CC Beta V3.6.3a-e/V3.6.4 have been published.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Ah, but ... if you make the Stack widget a 1-row x 3- or 4-col size it looks a lot like a horizontal widget.

Yes, it does.

But I suspect that people will think that swiping up/down to go right/left is rather strange.

[PeterT]

Woot... The setting of scheduled time at reboot worked perfectly. I rebooted my tablet off last night, did not launch CC, and just now my news was downloaded automagically.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by chaley

Could I impose upon you again as I have done before and send you a private APK that does these calculations? If they work then wonderful. If they don't, then "oh well." I could send the APK tomorrow.

First the Good News ... On both GNote3 and GTabPro your aim for similar sizes for shortcut thumbnail and Book List thumbnail is successful

GNote3 (same book cover as prev measurements):
- shortcut: 5.25 x 8.75mm
- Book List widget: 5.5 x 9mm

GTabPro:
- shortcut: 6 x 10mm
- Book List widget: 6 x 10mm

The text on the GTabpro is now easily readable (IMO). On both GNote3 and GTabPro, the text size of Book List title looks about the same as shortcut caption title. Text size of author/series is a bit smaller - presumably by design - still readable.

Now the Bad News ... The square cover thumbnails have returned if Cover view: cover shape is set to 'Portrait box, stretch to fit'. As before, resetting to 'Portrait box, preserve aspect ratio' fixes this.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

First the Good News ... On both GNote3 and GTabPro your aim for similar sizes for shortcut thumbnail and Book List thumbnail is successful

[...]

The text on the GTabpro is now easily readable (IMO). On both GNote3 and GTabPro, the text size of Book List title looks about the same as shortcut caption title. Text size of author/series is a bit smaller - presumably by design - still readable.

Good. I am glad it works.

I tried to scale the title line to be close to the default for devices that don't do the auto-up-scale that high-res tablets do. The author/series lines are 15% smaller than the title line.

EDIT: BTW: the text size should scale up/down if one changes the system-wide font size.

Now the Bad News ... The square cover thumbnails have returned if Cover view: cover shape is set to 'Portrait box, stretch to fit'. As before, resetting to 'Portrait box, preserve aspect ratio' fixes this.

Ah foop. For various reasons I had to re-introduce the transparent square cover thumb with the real cover drawn into it. During that process I left out the test for "Portrait stretch to fit". That is now fixed.

I intend to let things settle for a few days then do a production release. In the mean time do you want an APK that fixes the "Portrait stretch to fit" problem? You are the only person benefiting from that regression.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by chaley

... In the mean time do you want an APK that fixes the "Portrait stretch to fit" problem?

No, not worth your time

[chaley]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Woot... The setting of scheduled time at reboot worked perfectly. I rebooted my tablet off last night, did not launch CC, and just now my news was downloaded automagically.

Thanks for letting me know.

Does auto-connect now do what you need? Have I left something out?

[chaley]

Hoping that I haven't used up all the brain power available during this cycle ...

I was thinking about why I thought (think) that the widgets should show more than one book. Yes, it makes it easy to be reading more than one book at a time (I do that), but perhaps there is more to it than that. I ended up with three questions:

1. Should the list be limited at 6? At 4? At 50? I picked 6 out of the air. Note that a large limit (more than one or two hundred) isn't a particularly good idea because of how the list is implemented to avoid the database upgrade. Note also that the different widget kinds can have different limits, should that be of interest.
2. Should there be a way to add a book to the list without actually opening it in a reader, probably a menu line in book details? This would would make the list more akin to "books I have read or want to read".
3. Corallary to the above, should there be a way to remove a book from the list?

I am not trying to make work for myself, but it seems worth thinking a bit about other ways these widgets might be used before anything is cast in stone.

[kaufman]

I've started to use the Calibre widget because I realized that using it fixes a problem I have had with the Moon widget. When I open PDF attachments in email, they show up in the widget, even though I don't care about them after the initial read. I don't have that problem with the Calibre widget.

Originally Posted by chaley

But I suspect that people will think that swiping up/down to go right/left is rather strange.

Yes, but a widget that just showed the last X books covers in a row (whatever would fit) with no scrolling might be nice. That would actually be the one I would use. Most recent book on the left, three next older books to the right.

Originally Posted by chaley

1. Should the list be limited at 6? At 4? At 50? I picked 6 out of the air. Note that a large limit (more than one or two hundred) isn't a particularly good idea because of how the list is implemented to avoid the database upgrade. Note also that the different widget kinds can have different limits, should that be of interest.
2. Should there be a way to add a book to the list without actually opening it in a reader, probably a menu line in book details? This would would make the list more akin to "books I have read or want to read".
3. Corallary to the above, should there be a way to remove a book from the list?

My personal feeling is that any hard wired relatively small number is fine.

I don't think it needs the ability to add or remove books. That sounds like a lot of work for a relatively rare use-case. Plus, its easy to add a book just by opening it and hitting the back button.

[jackie_w]

@chaley,

Speaking only for myself, I don't have a burning need for any of those things. However, as you're looking for opinions ...

re: 1 - As I've mentioned previously, I can see why 6 wouldn't be enough for some users, especially if they've been using the Moon+ list widget which allows many more than 6 (but I've no idea what its limit is, if any).

re: 2 & 3 - Just a comment, you could actually do this already with a bunch of CC shortcuts.

Once you've officially released these 'first efforts' might you get a lot more suggestions about what 'new improved' versions could/should offer?

Other than my first comment above, I don't see that your 'first efforts' as-is are lacking anything compared to existing offerings in the popular Android reading apps. The fact that CC will provide a 'Recently opened list' across all reading apps will give it something no other app currently offers.

[kaufman]

I just thought of one feature that I would like to see the widget do. If you select an item on the list (other than the first one), it would be good if it moved it to the front of the list. That would actually just be extending the paradigm of the list being the "most recent books opened by CC" to include the widget.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by kaufman

I just thought of one feature that I would like to see the widget do. If you select an item on the list (other than the first one), it would be good if it moved it to the front of the list. That would actually just be extending the paradigm of the list being the "most recent books opened by CC" to include the widget.

I thought it did this already Has it stopped?

[Purple Lady]

I think there should be a way to remove books from the list. I sometimes open a book by mistake and remove it from the CC last read order by clearing the read date. I also just noticed that if I remove all widgets and then add a new one, I still get the book that is now in CC with no last read date. That may be ok if you remove and add a widget immediately, but what if you create a widget days later? That book with no CC read date will be in the list and if you compare it to the CC last read order you will think it is a bug.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

I thought it did this already Has it stopped?

It does this already for me.

[kaufman]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

It does this already for me.

Oops. Never mind.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kaufman

Yes, but a widget that just showed the last X books covers in a row (whatever would fit) with no scrolling might be nice. That would actually be the one I would use. Most recent book on the left, three next older books to the right.

The current grid view in 2x2 gives you much of this. You see the 4 latest books in two rows.

It would be trivial to make the grid view contain 4 books and be 4 columns x 1 row. This would give you the functional equivalent of the horizontal list. However, I experimented with it and found that it is useless less than (3 wide x 1 high) and best (4 wide x 1 high).

I originally intended the grid for e-ink devices where swipes and scrolls are not good things. However, using it on my Afterglow 2 e-ink reader I find that cover thumbnails are really hard to differentiate in grey scale, so I am now using the list-with-text view, which works fine because the text is easily readable. Hence I have no problem changing the grid to be a 4-book single-line widget, in effect giving the horizontal layout. Its minimum width would be "3 cells".

Originally Posted by jackie_w

re: 2 & 3 - Just a comment, you could actually do this already with a bunch of CC shortcuts.

Very good point. I must remember this for when I write the eventual FAQ.

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

I think there should be a way to remove books from the list. I sometimes open a book by mistake and remove it from the CC last read order by clearing the read date. I also just noticed that if I remove all widgets and then add a new one, I still get the book that is now in CC with no last read date. That may be ok if you remove and add a widget immediately, but what if you create a widget days later? That book with no CC read date will be in the list and if you compare it to the CC last read order you will think it is a bug.

What you are seeing is caused by the difference between "last read" and "last opened". One does not necessarily imply the other. For example, doing a WD connection with calibre and syncing a last-read date should not update the widgets. Some people have turned off the auto last-read-date update because they don't want to set a date until they have finished the book. All of this is really to say that I agree with you that removing a book from the list is more important than adding a book to the list.