Freda now on Android

[Jim Chapman]

(Note to mods - this is a duplicate of my post n the Freda sticky thread; if you could merge the threads and rename the sticky thread to something like 'Freda on Windows and Android' that would be good. At the moment, the sticky thread name is just about Windows Phone 7, which is misleading. - Thanks)
Freda is now also available for Android. That means that you can enjoy the same reading experience across your Windows and Android devices, using the app’s features to sync between the two platforms. You can get the latest version of the app from the Microsoft Store – and the Android version, is on Google Play (still in beta-testing right now, so please feel free to offer feedback).

Freda is a free (advertising supported) app which gives you easy access to over 50,000 public domain classic books, free of charge, from Feedbooks, Gutenberg and other on-line catalogs. Or read your own (DRM-free) books in the supported formats: EPUB, FB2, HTML and TXT. App features include:

• Customisable controls, fonts and colours
• Highlighting and bookmarks/annotations
• Integration with on-line catalogs – Feedbooks, Smashwords, Gutenberg …
• Connection to your OneDrive and DropBox accounts for downloading book files
• Linkage to your Calibre book library
• Opening books from websites and email attachments, and from files anywhere on your device
• Ability to tag books by subject, and sort/filter your bookshelf by tag, author, title, and series
• Text-to-speech, speedread and auto-scroll
• Automatic synchronisation of your reading position across all the devices you are using
• A save/restore feature that allows you to copy all books and settings from one device to another
• The OpenDyslexic font and a range of dyslexic-friendly settings, for use by readers who are affected by dyslexia

For further details, take a look at the intro video, the manual, or the support forums, and if you have any questions or ideas about the app, I would be glad to hear from you, on this thread, by PM, or by email (jim@turnipsoft.co.uk).

[DaleDe]

I updated the wiki page Freda with this data.

Dale

[Uncle Robin]

I'm posting this here because I only learned about Freda from a recent thread at MR, and because this is not a "support request" as per the format of the email generated from within the app. This is simply a heads up that the Android version has a BIG problem rendering Unicode devanagari it seems. I've attached 3 screenshots, one showing Freda on my Win10 64 Pro PC, one showing Freda on my Lenovo P10 Tablet, and one showing Moon Reader Pro on the same tablet (to show it's not a font availability issue).

[Jim Chapman]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

problem rendering Unicode devanagari

Thank you for reporting the problem. I've taken a look at it, and in fact I think it is probably a font-availability problem. These problems can get quite arcane on Android (because Android phones typically ship with a very limited set of fonts installed, and often the installed fonts don't support the full range of Unicode characters). It looks like Moon+ reader is doing a better job of automatically providing a fall-back font for rendering the text - perhaps based on a font that is packaged as part of the Moon+ reader app.

I can't tell you exactly what is going on, unless you send me the EPUB file to examine (feel free to email me at jim@turnipsoft.co.uk if you like), but based on other samples of Devanagri scripts that I could find, I can suggest a work-around that might help. Basically, you need to tell Freda to use the 'Noto Sans' font, and ignore whatever other font choice the book might specify. Change the following two settings:

• 'book style overrides Freda font selection' => no
• 'font' => Noto Sans

The 'Noto Sans' font is bundled with Freda, and includes a good range of Unicode code points.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

Thank you for reporting the problem. I've taken a look at it, and in fact I think it is probably a font-availability problem. These problems can get quite arcane on Android (because Android phones typically ship with a very limited set of fonts installed, and often the installed fonts don't support the full range of Unicode characters). It looks like Moon+ reader is doing a better job of automatically providing a fall-back font for rendering the text - perhaps based on a font that is packaged as part of the Moon+ reader app.

I can't tell you exactly what is going on, unless you send me the EPUB file to examine (feel free to email me at jim@turnipsoft.co.uk if you like), but based on other samples of Devanagri scripts that I could find, I can suggest a work-around that might help. Basically, you need to tell Freda to use the 'Noto Sans' font, and ignore whatever other font choice the book might specify. Change the following two settings:

• 'book style overrides Freda font selection' => no
• 'font' => Noto Sans

The 'Noto Sans' font is bundled with Freda, and includes a good range of Unicode code points.

Thanks for your reply. I will check that out. The Noto family is my Android default for that reason, I guess I assumed Freda would use it if installed

[Uncle Robin]

After following your suggestions, there's a BIG improvement. However, the text still renders imperfectly. The attached images show Freda Android and Freda Win 10 - same font settings, both using Noto Sans. The red lines are inverted and/or transposed vowels that are impossible in devanagari. The orange marks show where letters should be conjoined like ligatures (matra in Hindi). These are not grammatically inadmissible, but are annoying, and a little visually distracting. As can be seen the Win 10 install displays the text perfectly, without a single error or annoyance.

[Jim Chapman]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

After following your suggestions, there's a BIG improvement. However, the text still renders imperfectly. The attached images show Freda Android and Freda Win 10 - same font settings, both using Noto Sans. The red lines are inverted and/or transposed vowels that are impossible in devanagari. The orange marks show where letters should be conjoined like ligatures (matra in Hindi). These are not grammatically inadmissible, but are annoying, and a little visually distracting. As can be seen the Win 10 install displays the text perfectly, without a single error or annoyance.

Thank you for following up. I'll do some more work on the Android rendering code, to try and get a better result. Look out for an update within the next week, which will include my best efforts at getting Devanagari script to work right.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

Thank you for following up. I'll do some more work on the Android rendering code, to try and get a better result. Look out for an update within the next week, which will include my best efforts at getting Devanagari script to work right.

I look forward to it, because the layout Freda uses for that particular book is close to optimal for my purposes, it will make reading that book more enjoyable than on the smaller screen of my Kobo.