Stanza in iOS5... dead...

[1611mac]

Well, I held off on iOS5 just due to the Stanza question. Now that I learn for sure Stanza won't run on 5 I'm glad I didn't update. I'm "sort of" migrating to BlueFire in the meantime. The feature I look for first is a wide variety of font, color, night reading, etc, features.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by kirra

Are there any alternative apps that can do this? My number one epub reader criteria is this at the moment. Ideally I'm looking for a label/tagging-like system, aka Stanza's subject and collections, for epub management/categorization. Shelves won't work for me since I'd like to bin my books under multiple subjects and collections and so far all apps implement them like exclusive folders.

On iOS? Haven't found one yet, unfortunately. On Android, though, this appears to be the default behavior of the popular reader apps.

[gwynevans]

Originally Posted by DuskyRose

Bummed out, because I don't trust Dropbox or any of the cloud services to store my stuff. I just don't see it as dependable in the long run. I paid for all that extra gig on my devices, and I want to use it!

My approach has ended up being to export my library from Calibre into a folder tree on my hard drive (e.g. /ePub/<Author>/<Series>/<Title>, then I used the "FileBrowser" app to copy the folder (and contents) to my iPad. That did take a while to copy, but I now have them 'locally' on the iPad and FileBrowser can "Open In..." them to send them to the various readers that I have installed.

You're limited to the folder organisation for browsing, and there's only the manual update option for adding books, but I do have access to them when not online...

[DuskyRose]

Originally Posted by gwynevans

My approach has ended up being to export my library from Calibre into a folder tree on my hard drive (e.g. /ePub/<Author>/<Series>/<Title>, then I used the "FileBrowser" app to copy the folder (and contents) to my iPad. That did take a while to copy, but I now have them 'locally' on the iPad and FileBrowser can "Open In..." them to send them to the various readers that I have installed.

You're limited to the folder organisation for browsing, and there's only the manual update option for adding books, but I do have access to them when not online...

Thanks for the info. I'll have to look into it.

[exador]

atleast for me, it looks like shubook is the new ebook reader choice for me...
the controls are pretty similar to stanza, and i've been able to import every single last epub book on my hard drive no problem....

let me know what you folks think..give it a shot and let me know if you like it...

(to be clear, it's not as good as stanza, but it appears -to me anyhow- better than the others i've tried today)

-ps, i'm using this on my iphone...

[frozennorth]

Originally Posted by 1611mac

Well, I held off on iOS5 just due to the Stanza question. Now that I learn for sure Stanza won't run on 5 I'm glad I didn't update. I'm "sort of" migrating to BlueFire in the meantime. The feature I look for first is a wide variety of font, color, night reading, etc, features.

+1

I'm also holding out on the update to keep stanza for now. It's my favorite and most used app.

My phone is the only apple product I have, so wireless syncing isn't important to me. I might give bluefire a try though.

[thomasmorus]

Originally Posted by jgoulden

I'll second this. I've been through and tried just about every ebook reader in the App Store (free and paid), and keep coming back to i2reader. As for features it seems to have all of the bases covered: multiple viewing modes (i.e. night mode, daytime, etc) plus user created modes, supports Calibre in both web mode and OPDS, custom dictionaries, wide book format support, custom tap zones, brightness support, etc.

I've come across a few bugs, but nothing major. The biggest issue that comes to mind right now is the horrid method they use for customizing the display modes. It's uncanny how they don't realize how broke it is in use. Don't get me wrong - it works, but it's next to impossible to reproduce your efforts from one setting to the next (all sliders, no fixed/variable numerical values).

I have a huge wish list of tweaks and such that I'd like to see, but the developers aren't what I would call "responsive". In fact, from what I've dug up, I believe it's written by a third party, and marketed to the App Store by a software house that mostly does Mac apps (Unsanity.com).

Aside from the price, I've never quite understood why it doesn't get more coverage/love here.

Any Idea ?

Thanks

[ArQangel]

Originally Posted by exador

when i searched for ARCReader, all i could find was a mapping application....

Its here

http://arcreader.fieldman.org/

But I use it purely for CBR/CBZ files so not tried it with other types of books.

ArQ

[kyteflyer]

Originally Posted by minot578

found something on the lexcycle site that lets you recover stanza books from your itunes backup....

http://www.lexcycle.com/content/stan...k-restore-tool

Thanks so much for that, I'll give it a whirl. I havent deleted Stanza off my devices because I am hopeful for an update... but at least I can retrieve the books.

[foosion]

What's the best way to get books from my computer to Bluefire (my current favorite) on my ipad? Start a server on the computer and download with Safari? Get a dropbox, sugarsync or some such account, upload to that and download with the ipad app? Something else?

Is there any way to use the Calibre server?

How about ios 5 wifi syncing?

Based on quick testing, Bluefire looks the nicest. I didn't like Kobo formatting. The first ebup I tried loaded to ibooks wouldn't open. I tried converting in Calibre to mobi, but safari wouldn't download it.

[evanbernstein]

I also panicked the other day when iOS 5 broke Stanza, my most beloved app. So I tried a few out and the one that I've found that I like the best so far is MegaReader http://www.megareader.net/

The developer has been posting on this thread here http://getsatisfaction.com/stanza/topics/ios_5_issues and offered up free codes (while they last) to ex-stanza users. You can also demo out the app by downloading the free version of QuickReader (which is the same app, just with speed reading capabilities added). So you can see what all the settings you can mess with are in the app.

You can see on the thread on getsatisfaction above how the developer, Patrick, is responding quickly to missing features. He has already told me that on the short list are:
- an option for paragraph indention
- an option for paragraph between paragraphs

He also wants to implement:
- sliding up and down for brightness. His response "This seems to be the most popular request. I never knew it was so important!". I don't know how hard/easy it is, so it might not be the short-short list.

I told him a bunch of things that I loved about stanza (seeing the grey bar at the bottom of the screen to show progress, showing progress of books from the bookshelf/library) and he thought they sounded like nice features to add at some point.

So, so far, this is the app I'm using, and would gladly have paid $2 for it. So please use the contact page on his website and let him know what features you want so we can all have the Stanza replacement we are looking for!

[kjk]

Originally Posted by evanbernstein

He also wants to implement:
- sliding up and down for brightness. His response "This seems to be the most popular request. I never knew it was so important!". I don't know how hard/easy it is, so it might not be the short-short list.

That depends on whether Apple actually released that API to 3rd party developers-I remember when iBooks was first released, it was the only app that had true in-app brightness control. Hopefully Apple has released that private API, so he can implement it!

[kyteflyer]

I've just bought megareader too, but it does not present itself in the list of apps in itunes which will share files or which can have files dragged to them. I paid for it before I knew there were free codes, but oh well, no matter. For now, I'm going to use kobo for its night mode. Even in the daytime I prefer light text on dark background. The slide up and down thing to make it darker or brighter would be good. There are so many things about Stanza I miss... quite apart from it just being there. dammit.

[kirra]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

On iOS? Haven't found one yet, unfortunately. On Android, though, this appears to be the default behavior of the popular reader apps.

Yeah on iOS. Ugh. That's disappointing to hear. Thanks for responding.

[1611mac]

Originally Posted by kyteflyer

I've just bought megareader too, but it does not present itself in the list of apps in itunes which will share files or which can have files dragged to them. I paid for it before I knew there were free codes, but oh well, no matter. For now, I'm going to use kobo for its night mode. Even in the daytime I prefer light text on dark background. The slide up and down thing to make it darker or brighter would be good. There are so many things about Stanza I miss... quite apart from it just being there. dammit.

RE: MegaReader and iTunes
You don't need iTunes! Just fire up Calibre, turn on the content server, and your Calibre Library will appear as a WiFI catalog in the Book Catalogs section. You can then view your Calibre library in MegaReader by Tags, Source, Author, Title, Newest, etc and download your selection over WiFi. Mine worked first time. I had to do nothing.