DR800 I ENABLED CONTINUOUS PAGE MODE ON DR 800

[CoolDragon]

I've flipped uds/popupmenu to dr1000 version, played around and came back

Why came back?

[yacoob]

There goes my cunning plan. metadata.db gets populated when file is opened. As a result, metadata.db appears in every directory containing valid files, but is mostly empty. Guess it needs more thought. And it's time to sleep.

[yacoob]

Originally Posted by CoolDragon

Why came back?

I'm very new to DR800 - I'd rather work with it unchanged as much as it is, and establish some baseline - both in my expectations and device performance. This way, when I start changing bits and pieces, I can (roughly) tell whether I see any performance regressions ("hmm, it's taking twice as long to boot"). This goes for different things, starting with speed of page flipping ending at battery time.

[CoolDragon]

Just to confirm that this method still works for RC3.

And BTW, I have a minor update for popupmenu, which fixes some text position problem. See attached file for the binary as well as the changes.

Don't forget to replace with corresponding DR1000s's uds too.

[dima_tr]

Nope, bad idea on adding two additional buttons (bookmark and TOC). Tested on my QEMU. When viewing pdf documents the right arrow is missing ... I see only <-- 1 of 32 | (no right arrow!!) . IMHO bookmark and TOC are not the ones which are used often. Zoom group - yes, pen & eraser - yes, Go to page ... - maybe, others - they can live happily in Menu. Again, I miss the battery indicator during reading .. This one is available only for the Home menu.

[CoolDragon]

Originally Posted by dima_tr

Nope, bad idea on adding two additional buttons (bookmark and TOC). Tested on my QEMU. When viewing pdf documents the right arrow is missing ... I see only <-- 1 of 32 | (no right arrow!!) . IMHO bookmark and TOC are not the ones which are used often. Zoom group - yes, pen & eraser - yes, Go to page ... - maybe, others - they can live happily in Menu. Again, I miss the battery indicator during reading .. This one is available only for the Home menu.

You can change statusbar.c, "static void add_toolbar_item(int index)" to whatever icons you want.

Which right arrow are you talking about? With DR1000's uds and popupmenu, the page turning arrow is replaced by the page bar above the status bar, click the page number that is shown there. Have you replaced both the uds and popupmenu?

And the battery indicator is always there except in folder view.

[dima_tr]

Aha, both uds and popupmenu .. No, only popupmenu. As I've read here keeping the original dr800 uds gives a slight win in performance as well as is the proper way of dealing with the licensed bits.

For the battery indicator - my bad, sorry. Should have checked this not only during folder browsing.

[yacoob]

Wheee, I love whacking things into submission

If you visit this link, you'll get a small shell script I've written. If you put it on your IREX, you should be able to do this:
- add a new PDF;
- open it;
- run this script;
- go back to your PDF and enjoy the continuous page mode.

I've tested it on both my DR800SG (running RC3) and emulator - and it worked fine. That doesn't mean it'll work fine for you too. I give you no warranty, so if it implodes your reader from the inside - tough luck. It should be better, but it's a result of hasty poking here and there. And yes, it's a shell script. You can start screaming now

Some boring details:
- If you've been looking for a way to tell the reader to flush the cache from ram to sdcard, take a look inside (two dbus broadcasts - clunky, but works).
- At the moment you can't use this script to turn the continuous mode off. If you need to, plug your reader to a PC and nuke relevant metadata.db.
- It's working on the "recently updated" metadata.db files, so if you have some old PDF file to change, just open it and flip a page, should be enough (reader will update uds_last_read_location).
- Yes, there's double refresh sometimes. That's with DR800 uds. I guess this is the reason why developers didn't unlock it by default, possibly solving that double refresh would take more time than they had at hand atm.
- Calling my C rusty would be a compliment, so I don't see a proper graphical application for this coming soon. If you can write one, by all means go ahead (but tell me, so I won't waste any time trying to do this in my mythical free time). I was thinking about something that would allow you to navigate sdcard, show all pdf files and allow you to toggle pageflow/fullscreen at whim.

Hope you like it, and it'll be useful to someone

[CoolDragon]

Originally Posted by yacoob

Wheee, I love whacking things into submission

If you visit this link, you'll get a small shell script I've written. If you put it on your IREX, you should be able to do this:
- add a new PDF;
- open it;
- run this script;
- go back to your PDF and enjoy the continuous page mode.

I've tested it on both my DR800SG (running RC3) and emulator - and it worked fine. That doesn't mean it'll work fine for you too. I give you no warranty, so if it implodes your reader from the inside - tough luck. It should be better, but it's a result of hasty poking here and there. And yes, it's a shell script. You can start screaming now

Some boring details:
- If you've been looking for a way to tell the reader to flush the cache from ram to sdcard, take a look inside (two dbus broadcasts - clunky, but works).
- At the moment you can't use this script to turn the continuous mode off. If you need to, plug your reader to a PC and nuke relevant metadata.db.
- It's working on the "recently updated" metadata.db files, so if you have some old PDF file to change, just open it and flip a page, should be enough (reader will update uds_last_read_location).
- Yes, there's double refresh sometimes. That's with DR800 uds. I guess this is the reason why developers didn't unlock it by default, possibly solving that double refresh would take more time than they had at hand atm.
- Calling my C rusty would be a compliment, so I don't see a proper graphical application for this coming soon. If you can write one, by all means go ahead (but tell me, so I won't waste any time trying to do this in my mythical free time). I was thinking about something that would allow you to navigate sdcard, show all pdf files and allow you to toggle pageflow/fullscreen at whim.

Hope you like it, and it'll be useful to someone

Should integrate this into CTB.

[Iñigo]

Originally Posted by yacoob

Wheee, I love whacking things into submission

If you visit this link, you'll get a small shell script I've written. If you put it on your IREX, you should be able to do this:
- add a new PDF;
- open it;
- run this script;
- go back to your PDF and enjoy the continuous page mode.

I've tested it on both my DR800SG (running RC3) and emulator - and it worked fine. That doesn't mean it'll work fine for you too. I give you no warranty, so if it implodes your reader from the inside - tough luck. It should be better, but it's a result of hasty poking here and there. And yes, it's a shell script. You can start screaming now

Some boring details:
- If you've been looking for a way to tell the reader to flush the cache from ram to sdcard, take a look inside (two dbus broadcasts - clunky, but works).
- At the moment you can't use this script to turn the continuous mode off. If you need to, plug your reader to a PC and nuke relevant metadata.db.
- It's working on the "recently updated" metadata.db files, so if you have some old PDF file to change, just open it and flip a page, should be enough (reader will update uds_last_read_location).
- Yes, there's double refresh sometimes. That's with DR800 uds. I guess this is the reason why developers didn't unlock it by default, possibly solving that double refresh would take more time than they had at hand atm.
- Calling my C rusty would be a compliment, so I don't see a proper graphical application for this coming soon. If you can write one, by all means go ahead (but tell me, so I won't waste any time trying to do this in my mythical free time). I was thinking about something that would allow you to navigate sdcard, show all pdf files and allow you to toggle pageflow/fullscreen at whim.

Hope you like it, and it'll be useful to someone

the link does not work for me.
Could you attach to this thread, please?

[yacoob]

Here it is.

[zacitana]

Originally Posted by yacoob

Here it is.

before I download this file I'd like to know whether this method of continuous viewing is simple enough for us people who are not technically savvy?

I've been following this thread trying to understand what it is that I should do on my dr800, but I got confused and discouraged by unfamiliar terminology and statements like "If you're not a techie, you probably want to wait until others have done this and tested it before trying"... so, is this shell script something I can click on and it installs itself and enables te continous view or do I need to do some tweaking on my own (which is the tricky part)?

[yacoob]

Well, that depends on what you describe as technically savvy :) You need to:
- grab the tar.gz file
- unpack it (no idea whether Windows can do this, but I'm attaching .zip to this post :)
- connect your DR via usb to your PC
- make 'Programs' directory on the SD card if it isn't there yet
- copy flowmytears.desktop and _flowmytears directory to that directory

If all goes well, once you enable 'folder navigation' on your reader, the script should be available for running.

(and damn, there goes my suprise name for the script... :)

[zacitana]

Originally Posted by yacoob

Well, that depends on what you describe as technically savvy

well, let's just say I needed the instruction you wrote in the last post

thank you, it works wonderfully

is there any chance that you could add the "continuous mode off" feature that would work from within the device, so the metadata.db doesn't have to be deleted? I know it's extra work for you, but it would be very practical (I would do it myself if I knew how )

[yacoob]

I've found out that attempt to reflow ('Adjust the font size') turns the continuous mode off. Of course the inability to pick *which* files are affected by the script is cumbersome, and you might end up with continuous mode being enabled for a file again... but at least there's simple way to turn it off.

Boring details:
The script creates an empty stampfile in /tmp, then asks reader to sync the metadata. After that, it finds all metadata.db that have newer modification time than the stampfile, and changes all pdf files there. As a result:
- it will turn on continuous mode for all PDF files in given directory
- if you want to prevent an opened file from being affected, cause the reader to sync the metadata - one sure way is to connect USB cable.

It should really be a proper application with UI...