Stanza for iPad out!!! - Page 5

dmaul1114 · 06-06-2010, 05:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stustaff

? iBooks has loads of completely free PD books that you can download straight from the iBooks app.

Sure, I meant just not having access direct access to Feedbooks and Gutenberg etc. and having to do the download and drag into iTunes method for those sources.

The iBook store, Kindle store, Kobo store etc. all have free books, but the selection pales in comparison to those sources, so it's great to have access to those.

I read PD stuff from Feedbooks on my Kindle, so at least now I can get those books in Stanza on my Girlfriend's iPad if I want to read some at her place since the Kindle app only has access to books purchased from Amazon in your archive, and not things you've loaded from other sources.

nikkie · 06-06-2010, 07:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by newrome

Not sure why anyone would care about "connection" to ebook sources if the rendering of the page is wrong (at least in epub). As an epub reader it is extremely poor because it does not render CSS instructions properly. iBooks, on the other hand (which still has issues) is much closer to perfect in that regard. If you don't mind looking at books with improper formatting (Stanza even ignores basic stuff like font size instructions), then I guess it might be your epub reader of choice. Unfortunately, BN and Kobo readers also render epub incorrectly.

The point that many of us are making is that we don't *want* the styling that the book has attached to it. If the publisher, for example, designs the book to look good on an e-Ink screen, but the font looks like garbage on an LCD screen, I want to be able to change it. Same with sizing. I simply don't understand why you would *want* to be locked into something like that.

Also, @JSWolf, the B&N app has an option to revert to the publisher's settings.

The most important thing for me when reading an e-Book is readability. Because eBook readers can be very very different, it makes sense to allow the reader to override the styles the ePub itself dictates.

newrome · 06-06-2010, 10:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nikkie

The point that many of us are making is that we don't *want* the styling that the book has attached to it. If the publisher, for example, designs the book to look good on an e-Ink screen, but the font looks like garbage on an LCD screen, I want to be able to change it. Same with sizing. I simply don't understand why you would *want* to be locked into something.

The styling a publisher chooses has a purpose. Personally, when i am reading a text which has an inset quote, i would like it to appear as...an inset quote. The same goes for font attributes... I don't want that information stripped out of the text. To suggest that this makes for a better reading experience makes little sense to me... But you don't care about such things, that's great.

newrome · 06-06-2010, 10:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nikkie

Also, @JSWolf, the B&N app has an option to revert to the publisher's settings.

Big deal. It cant render the publishers settings properly in the first place.

GntlmnBndt · 06-06-2010, 11:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nikkie

The point that many of us are making is that we don't *want* the styling that the book has attached to it. If the publisher, for example, designs the book to look good on an e-Ink screen, but the font looks like garbage on an LCD screen, I want to be able to change it. Same with sizing. I simply don't understand why you would *want* to be locked into something like that.

Well put. I prefer to select the font, size and colors, and have all my books in that same comfortable format. Something as simple as an inset quote should not be difficult to accommodate, but the vagaries and varieties of CSS implementation in can present a problem. I'd have been much happier if the HTML formatting for emphasis, block quotes et cetera were utilized rather than deprecated in favor of CSS. Adapting such labels for accessibility is also much easier.

The Bandit

dmaul1114 · 06-06-2010, 11:34 PM

Agreed. Things like inset quotes, bold, italics etc. should be supported and display as intended.

But otherwise I want to be able to change the font size, read all my books in the same font etc. etc.

As I said, for the most part text is text to me. And a central advantage of e-books is the ability to change font size etc. and not be stuck with the font size the publisher picked etc. I don't care about pagination, justification (as long as there aren't huge gaps on every page etc.)--text is text.

But yeah, things like inset quotes etc. should be maintained. But stuff like that is so seldom in fiction which is about all I read in ebooks anyway, that it's not a major worry of mine.

superhero · 06-07-2010, 12:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dpierron

I filed a bug report, and was hastily contacted by a Lexcycle dev who asked for details. Which I provided, of course. Now I'm waiting for his answer, and I'll keep this forum posted !

Thank you Dpierron. I hope they fix this issue soon.

toddos · 06-07-2010, 01:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by newrome

The styling a publisher chooses has a purpose. Personally, when i am reading a text which has an inset quote, i would like it to appear as...an inset quote. The same goes for font attributes... I don't want that information stripped out of the text. To suggest that this makes for a better reading experience makes little sense to me... But you don't care about such things, that's great.

You might want to check that you don't have Stanza set to ignore CSS. I've never had a problem with stanza on iPhone recognizing inset quotes, font sizes and weights, etc. Most of that boils down to authors/publishers properly formatting their ebooks in the first place (PDF is NOT a valid ebook format, as so many publishers seem to believe). For example, if you want to have an inset quote, then it should be rendered in a blockquote tag in the epub. If it's not, whoever laid out the ebook failed.

Unfortunately it's still very rare to find books that are well-formatted for an ereading experience. Until that day comes, I'd rather have a reader that lets me make up for their shortcomings by overriding many settings (font, indent, paragraph spacing, line spacing, etc).

And for what it's worth, iBooks, Kindle, and many dedicated ereading devices override font choices anyway. If an author is more specific than serif or sans serif, the chance that the font they want is one of the few that are provided by the reader or that the reader supports embedded fonts is pretty slim.

dpierron · 06-07-2010, 04:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by superhero

Thank you Dpierron. I hope they fix this issue soon.

Well, I got a reply from the support : they cannot reproduce the problem... I'll follow-up with additional information to try and help them fix it nonetheless !

I'll keep you guys posted.

David.

madman · 06-08-2010, 01:52 PM

Can anyone provide a comparison between Stanza and GoodReader for pdfs?

kjk · 06-08-2010, 02:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by madman

Can anyone provide a comparison between Stanza and GoodReader for pdfs?

Stanza does not reflow, and does not zoom. It doesn't allow changing of fonts, sizes, etc. What it basically is is a full screen PDF viewer, with a really nice page turning mechanic-which is the one thing that really bugs me about GoodReader (plus I keep hitting zoom instead of page turn

)

But iBooks may end up being the killer PDF reader.

scottjl · 06-08-2010, 02:07 PM

stanza uses the ipad's native PDF rendering engine, so advanced features (reflow) are not going to be there. you can basically expect the same behavior and features you get from safari.

goodreader, and fastpdf, both use their own rendering engines, so they can include extra features.

if apple doesn't make any improvements to the native PDF rendering in iOS 4.0, then you aren't going to get any extras in iBooks. guess we'll find out in 3 weeks or so.

JSWolf · 06-08-2010, 02:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nikkie

Also, @JSWolf, the B&N app has an option to revert to the publisher's settings.

Yes, I know and the default font used in the publisher setting is awful.

Maggie Leung · 06-09-2010, 05:22 AM

I'm a Stanza convert. I've read 3.5 Gutenberg books on the new app and am now spoiled by the easy brightness setting and the customizable left-right page turning. I just started a non-Stanza book and keep trying to adjust the brightness the Stanza way. Duh.

Drewmangroup · 06-09-2010, 09:18 AM

I haven't had many issues cbr files. Small ones load fine. Larger ones (>20mb) causes Stanza to crash when loading. I am loading them through iTunes:

Connect iPad
Open Stanza on iPad
Under App Tab in iTunes under iPad drag the file to the window at the bottom for Stanza
Then Stanza on the iPad will load it.

On thing I was doing was loading them into calibre and then tagging the title and author. When I open Stanza it is flipped. The Author is actually the title and the title and actually the author. Strange.

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06-06-2010, 11:34 PM	#66
dmaul1114 Wizard Posts: 2,300 Karma: 1121709 Join Date: Feb 2009 Device: Amazon Kindle 1	Agreed. Things like inset quotes, bold, italics etc. should be supported and display as intended. But otherwise I want to be able to change the font size, read all my books in the same font etc. etc. As I said, for the most part text is text to me. And a central advantage of e-books is the ability to change font size etc. and not be stuck with the font size the publisher picked etc. I don't care about pagination, justification (as long as there aren't huge gaps on every page etc.)--text is text. But yeah, things like inset quotes etc. should be maintained. But stuff like that is so seldom in fiction which is about all I read in ebooks anyway, that it's not a major worry of mine.

06-08-2010, 01:52 PM	#70
madman Junior Member Posts: 8 Karma: 84 Join Date: Jun 2010 Device: ipad	Can anyone provide a comparison between Stanza and GoodReader for pdfs?

06-08-2010, 02:07 PM	#72
scottjl Reader of Books Posts: 1,632 Karma: 2697 Join Date: Oct 2009 Device: none	stanza uses the ipad's native PDF rendering engine, so advanced features (reflow) are not going to be there. you can basically expect the same behavior and features you get from safari. goodreader, and fastpdf, both use their own rendering engines, so they can include extra features. if apple doesn't make any improvements to the native PDF rendering in iOS 4.0, then you aren't going to get any extras in iBooks. guess we'll find out in 3 weeks or so.

06-09-2010, 05:22 AM	#74
Maggie Leung Wizard Posts: 1,449 Karma: 58383 Join Date: Jul 2009 Device: Kindle, iPad	I'm a Stanza convert. I've read 3.5 Gutenberg books on the new app and am now spoiled by the easy brightness setting and the customizable left-right page turning. I just started a non-Stanza book and keep trying to adjust the brightness the Stanza way. Duh.

06-09-2010, 09:18 AM	#75
Drewmangroup Member Posts: 21 Karma: 16 Join Date: Feb 2009 Device: sony prs-505	I haven't had many issues cbr files. Small ones load fine. Larger ones (>20mb) causes Stanza to crash when loading. I am loading them through iTunes: Connect iPad Open Stanza on iPad Under App Tab in iTunes under iPad drag the file to the window at the bottom for Stanza Then Stanza on the iPad will load it. On thing I was doing was loading them into calibre and then tagging the title and author. When I open Stanza it is flipped. The Author is actually the title and the title and actually the author. Strange.