What I would like in firmware v1.2

[Spellbot 5000]

Damn! I wanted to create custom load screen that had a pic of Levar Burton on Star Trek while it played the theme to Reading Rainbow over it.

That would have been the ultimate reading experience.

[Multireader]

1) The ability to sort by Title, Author, Genre or Filename
2) The ability to create sub-folders and have the Cybook only display what's in there (sorted as in 1 above).
3) The ability to display without thumbnails which slows the Cybook down so much.
4) The option to display battery status at the bottom of the page.
5) Better fonts.
6) Better sync.
7) A full backup-to-PC option.
8) Zoom and Pan function. Useful for maps, drawings, PDF, etc.
9) The ability to use the Cybook as a reader while plugged into an USB port.
10) User configurable button(s)

[la3541]

ability to adjust margins, fully utilize screen.

[Spellbot 5000]

Originally Posted by Multireader

3) The ability to display without thumbnails which slows the Cybook down so much.

Does yours really slow down with the thumbnails displayed? Mine changes pages just as fast in the library as it does on a generic page of text.

[HarryT]

Agreed. The only time there's a delay is if you've added new books to that library page, and it has to generate the thumbnail image. But that's a "one time" operation.

[bbusybookworm]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Agreed. The only time there's a delay is if you've added new books to that library page, and it has to generate the thumbnail image. But that's a "one time" operation.

Its a One time operation if you've just added a new book or two.

If you've added a lot of books, say a few hundred, it needs to generate the thumbnails for each as you go by. and you can't just skip a page, until all the thumbnails for it are generated. And you can't have it do that in the background .

That's one of the good things on the Sony readers, that it can either update the index when you load through the software, or generate the index when you switch it on. ok, you might have to wait a few minutes, but once it is generated, no more stop and wait for the device to finish generating and the go to the next, repeat.

It is really painful when you load in a lot of images, and just want to jump to a specific one.

[HarryT]

But you aren't going to be adding hundreds of books every day, are you, and once the thumbnail is there for a book it stays there unless you explicitly delete it. That's what I meant .

[bbusybookworm]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But you aren't going to be adding hundreds of books every day, are you, and once the thumbnail is there for a book it stays there unless you explicitly delete it. That's what I meant .

I understood what you ment , but as I've mentioned earlier and in other threads, the Cybook makes a nice comic reader. However as PDF does't work correctly, you have to just dump the individual images on to a SD card.

I ended up having 1500 separate image files, 5 years worth of web comics that I was rereading, and Ouch, when i tried to continue off fromwhen I was earlier, took me about 10 minutes to get to the right page, at 25 books to a page. If it allowed a plain list view, i could just switch to that and jump to the right file.

[HarryT]

OK, yes, I can imagine that if you have thousands of separate images, it would be a major PITA! Hadn't thought of using it that way.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Multireader

5) Better fonts.

Such as?

You can add whatever TTF font you like.

6) Better sync.
7) A full backup-to-PC option.

Since the Cybook is a usb-slave device, that would be a feature of the master end, i.e., the PC you attach the Cybook to. I'm sure one could find good sync and backup software (I use rsync under linux, and it's good enough for me).

[bbusybookworm]

Originally Posted by HarryT

OK, yes, I can imagine that if you have thousands of separate images, it would be a major PITA! Hadn't thought of using it that way.

That's why I'm really hoping that Bookeen get's the ZIP archive support working soon.

That could solve a lot of the headaches.

It could probably also help with the book sorting. Just put all the books in a series in a single archive.

[bobowvu]

I agree with the majority of wishes that you guys have talked about. But the one thing that I'd like to see that would really impact my emjoyment of the Cybook is to allow for landscape reading for mobipocket prc files. It is an option for PDFs, but not mobipocket files (at least that I've found).

I like to read on the couch laying down, and it is just a little awkward to to with the choice of having all buttons in the lower right, with no page turning buttons anyhwhere else. But I noticed that if i flipped it 90 deg all of a sudden the buttons were at a much comfortable position in the upper right and i could hold and page turn easily with no discomfort. The same is true if you rotated it the other direction (making it easier for lefties with the buttons in the lower left).

So I would like to see two landscape functions (one counterclockwise and one clockwise) with the appropriate re-mapping of the buttons while in a particular mode. Also, my lefthanded friends have been very critical with the right-handed bias of all ebooks to date, so i suspect a 180deg inverse portrait mode (where the buttons are in the top left) would also be desirable for some people.

Just my 2 cents.

[GeoffC]

Just as a matter of interest, and slightly off-topic, no one has mentioned anything about the MP3 facility in the Cybook, does that mean it's good - or that no-one uses it?
(I don't, but that's another story)...

[HarryT]

I don't use it personally; I use my iPod for music and audiobooks.

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't use it personally; I use my iPod for music and audiobooks.

Makes me wonder if it's a redundant feature in the cybook, I can't imagine it has the same quality as a dedicated player.
mmm, something that could be taken out??? allowing, perhaps, more on-board memory...