Jinke posts new firmware build 3-24-2010

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

I have similar but the R is left off the regular font. It works in all formats I have tried include Cool Reader. Perhaps both will work but the published recommendation from Jinke does not have the R.

I do not know this for a fact, but I think CoolReader actually works from the meta data inside the font file, and not the file name itself. The reason that I came to that conclusion is that the IBOOKN fonts that I got from the Jinke SDK have the normal font named IBOOKN in the file name, but the internal meta data calls it IBOOKR. The IBOOKR name is the name that CoolReader displays for the IBOOKN font file. The really big gotcha in the current CoolReader is that the TTF file extension must be in all lower case letters as ttf.

[Xochipilli2012]

Hi Everyone,

I didn't play with TTS too much when I still had it with the December 2010 Astak firmware, and then it disappeared with the aborted March FW update that brought us CoolReader 3, but lost TTS. The LBook firmware not only gives us CoolReader 3, but also TTS for EPUB and PDF. I'm also finding the System menus, including the pop-ups that occur in the lower left corner to be much easier to read.

For those of you who loved CR3 that came with the March Astak firmware, but missed TTS support, the LBook firmware discussed in this thread might be just the ticket for you.

Oh...another thing. If I were studying Russian, I'd be really excited by the English-Russian dictionary that comes along for the ride.

And I don't remember if "search" was available in previous firmwares, Astak or otherwise, but I found the search functions in CoolReader, and whatever opens EPUBs (that isn't CoolReader) to be really easy to use. The former uses an X-Y number entry grid system to enter letters, and the latter uses multi-tap numbers similar to how texting works on mobile phones without a full keyboard.

These are really early findings...based on a few minutes "messing about."

I'm sure more reports will follow.

Enjoy!

[cancelx]

Hi all...

I'm going to update my PP for the first time. Havent used it yet.
I was considering just the Astak DEC one, BUT

Reading this thread SEEMS to suggest the LBook one is working with CoolReader 3, and TTS, all the goodies of the March Astak but working.

QUESTION----- is it PROVEN there is NO BATTERY DRAIN in this LBook firmware?

Thank you kindly

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by cancelx

QUESTION----- is it PROVEN there is NO BATTERY DRAIN in this LBook firmware?

The Lbook firmware that I linked to is part of an ongoing development project for CoolReader, so ABSOLUTELY NOTHING is proven yet. Personally, I have not seen any battery issues, but then I did not see them with Astak/Jinke's March release either. The unreleased Lbook firmware definitely has some minor bugs or it probably would have been released through normal channels. It takes less than 5 minutes to load new firmware so that fastest way to know if a firmware package is something that you want to use is just to load it. If you do not like it, then load something else. It is not like loading firmware into the reader is an irrevocable decision, since you can always load something else as the bootloader is never affected by loading new firmware.
BTW, there is one bug that I have found with the unreleased Lbook firmware, and that is that sometimes key presses are swallowed if they immediately follow a menu page turn. When you press the key again then both key presses are processed. That seems to be pretty minor for unreleased firmware that is still in the development process?

[cancelx]

Thanks again Dave- think ill give this a go

(ps- is the unofficial lbook much diff than the official?- feel free to pm instead as to not muddy the thread)

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by cancelx

Thanks again Dave- think ill give this a go

(ps- is the unofficial lbook much diff than the official?- feel free to pm instead as to not muddy the thread)

Others may have the same question, so I will answer here.

After the minor ( for me) difficulties with the Astak March firmware, I started using the Lbook October 2009 firmware on my PocketPRO. That worked out so well that I started regularly checking the Lbook site for new firmware. The one difficulty that I had with Lbook's October release was that the CoolReader 3 menus were only in Russian, with no English available. I found a translation for those on the Web, so I was able to work around that problem. However, my Web wandering led me to discover the-ebook.org web site where developers and testers of the CoolReader for Lbook software were discussing the work on CoolReader 3. There were links in some of the discussions to development images, so I gave the latest image a try, and was very pleasantly surprised. I provided that link here for anyone that was adventurous enough to want to try it. There are quite a few small differences between the Lbook October 2009 release, and a few bigger ones in CoolReader itself. One important one is that all CoolReader's many pages of menus are now in English.

[DaleDe]

The new Jinke software late March release (the tile of this thread) has all the features of the earlier March Astak release. Astak also has this later release from Jinke as well. I am not sure why they haven't released it. I did a beta on it and said it was ok. It has cool reader 3, it has TTS and has all the other stuff it always had. Cool reader 3 is specified for FB2 and RTF and can be faked into support ePUB, TXT, HTML by adding the fb2 extension. It also has the same font support as described for lBook.

Dale

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

The new Jinke software late March release (the tile of this thread) has all the features of the earlier March Astak release. Astak also has this later release from Jinke as well. I am not sure why they haven't released it. I did a beta on it and said it was ok. It has cool reader 3, it has TTS and has all the other stuff it always had. Cool reader 3 is specified for FB2 and RTF and can be faked into support ePUB, TXT, HTML by adding the fb2 extension. It also has the same font support as described for lBook.

Dale

By the way, while we are talking about faking things, Did you know you can change the extension on PalmDOC files to .prc to get the mobireader to read them? Of course the native PalmDOC reader reads them also but changing the extension gains some mobipocket customization features.

[Robertb]

Dear All:

We had the very best beta for this Firmware Upgrade... Dale DePriest of MobileRead Forum.

We are being VERY methodical this time to be sure all is perfect!! The evil PM has just told me that his minions WILL proceed immediately to post the new Firmware Upgrade; and this time you can do it with total confidence!

You may not realize it... but the last (March) firmware upgrade was an embarassment for Astak. As such, it had to take a while to be sure the battery drain issue is solved!

Thank you for your patience!!