Firmware Upgrade Ideas?

[hyegeek]

I have reported several bugs that were never fixed. It would be nice to see a firemware upgrade that took care of that.

Long ago, I was able to get a TOC in an epub to use an embedded font. That changed after a firmware upgrade and has never come back. Bookmarking was changed from quick and useful to slow and painful. Links in epubs still do not work. These things are important to me and the sudden lack of development last fall has left me feeling cheated and wondering why I bought this thing. I expected bug fixes and good tech support from my pre-purchase research and that lasted about 1 month after my purchase. My current experience is definitely going to have an impact on future device purchases.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by o0-0o

or something like automatically divide the page into 4 section and view them one by one.
7. Text to Speech

8. Correct whatever causes the Mentors to lock up.

[tzn22]

I completely shut-down my pp when I know I won't be using it in the next couple of hours. (I know I don't need to but I prefer to do so as I feel that, this way, I get a bit more page turns from my ereader before I have to charge it.)

It would be great if when I power my ereader on (it sounds funny to me, it may not be the correct expression but it sure sounds better than saying "when I turn my ereader on"!!! ), it would open directly on the last page I was on when I shut it down rather than on the menu page.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by tzn22

I completely shut-down my pp when I know I won't be using it in the next couple of hours. (I know I don't need to but I prefer to do so as I feel that, this way, I get a bit more page turns from my ereader before I have to charge it.)

It would be great if when I power my ereader on (it sounds funny to me, it may not be the correct expression but it sure sounds better than saying "when I turn my ereader on"!!! ), it would open directly on the last page I was on when I shut it down rather than on the menu page.

You don't need to turn it OFF.
Besides the wait and losing track of what book (recently read will get you back to a ADE logic page) and having to reset the clock (needed if you are reading Library books). The battery saving might even be NEGATIVE, since a full boot takes more work than waking up.
( I have had my PEz for almost a year now. Leave it on except to Upgrade or recover from a really bad lockup)

[citac]

Originally Posted by Solicitous

Hi Jenifer,

My thoughts on updates are;

- There are a vast array of file formats, unfortunately very few of them work. I have never been able to open a .DOC or .PPT (I assume the .DOC needs to be from an early version of MS Word), .MOBI locks up and has done since the PP release, and apparently .LIT isn't even worth trying. Other than .TXT and .RTF I havent tried any of the others outside of .FB2, .EPUB and .PDF.

I was actually able to open and read .doc, .ppt and .lit. The original font size in .doc is too small, so I will probably have to change the screen size before I transfer them since I don't like zooming in. Same with .ppt, they work but are too small and I will need to convert them. might it be that the size of your file is too large? I found that's what caused most of my problems with not being able to open some files. (Though that doesn't seem to be the case of with .fb2, which almost always locks up on me.)

[soothsayer]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Yes, I agree that this would be better and nudging an e-INK screen is basically not workable. Here is the suggestion that I have already submitted to Jinke on May 1st along with 30 other suggestions.

Many technical books are difficult to read on a 5" or 6" device because they contain images that cannot be read properly. There is a need to be able to zoom these images to make them legible. This is particular true of PDF, ePUB, and DJVU files which are often used as the formats for technical books. Using landscape mode helps but it is not enough. Here is my recommended solution.

A long press 8 (zoom) key should enter the zoom mode on the first picture on the page that has a pixel size too wide or too long to be displayed properly. If the image would fit on the page but is currently split the long press 8 would not enter zoom mode but would instead scroll the book page down far enough to display the full image.

If the image is too big it would be zoom from its current displayed size approximately 2x horizontal and 2x vertical (maintaining aspect ratio) or displayed at full size if the pixel size is smaller than 2x size. That is, on a 600 pixel screen a 900 pixel wide image would be zoomed to be shown at 100%.

In zoom mode the behavior would be like that of too long of a line covered in another thread. The next page key would pan to the right to display the right half of the image, only enough to display the image at full screen width.

If the next page key is pressed while already panned then the image would be panned up the full screen (minus about 10 pixels to provide a bit of overlap) and set back to the left margin of the image.

If the previous page key is pressed in zoom mode at the image is panned right then it would be panned left to the left edge of the image. If the previous page key is pressed when the image is already left but shifted downward it would be shifted up.

To visualize this think of the image containing text. You start at the top and read a line, next page to continue on the line, prev page to return to read the next line. Using next/prev keys are required until you get to the bottom of the screen. Pressing the next key in this case moves the image up allow you to continue read the text.

Limiting the zoom to 2x means that there is only minimal need to pan left and right to minimize the problem of the user getting lost in the image. This amount of zoom should provide enough to read almost any image. If for some reason the user wants more they can switch to landscape mode which will behave exactly the same way on the rotated image provides a bigger image.

A second long press of the zoom key will exit the zoom mode permitting the user to continue to read the text. Adjacent text will not be displayed in zoom mode. Note that in zoom mode the banner will not be shown no matter what the user preference is.

The image viewer should also support this zoom capability with the following differences. The image will be best fit as today. the 8 zoom key will enter zoom mode with 4X zoom or 100% display, whichever is smaller. The 9/0 keys will pan in the direction they are physically on the unit, i.e. left right, while the next/prev keys on the side of the screen will pan up/down. Again the banner will be removed for this operation. Press zoom a second time will revert to the original size and key behavior.

Having this capability will not only improve technical manual ability but it will permit the support of CBR/CBZ reading ability.

(In another suggestion I also defined the next/prev page key functionality defined above for zooming to be applied to tables that were too wide for the screen.)

Dale

I agree also, need image zoom functionality for PDF.

[John F]

I would like to see format customization (line spacing, spacing between paragraphs, paragraph indent, font, font size, justification, margins, page header...

Take a look at Stanza on the iPad, that has some good options.

[Solicitous]

Originally Posted by John F

I would like to see format customization (line spacing, spacing between paragraphs, paragraph indent, font, font size, justification, margins, page header...

Take a look at Stanza on the iPad, that has some good options.

Currently you can do most of that with Coolreader 3, unfortunately it only works with non-DRM'd epubs.

I think the suggestion you made is a good one. ADE needs some minor adjustments, this is one of them, and as I posted earlier, remove those damn pesky page number from the right hand margin!!!!

[Spiffy]

I doubt Astak has any direct feedback into ADE development. The best they could do is make sure the latest version of ADE is applied in the future--whatever that brings to the table bad or good.

That's a big part of why most of my suggestions have tended towards tweaking the file interface. That's the part that Jinke controls, and Astak can perhaps get most easily worked on.

[Solicitous]

Originally Posted by Spiffy

I doubt Astak has any direct feedback into ADE development. The best they could do is make sure the latest version of ADE is applied in the future--whatever that brings to the table bad or good.

That's a big part of why most of my suggestions have tended towards tweaking the file interface. That's the part that Jinke controls, and Astak can perhaps get most easily worked on.

There are articles regarding the Kobo and the have access to the ADE sdk, which allows them (albeit limited) the ability to modify certain aspects of ADE on their reader. I don't know the indepth details but I assume some of our requests ought to be possible.

[the grue]

I have been reading this forum since I picked up my nice little EZreader, which i love love love. I do NOT love the last firmware upgrade. And I had issues with the one before that.

Mainly, I have big problems with the .lit (microsoft reader) files. While I use very nearly every other file type, I still have great piles of .lit. And the firmware hates it. Doesn't display; displays interesting characters and spaces; takes forever to load; locks up. lots of lock up. Bah.

the last firmware had major power issues. It was running down within a couple of hours of reading.

So I went and have the lbook one, but great googlymoogly, it's slow. And apparently the cache gets full at only 100 mb. It also hates .lit, but not as much as the Astak firmware. And I can't delete the stupid cache until I find a computer somewhere. (just learned about the cache. that whole locking up and endless reset presses. grr)

So, getting back on topic :

1. please make .lit happier.
2. please see what was up with the power
3. i would like to be able to delete the cache

Thanks!

[Acreo Aeneas]

This is probably a repeat:

Coolreader and all of the features promised in the March/April 2010 FW update but without the battery drain when I go and lock my PP for the night.

[Davimee]

Originally Posted by the grue

So I went and have the lbook one, but great googlymoogly, it's slow. And apparently the cache gets full at only 100 mb. It also hates .lit, but not as much as the Astak firmware. And I can't delete the stupid cache until I find a computer somewhere. (just learned about the cache. that whole locking up and endless reset presses. grr)

I thought I was the only one who had issues with Lbook being slow. I really like the firmware for the ability to read epub books in CoolReader without having to convert or rename them, as well as the ability to delete books I've finished. But it's just so slow! That's with the official newest release, not the beta version. I haven't tried any of the test releases. Hopefully either Astak or LBook will get this right so our Pocket Pros will work perfectly!

[Solicitous]

Originally Posted by Davimee

I thought I was the only one who had issues with Lbook being slow. I really like the firmware for the ability to read epub books in CoolReader without having to convert or rename them, as well as the ability to delete books I've finished. But it's just so slow! That's with the official newest release, not the beta version. I haven't tried any of the test releases. Hopefully either Astak or LBook will get this right so our Pocket Pros will work perfectly!

I've found so far that will Coolreader and Lbook to reduce the slowness is to open the ebook with CR, let it do its thinking, then close it. Reopen the ebook and it should perform a little more responsively. I was getting a little frustrated by opening a book and CR being slow, open/close/open seemed to reduce my frustration (perhaps re-reading the cache solves some issues).

[Blossom]

Lbook is faster for me then using Astak's firmware. I don't know why. I've never had a cache issue that most talk about either. *knocks on wood* I use the script Dave posted to delete the cache regularly but never had the corrupted cache issue, I just like to keep my PP tidy.

I use htm, epub mostly with CR3. books open in seconds for me.