Marvin 3.0 is out

[Grigori]

Originally Posted by kguil

@Grigori It wasn't a setting. Marvin Classic had a different home screen.

Thanks for the quick reply. Is there any way of changing the homescreen in Marvin3?

[rfog]

@Kirs, would be too difficult the possibility to add custom backgrounds to the reading screen? Only as a suggest.

[kguil]

@Grigori I'm working on an update that should bring some ideas of M2's home screen to M3 but it won't be the same.

@rfog It's on my feature list for consideration.

[Faterson]

Originally Posted by rfog

@Kirs, would be too difficult the possibility to add custom backgrounds to the reading screen? Only as a suggest.

I've been requesting this feature for many years now, such as here on GitHub back in 2013:

https://github.com/kguil/Marvin-Roadmap/issues/15

Marvin now features quite a nice selection of textures, and a tremendous colors palette, but that's just no comparison to the ability to use your own background textures/photographs.

A newly introduced flaw in Marvin 3, though, is that now the names for all the various colors and textures are no longer displayed as you're browsing through and selecting them. I really hope the names display will be restored in Marvin 3, because one can otherwise easily get lost amid all the fine-tuned color and texture options.

[Apocalypto]

Originally Posted by kguil

@Grigori I'm working on an update that should bring some ideas of M2's home screen to M3 but it won't be the same.

You could get a lot of the same effect of having the recently read books readily available by having an option to show the recently opened books at the start of the main books view (like I imagine the reading list option works) instead of the text view. I know there's some extra functionality from the beacon thing but that's also available from press-holding the cover in the main books view. What'd be the most useful is to have a list of things that could prepend the main books list (i.e. nothing, recents, reading list) and that way they would show up in whatever sort option the user desires instead of special casing the reading list with alphabetical.

And speaking of press-holding the cover, most of the time I do it I want to see the publisher's summary of the book, it'd be nice if that could be done without having to go to the menu option. Would also love to see the summary and cover more easily accessible when reading a la Marvin 2.

And speaking of the in-book toolbar, it really should auto-dismiss if you touch outside of it. I was going to say that if swiping down on the main toolbar brings up search then it'd be good for consistency if that happened in-book too, but the problem is that at least on the iPhone it's very easy to pull down notifications instead. Maybe it'd be better to have a search icon added next to the menu one on the toolbar which would make it more of a toggle.

The other main area to look at is anywhere that a back arrow exists in the toolbar it should take the user to the previous screen, anything else is confusing because it's counter to how the rest of the system works.

[democrite]

Some of the menus I believe are better as dropdowns which you could dismiss by tapping elsewhere; good for settings like the font menu with all the options like themes and the other tabs. The dropdown that's similar in many iOS apps like iBooks remains quicker to use. In those cases, themes are a row of colored circles or icons. Maybe something similar would work, with a long hold to edit, and a scrollable row with last icon being to add more themes or some edit screen or I'm not sure what. That'd be a simple visual representation of themes with more features thru long hold, etc. and would keep the UI quick to access and simple. Other things could be rearranged though I'm still thinking about it.

Other menus like the top right in library view duplicate the sidebar. Perhaps that was because of iPhone. I think there someway to reorganize everything but still considering. Since the iPhone does't have a side bar, perhaps the left menu since users might think on the left side, and the right for a dropdown for settings, selection and download, what seem to be the less used features.

For library or a welcome screen, dunno. I never used the welcome in M2 but might if it comes back. It was just hard to get to the library. Perhaps if M3 just returned to previous view, like library or open book, instead of always one or the other via preference. Then the preference may not be needed.

For showing book details, that is interesting. The iTunes cover view with track list comes to mind, like sort of a pop up but different, something that appears in context similar to the older iOS folders.

[rfog]

Originally Posted by Faterson

I've been requesting this feature for many years now, such as here on GitHub back in 2013:

https://github.com/kguil/Marvin-Roadmap/issues/15

Marvin now features quite a nice selection of textures, and a tremendous colors palette, but that's just no comparison to the ability to use your own background textures/photographs.

A newly introduced flaw in Marvin 3, though, is that now the names for all the various colors and textures are no longer displayed as you're browsing through and selecting them. I really hope the names display will be restored in Marvin 3, because one can otherwise easily get lost amid all the fine-tuned color and texture options.

I agree with this last one problem. Sometimes you need to put your "iThing" to max bright to see the differences.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Faterson

I would advise everyone to stay away from the "Publisher layout" option. After all, why use an e-reader like Marvin, that allows you to customize your reading experience, when you then give up on it by selecting "Publisher layout"? "Publisher layout" is, as a rule, hopelessly ugly and inelegant.

Marvin 3 is as buggy as Marvin 2 when it comes to embedded fonts. You HAVE to use publisher layout in order to display embedded fonts. This is a serious flaw/bug that needs to be fixed,

[svenlind]

One of the custom preset commands is not working
"Copy selected text" that has the command {copy} does not work. When you execute you get the message:

Oops
You don't have an app installed that can execute this command.

However the command
"Copy with details" that has the command {copy:detail} does, strangely enough, work ??

Edit: The command {copy} does work in Marvin 2

[democrite]

As for colors, I'm not so sure. Many of them few designers would choose for reasons such as lack of alternate color with enough contrast plus long term use eye strain. I might reduce the number, perhaps to only those pleasing for long periods so they'd be quicker to access and more easily discoverable, reorder so similar colors are together, for example if a gray chosen is too light, select next, if too dark, previous, and some settings icon as the last swatch to add custom colors to appease those that want it.

[Faterson]

Whatever is done, please do NOT reduce anything that was available in Marvin 2, when compared to Marvin 3. We are already suffering enough, in Marvin 3, with quite a few features currently missing in it, compared to Marvin 2, and all we can hope for is for those missing features to be restored in Marvin 3 asap. It would really be a disastrous decision to go even further down that path of "reducing". I can see that Democrite has this passion for "reducing, reducing, reducing", and he seems to believe he's some sort of a UI expert/geek (which he might be), but I certainly hope Kris stays well away from the general course of "reduction" frequently suggested by Democrite. Really, we need more features in Marvin – definitely not fewer. For dumb, feature-less software with woefully reduced user options, Apple will serve everyone's needs. Marvin should be very different, and it should certainly never happen, like it happened now with Marvin 3, that a new Marvin version is missing some of the trusted functionality of the foregoing Marvin version. Let's hope this will be rectified soon.

Now as to colours, please definitely keep the current gorgeous palette, but please let us see those colour and texture names as well. And, as I've been suggesting to Kris for a few years now, please let us also input our own colours using their hexadecimal codes. For example, my favorite shade of red is #990000, and I'd love to use it in Marvin, but because we're unable to input hexadecimal codes directly, I currently can't.

[JSWolf]

We need to have ADE style page numbering and we also need to have embedded font support when not in publisher layout. This are seriously missing features.

[Rachel]

Is the facility to return to the previous position in the book? I found that very useful.

I would support Apocolypto's suggestion that an easier view of the publisher's summary would be good - It doesn't seem to be on the swipe menu in the library listt any more either, or is that my poor identification?

[skb]

Hi!

Firstly, many thanks for all your work on Marvin. You saved me from the ibooks horror!

Question re Marvin 3 - if I buy the Premium Features bit, does that turn off all the "in app purchase" stuff (because I never buy apps with in app purchases - just a foible of mine, sorry) and ads?

thanks again,

[rfog]

Originally Posted by skb

Hi!

Firstly, many thanks for all your work on Marvin. You saved me from the ibooks horror!

Question re Marvin 3 - if I buy the Premium Features bit, does that turn off all the "in app purchase" stuff (because I never buy apps with in app purchases - just a foible of mine, sorry) and ads?

thanks again,

Yes and no. Yes, it switches off the app purchase option, and you only need to pay it once even if you reinstall or have more than one device, but you still can "tip" Kris when getting the library backgrounds. This option you only will see if you try to change the background option in the library.