ePub for Palm OS?

[radius]

Originally Posted by Seabound

In any case creating an app to read ePub on PalmOS shouldn't be that hard for someone experienced with PalmOS. After all, ePub is basically html and, surely, there is already an app which renders html on PalmOS. It would just require some tweaking to get it to read ePub.

I don't know of any free software project that renders HTML on a Palm device, let alone HTML + CSS.

The closed source Palm web browser (whether the Palm one or Netfront) is not embeddable into another app, nor available as a library that you can access separately.

The only open project which is close to what you want is Plucker, but they do desktop conversion into an easier to render form for the handheld, and doesn't parse it on the device itself (which you would need for epub).

Mobipocket does parse HTML on the device, but it is a relatively simple dialect compared to what you are likely to find in epubs (and no CSS).

I think it would be quite a lot of work to port something like WebKit to Palm because of the 64k memory issue.

If you don't like mobi as a format, you can always choose ereader or plucker.

But if you are only looking at this for fun, then don't let me discourage you At least the tools are free and a used device is cheap!

[Seabound]

I had just gotten through "Hello World" on a PalmOS simulator when I saw this press release from ACCESS. Apparently, there is already an ePub reader using NetFront:

http://www.access-company.com/news/p...21_1_epub.html

I went browsing in ACCESS's Japan site which has more interesting info (you'll have to make your browser translate).

http://jp.access-company.com/product...ublishing.html

I've not seen any signs of the actual NetFront ePub reader software, but it sounds like it does exist.

[wayrad]

Originally Posted by Seabound

I had just gotten through "Hello World" on a PalmOS simulator when I saw this press release from ACCESS. Apparently, there is already an ePub reader using NetFront

Wow, I vaguely recall Netfront - it was for Sony, wasn't it, but in conjunction with CodeDiver could be made to run on other PalmOS devices? The Epub reader sounds cool; I wonder if it works on older (before that invention of the devil, NVFS ) OS versions?

[radius]

Originally Posted by wayrad

Wow, I vaguely recall Netfront - it was for Sony, wasn't it, but in conjunction with CodeDiver could be made to run on other PalmOS devices? The Epub reader sounds cool; I wonder if it works on older (before that invention of the devil, NVFS ) OS versions?

Yes, Sony ran the Netfront browser on some of it's Clies (the TH-55 maybe?)

The browser is available for device makers to build into their MIDs, PDAs, phones etc., and I strongly suspect the ePub reader is the same. You won't be able to download it for free to run on a legacy device like a Palm PDA (unless they decide to release it as some kind of technology demo)

[sjaves]

Isilox will convert html to the isilo format. Isilox is free, Isilo is shareware but will run after the trial period in a limited (but still readable) format.
Isilox.com and isilo.com