Originally Posted by kaufman

I tried a bunch of different shaped covers, and it handles all the sizes correctly with one issue. Take a look at the attached screenshot:



Shouldn't the covers be evenly spaced? It looks odd this way.

Both questions are related to the same thing: covers are not uniform sizes. To solve certain problems in the new grid widget and in the booklist widget, I went back to making the covers into a fixed size transparent box then painted the cover into it preserving aspect ratio. This is why the stack and cover list views seem to have more "margin". Covers are normally portrait so there is more space on the sides. These consequences didn't occur to me. I can easily change the cover list and the stack back to use the non-square widgets, making them appear as they did before.

As for the grid, there are two choices. The first is the cells are all the same size: the width of the widget / 4. Using this choice the centers of the covers are equally spaced across the widget, but the space between the covers can vary according to the aspect ratio and the space available. The following two images show what this looks like in 1x4 and 2x4.



The second is that each cover is scaled to consume the full height then laid into the widget. Under this scheme there is no regularity to the spacing. Instead the covers take the width that they need. If there isn't sufficient space then strange things happen. Consider the two following images. The first is 1x4 and the second is 2x4. In 2x2 the non-portrait cover takes almost half of the space available.



Do note that the layout of these images depends on the aspect ratio of the covers I am displaying. You will get something else with different covers.

Both approaches introduce some strange behavior. I strongly prefer the regular spacing because what it does can be explained.

[kaufman]

Whichever way you go, would you consider redoing it so that more of the widget space is consumed when possible. I would much prefer that this widget:



Looked like this instead:



Well, something like that. The point is to have as little blank space and as big covers as will fit. All portrait covers should be as tall as possible that they still reach the side edges of their cell and all landscape books should be as wide as possible and then just drawn as tall as they are. Tall skinny books would be the exception and would have extra space.

If you do that, the books will all be the same width, and the borders will be so small that they won't stand out.

In this case, only very tall but skinny covers will have extra padding, but that's a more obscure use-case. I just scanned though a chunk of my library and didn't see any.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kaufman

Whichever way you go, would you consider redoing it so that more of the widget space is consumed when possible. I would much prefer that this widget:



Looked like this instead:



Well, something like that. The point is to have as little blank space and as big covers as will fit. All portrait covers should be as tall as possible that they still reach the edge of their cell and all landscape books should be as wide as possible and then just drawn as tall as they are. Tall skinny books would be the exception and would have extra space.

If you do that, the books will all be the same width, and the borders will be so small that they won't stand out.

In this case, only very tall but skinny covers will have extra padding, but that's a more obscure use-case. I just scanned though a chunk of my library and didn't see any.

Sorry, but what happens is what happens. And in fact, in both images all the covers are as big as possible inside the widget. In the first image the height is constraining the cover size. In the second the width is constraining the cover size.

The layout process first determines the size of each cover cell, based on the size of the widget. In 1x4 widgets these cells are nearly square. In 2x4 widgets the cells are portrait. Second, it places each cover into the resulting cell, preserving aspect ratio. For portrait covers that means that the height will usually be the controlling factor, but not always depending on widget size. The larger of the width or the height controls its placement in the cell. The size of the cell controls the "apparent" padding; for portrait covers in a square cell 1/2 the difference between height and width will appear as padding on each side.

You are really asking that covers fill the width, regardless of aspect ratio. One way to do that is not to respect aspect ratio, expanding the cover to fill the available width. Alternatively the tops/bottoms of some covers could be clipped so that the cover consumes the available width, tossing some parts of the top and bottom of the cover into the dust bin. Neither of these options is exciting.

You can play with widget size (once I release the new version) to find what is most pleasing to you. Of course, this depends on the sizes of covers etc, so there may be no size that works.

[kaufman]

Originally Posted by chaley

You are really asking that covers fill the width, regardless of aspect ratio. One way to do that is not to respect aspect ratio, expanding the cover to fill the available width. Alternatively the tops/bottoms of some covers could be clipped so that the cover consumes the available width, tossing some parts of the top and bottom of the cover into the dust bin. Neither of these options is exciting.

Just so we are clear, I am not asking for any of these things. The way it works now is much better than any of those. Much.

In the end, this might just be me making something out of nothing. Or perhaps more out of a little. Most of my covers are the standard size, so usually it will look fine.

[chaley]

I have published another V3.6.4 APK, this time release 144 (visible in Settings / About starting with this release). This release restores the cover sizes in the cover list and stack widgets, and does a somewhat better job of placing covers into the grid widget. Finally, it shows the current setting for the auto-connect time in the summary of the setting.

[jackie_w]

In this latest release (144) all widgets look good at a variety of sizes on both GNote3 and GTabPro In particular the Cover List at 1x1 looks better (i.e. cover is bigger) than in the last-but-one version. My phone's main Home screen is already pretty full so a good-looking 1x1 option is most welcome, thanks.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by chaley

These consequences didn't occur to me. I can easily change the cover list and the stack back to use the non-square widgets, making them appear as they did before.

I would love it if you did this. To me the previous iteration of those two was perfect.

Update: I just updated and see those two widgets are back to their previous glory.

Thank You.

[chaley]

Now that this cycle is drawing to a close, I want to again thank all of you who tested and made suggestions. The result is much better for it. There is no way I could have arrived where we did without your help.

[chaley]

V3.6.4 (144) has been promoted to production. Beta testers won't see an update you already have the latest version.