Freda - ebook reader program for Windows Mobile

[Jim Chapman]

Originally Posted by chaley

I sent you email about testing V1.1. If you didn't get it (spam filter issue probably), PM me to let me know.

Email received - and I will answer just as soon as my kids let me at the PC with the mail software on it .

Originally Posted by chaley

Suggestion: my wife is currently reading a long book, New York, by Edward Rutherfurd, that fails to paginate. I have tried all the obvious things to make more memory available, to no avail. If pagination fails, is it reasonable to paginate the chapter (using the TOC to define chapters) and provide page numbers for that? Or if not the chapter, perhaps the EPUB segment? In this latter case, one would need all of the segment number, the current page number, and the last page number.

I'm not sure whether there's a benefit to this. Of course, internally, Freda does just what you describe (since every EPUB segment begins a new page, internally a page number is the combination of EPUB segment number and then page-within-segment. It's only when I come to display it on screen that I turn it into a page-within-book number, by summing up the numbers of pages in all prior segments). It should be perfectly possible to navigate around a book that is too large to paginate fully (either using Go...->Go To Chapter (which actually does go-to-epub-segment) or using Go...->Table of Contexts (which uses the EPUB table of contents data). As/when you reach a chapter that Freda couldn't paginate, Freda should paginate it for you (and unload some other chapter(s) from memory, to make room). Only 'Find...' doesn't work in a book that can't paginate fully, and there is a sensible reason for that.
The long term solution is to wait for Windows Mobile 7, which will resolve these memory-management issues.

Originally Posted by chaley

And as long as I am here -- in V1.0 the value of the checkbox 'Search Subfolders in Library' is not saved. Result: the library is empty next time one goes back to it. I am working around this by using Calibre to put the titles in one directory, but that has its own problems, such as very long file names and overly-large directories.

Yes, I've come to the conclusion I need to sort out the library screen to make it more flexible around selecting directories and filtering the list of books. I really don't want to build fully-featured library-management stuff into Freda (it would make the program much larger and more complicated, to add a feature that many people wouldn't use). But I can improve the situation ...

Thanks for using Freda,

Jim

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

Email received - and I will answer just as soon as my kids let me at the PC with the mail software on it .

Thanks.

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

I'm not sure whether there's a benefit to this. Of course, internally, Freda does just what you describe (since every EPUB segment begins a new page, internally a page number is the combination of EPUB segment number and then page-within-segment. It's only when I come to display it on screen that I turn it into a page-within-book number, by summing up the numbers of pages in all prior segments).

Embarrassed to admit it, but both my wife and I like to know where we are in a book. Not having any page numbers raises the imprecision to 'somewhere in a chapter'. This can be very imprecise in books that have long chapters.

I freely admit that the request is a comfort feature, and not important in the grand scheme of things.

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

It should be perfectly possible to navigate around a book that is too large to paginate fully (either using Go...->Go To Chapter (which actually does go-to-epub-segment) or using Go...->Table of Contexts (which uses the EPUB table of contents data). As/when you reach a chapter that Freda couldn't paginate, Freda should paginate it for you (and unload some other chapter(s) from memory, to make room). Only 'Find...' doesn't work in a book that can't paginate fully, and there is a sensible reason for that.

Modulo some problems with Freda dying occasionally in this situation, you are right. FYI: The deaths seem to occur if I am unlucky enough to page forward while pagination is in the process of running out of memory. I wish I could be more precise...

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

The long term solution is to wait for Windows Mobile 7, which will resolve these memory-management issues.

I suspect that unless some good soul at xda-developers takes pity on us dinosaurs, my old HTC Universal that is now my wife's dedicated ereader will never see WM7. In fact, I suspect that my TD2 won't either, but that is less of an issue for me as I read almost exclusively on my Sony.

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

Yes, I've come to the conclusion I need to sort out the library screen to make it more flexible around selecting directories and filtering the list of books. I really don't want to build fully-featured library-management stuff into Freda (it would make the program much larger and more complicated, to add a feature that many people wouldn't use). But I can improve the situation ...

I would be content with an "add book to bookshelf" dialog that permits me to navigate the folder structure to a particular book. Calibre is a fine library management system that lets me set up a folder structure that suits me, and I don't see much benefit in taking your time to replicate what it already does well.

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

Thanks for using Freda,

Thank you for giving so freely of your time and creativity. If you should decide to set up a means to donate to Freda's support, I would be happy to contribute.

Charles

[starrigger]

I'm having some problems with Table of Contents display when I click the Go command. In some books, it works fine and I see ToC listed; in others all I can see is a list of what I presume are blocks or individual html files.

Once instance in which it does not work is an ePub I made of one of my own books, using Calibre. When I view in ADE or in the Calibre viewer, I see a nice table of contents. When I view in Freda, I just see the obscure markers such as Id2.3.

Also, I've had Freda crash a few times when I attempted a Find function.

I'd be glad to test ver. 1.1. I use Freda at least a little bit every day.

I'll PM you my email.

[Jim Chapman]

Originally Posted by chaley

Modulo some problems with Freda dying occasionally in this situation, you are right. FYI: The deaths seem to occur if I am unlucky enough to page forward while pagination is in the process of running out of memory.

Handling out-of-memory conditions without crashing is always a tricky business ... but I do try. If you could send me your Freda logfile (\program files\freda\logfile.txt) after such a crash, I will investigate.

Originally Posted by chaley

I would be content with an "add book to bookshelf" dialog that permits me to navigate the folder structure to a particular book.

I'll implement it for v1.1 release

Originally Posted by chaley

Thank you for giving so freely of your time and creativity. If you should decide to set up a means to donate to Freda's support, I would be happy to contribute.

It's a pleasure! Some day I may add a 'donate' link to the documentation. For now, anyone feeling the urge to contribute can always just use PayPal (my email address being home@jim-chapman.net).

Thanks,

Jim

Charles[/QUOTE]

[chaley]

Jim,

I have been playing with V1.1 on my HTC Touch Diamond2 running WM6.5. This release is fast and stable, and I like it very much.

Some initial comments/opinions:

• Option text: "Tap page number changes page". Tapping brings up the goto dialog instead of changing the page.
• Option text: "Show page number as line". I don't see anything when I select this option. Where is the line supposed to be?
• All gestures should work, not just the left/right or up/down choice given in the options.
• I would like the option of tap center changing window mode. You might want to confirm it to avoid repaginating the book because of a mistaken tap.
• As taps choose the word tapped upon, the short/long 'tap' options should include bringing up the find menu or going directly to the dictionary.
• Setting "Swipe to change page" should not leave the direction box empty. One of the directions should be selected automatically.
• I was confused by the 'find' box in the goto bookmark dialog. I kept tapping on the bookmark and then pressing find. After experimentation I discovered that it is used to find bookmarks, not to find a place in the book. I think it would be better to remove the find box and make the columns sortable.
• When creating a bookmark, tapping in the notes box should remove the "[empty]" string.
• The virtual keyboard should go away when it wasn't being used. For example, the keyboard stays on the screen after creating a bookmark, even though there is nothing that can be filled in.
• The "book properties" dialog should have the option of displaying the book's metadata.
• It would be nice to be able to remove individual books from the bookshelf.

I also experimented with the 'crash paginating a long book, and succeeded. The device is an HTC Universal running WM6.1. The logfile is attached.

Best wishes,
Charles

[chaley]

Jim,

I have Freda set up to reopen the last book when it starts. I am not changing the screen orientation or window mode. When I do reopen the book, Freda rapidly displays the page I was on, waits a few seconds, then shifts into 'loading...', during which time I can do nothing. When loading finishes, it starts repaginating, which can take minutes.

The same thing happens when I close the book, then immediately reopen it, without closing Freda itself.

Is this behavior expected? I would have thought that closing and reopening the same book wouldn't require significant processing, because the temporary data would be in the cache.

Thanks in advance,
Charles

[starrigger]

I've played with 1.1 a bit, and here are some initial reactions:

Table of Contents is now working properly! Good work. In fact, I just tried a book with multi-level ToC, and it worked very nicely! Thanks.

I see you've added some option refinements, which is good. Except...it's now one more step to change from windowed to full-screen. I'd really like that to be a quick toggle. Someone suggested offering the option of a center tap being that toggle. I second the motion.

Page turns seem slower than in Freda 1.0, a little like the lag in an e-ink reader. (I have two nearly identical Axims, one running 1.0 and one running 1.1. Page turns are definitely quicker in 1.0.) Though, as I play with it more, I find the page turn speed to vary a lot. I suppose it's a cache or buffering thing. But it's probably the single thing that troubles me the most, as I'm sometimes hitting the page control twice, when I think it didn't detect the first command--then it jumps too far. Then I've lost my place.

The animated "Paging..." was a little irritating when I saw it. But then I stopped seeing it. So I don't know what triggers it. But if it's going to be there, I'd prefer maybe just small, animated dots--so you know something's happening, but it's unobtrusive.

This isn't new, but I'm very happy to be able to select justify or not-justify.

The Bookshelf was all screwed up at first. But I think that was from the update. I cleared it, then opened a few books, then checked it again and it was fine.

Great progress! I'm really glad to have this option on my PDA. Thanks!

[Jim Chapman]

Charles,

Thanks for the feedback. Responding to your comments:

Originally Posted by chaley

[*]Option text: "Tap page number changes page". Tapping brings up the goto dialog instead of changing the page.

Yes, it's a silly label. It should say something like 'Tap page number for Go to'. I'll reword it.

Originally Posted by chaley

[*]Option text: "Show page number as line". I don't see anything when I select this option. Where is the line supposed to be?

It ought to show a thin horizontal line along the bottom of the page, with a little triangular indicator showing how much of the book has been read so far. It won't show anything until pagination is finished.

Originally Posted by chaley

[*]All gestures should work, not just the left/right or up/down choice given in the options.

I tried that, and the result is really visually confusing, as it jumps between horizontal and vertical scrolling. There may be a slick answer to this, but I didn't manage to figure it out.

Originally Posted by chaley

[*]I would like the option of tap center changing window mode. You might want to confirm it to avoid repaginating the book because of a mistaken tap.

It would be feasible to add this as an option, though at the cost of making the GUI options a bit more complicated. But if I add a 'tap again to confirm' dialog, then it's no saving (it still takes you 2 taps to change window mode). I'm going to add a 'shortcuts' screen, which might be a better answer for those wanting a one-tap GUI.

Originally Posted by chaley

[*]As taps choose the word tapped upon, the short/long 'tap' options should include bringing up the find menu or going directly to the dictionary.

I won't customise 'long tap' because I need that always to bring up the menu (otherwise you can make the settings screen unreachable by choosing silly settings). For short-tap, it would be doable - I'll have a look and see how much complexity it would add.

Originally Posted by chaley

[*]Setting "Swipe to change page" should not leave the direction box empty. One of the directions should be selected automatically.

Fair point.

Originally Posted by chaley

[*]I was confused by the 'find' box in the goto bookmark dialog. I kept tapping on the bookmark and then pressing find. After experimentation I discovered that it is used to find bookmarks, not to find a place in the book. I think it would be better to remove the find box and make the columns sortable.

Until you have a whole load of bookmarks it doesn't matter much anyway, but once you have a lot, I don't think you'd be able to find the annotation you wanted, unless you can have full-text search.

Originally Posted by chaley

[*]When creating a bookmark, tapping in the notes box should remove the "[empty]" string.

fair point.

Originally Posted by chaley

[*]The virtual keyboard should go away when it wasn't being used. For example, the keyboard stays on the screen after creating a bookmark, even though there is nothing that can be filled in.

That's an operating system setting; Freda can't do much about it.

Originally Posted by chaley

[*]The "book properties" dialog should have the option of displaying the book's metadata.

Not a bad idea, but there isn't much standardisation of book meta-data out there, so doing an elegant job of this would be suprisingly complicated.

Originally Posted by chaley

[*]It would be nice to be able to remove individual books from the bookshelf.

It's a bit tricky in terms of program logic (because once a book is loaded, it has to be in the bookshelf, otherwise various program features don't work - e.g. saving the current page number). Adding a separate screen - accessible only when no book was open - to edit the bookshelf, would be doable, at the cost of cluttering up the GUI some more.

Originally Posted by chaley

I also experimented with the 'crash paginating a long book, and succeeded. The device is an HTC Universal running WM6.1. The logfile is attached.

That is most helpful; I will take a look.

Thanks,

Jim

[Jim Chapman]

Originally Posted by chaley

I have Freda set up to reopen the last book when it starts. I am not changing the screen orientation or window mode. When I do reopen the book, Freda rapidly displays the page I was on, waits a few seconds, then shifts into 'loading...', during which time I can do nothing. When loading finishes, it starts repaginating, which can take minutes.

The same thing happens when I close the book, then immediately reopen it, without closing Freda itself.

Is this behavior expected? I would have thought that closing and reopening the same book wouldn't require significant processing, because the temporary data would be in the cache.

This behaviour is what I would expect. When you first open a book, Freda will (if it was the last book you looked at) put the 'last viewed' page on the screen (it does that by saving the bitmap as a file, so it has it ready).
Next it loads the book into memory and paginates it. Until it's loaded & paginated the current chapter, it displays that 'loading/paginating' message. Once it's done the current chapter, the message goes away and the GUI becomes usable. At this point, Freda sets about loading and paginating all the other chapters (i.e. the non-current ones).

Closing the book does, by design, remove all the temporary data from memory (it is kept in a file, to be reloaded when next you open the book). There is no 'cache' as such - and no good reason to implement one. After all, if you don't want to discard the book data from memory, don't close the book.

Regards,

Jim

[Jim Chapman]

Originally Posted by starrigger

Page turns seem slower than in Freda 1.0, a little like the lag in an e-ink reader. (I have two nearly identical Axims, one running 1.0 and one running 1.1. Page turns are definitely quicker in 1.0.) Though, as I play with it more, I find the page turn speed to vary a lot. I suppose it's a cache or buffering thing. But it's probably the single thing that troubles me the most, as I'm sometimes hitting the page control twice, when I think it didn't detect the first command--then it jumps too far. Then I've lost my place.

It is indeed a cache/buffering thing - it depends how much free memory the video DLL has, and Freda can't do much about it (it's mainly a function of what other things are installed and/or running on the device). Of course, you can make the whole problem go away by disabling the use of animations (Options...->Application Settings, Appearance tab, untick the 'Enable Animations' box). But that is maybe too drastic.

Thanks for using Freda,

Jim

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

It is indeed a cache/buffering thing - it depends how much free memory the video DLL has, and Freda can't do much about it (it's mainly a function of what other things are installed and/or running on the device). Of course, you can make the whole problem go away by disabling the use of animations (Options...->Application Settings, Appearance tab, untick the 'Enable Animations' box). But that is maybe too drastic.

Hm. I already have that box unchecked. Hmm.

[HansTWN]

One problem I have with 1.0 is that, after I leave Freda open to go to another program and return, Freda always seems to be one page back from where I left it. After closing Freda and reopening it (I have set it to reopen the last book) it opens at a spot even further back, 3-4 pages. I have a Touch Pro 2 running WM 6.5.3.

I like to play around with different ROM versions and have noticed that I can save my settings to a file. The question is, where is this file located? I want to have it on my expansion card so that I can easily restore everything after re-installation.

[Jim Chapman]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

One problem I have with 1.0 is that, after I leave Freda open to go to another program and return, Freda always seems to be one page back from where I left it. After closing Freda and reopening it (I have set it to reopen the last book) it opens at a spot even further back, 3-4 pages. I have a Touch Pro 2 running WM 6.5.3.

I'm still working on this. Freda needs to take more care to save its position in the book at any time that it loses focus (and thereafter not change position until it gets focus back again).

Originally Posted by HansTWN

I like to play around with different ROM versions and have noticed that I can save my settings to a file. The question is, where is this file located? I want to have it on my expansion card so that I can easily restore everything after re-installation.

In v1.0 it's in the \program files\freda folder. For v1.1 I put the app settings file and all other settings/history files into the folder \program files\freda\settings\ (note: if your phone is non-English-localised, that file name will be different, because your local phrase for 'program files' is different).

Thanks for using Freda,

Jim

[starrigger]

A suggestion I've been meaning to make:

It seems to me that the display would look a lot nicer if hyphens and dashes were not treated as nonbreaking characters--that is, if they would break after the hyphen or dash at the ends of lines. The lines often look really ragged when two words bound together by a dash are carried to the next line. Is this something you can control?

[HansTWN]

If I save the presets in version 1.0 and then install 1.1 will they still work? On a different ROM, after recalling the 1.0 presets from a saved file.