Bluefire reader app

[kyteflyer]

I'm still hoping that the Author sort will evolve a bit more. I HATE having a long single list of books, and as a result have deleted Bluefire from my devices yet again.

[Micah]

Originally Posted by kyteflyer

I'm still hoping that the Author sort will evolve a bit more. I HATE having a long single list of books, and as a result have deleted Bluefire from my devices yet again.

We are introducing a new "Collections" feature in the next major update (shooting currently for August release). We would also like to add a "search" feature in Library in later versions.

I understand that Bluefire Reader has not been particularly great for people with large collections of eBooks. Trying to make that better. We are a very small, self funded company so it takes some time.
-Micah

[Micah]

Originally Posted by Shykat

Synching between devices would really be nice though the only other Apple device I have right now is an old iPod Touch. Still would be an extremely handy feature for someone who had an iPhone, iPad and a Touch.... or also read books while sitting at their computer.

Right now, the addition that would work the most for me is "Sort By Date Added" with the option of either ascending or descending order. Sure hope that would be an easy addition to make.

I wonder if they prefer suggestions here or in the Review section of their product in the App store.

Here is a good spot. We have been working on a sync service. Have a Beta service working, but not sure yet when it will be ready for prime time. Lots of stuff to do on many fronts...

[Micah]

Originally Posted by rfog

There are a lot more things that can be added: Interline adjustment, more fonts (It only has 4), two columns in portrait, two, three or four columns in landscape (with inter-column margin adjustable), theme creation and management, nested collections (in the base that new update will have collections), a scroll mode instead of page mode, sync between devices (no, it is not needed any online server, it can be done via email automatically)...

Thanks for the comments. Most of that is on our wish list - except scroll mode. Cool feature for sure, but probably not in the cards for this year. Would you want continuous scroll through the entire book? If not, how would it be broken up? We could make that single "page" but seems that would only make sense if authors actually used the "Page Map" extension to EPUB spec, and I've rarely seen that used.

[Micah]

Originally Posted by orwell2k

Hi, this is good to hear.

I have one issue which I have already reported via e-mail to Bluefire, but wish to raise here also.

I have been reading some physics texts in ePub format, and notice that some of the mathematical symbols do not display correctly - I get the square box with a cross in it symbol (see attached screenshots).

This surprises me, as the character set is UTF-8, which I thought would avoid these issues - I was advised in the response from Bluefire support that:


I suggest it is a fairly fundamental and urgent requirement for a reader like Bluefire to have, esp. for UTF-8 support. Without this, most books with any level of technical content are effectively unreadable in your App.

Any chance you can check the progress on this and try to increase the priority? Thanks.

We are currently trying to add the ability to leverage system fonts. This might fix the problem you are seeing. Hopefully that will be out in August and we'll find out.

[rfog]

Originally Posted by Micah

Thanks for the comments. Most of that is on our wish list - except scroll mode. Cool feature for sure, but probably not in the cards for this year. Would you want continuous scroll through the entire book? If not, how would it be broken up? We could make that single "page" but seems that would only make sense if authors actually used the "Page Map" extension to EPUB spec, and I've rarely seen that used.

A scroll mode will be very useful to use with skimming reading to force a read speed. However I know it is a little bit difficult because you need to build almost entirely the screen bitmap (or build it as fast as user scrolls)... Tomes (another ebook reading app not updated for retina) has that scroll mode: it does in a chapter basis. Once you've finished a chapter, you need to wait until next is loaded. I think it uses each HTML epub chunk to do that.

However it can be done on the fly. You only need specify some max speed and compose next pages (and destroy precedent ones) by a cache basis. It's difficult but I did some similar time ago for Windows CE 5... Battery usage could be a problem, of course.

Other way, if you do all except scroll mode... you will have the best reading app in the world!

[Iznogood]

I don't know if this is the right thread for this, but here goes...

I recently got an epub in the mail. I clicked the link, chose open in Bluefire. Bluefire started loading the book, and crashed shortly thereafter. I retried, with the same result. It turned out the book had files in it larger than 300kB, which (probably?) caused the crash.

Every time I start Bluefire, it tries to load this epub file, and crashes. How can I repair it? I do not want to delete the app because I have many books there.

A reboot of my ipad does not help

[rfog]

Originally Posted by norway1456

I don't know if this is the right thread for this, but here goes...

I recently got an epub in the mail. I clicked the link, chose open in Bluefire. Bluefire started loading the book, and crashed shortly thereafter. I retried, with the same result. It turned out the book had files in it larger than 300kB, which (probably?) caused the crash.

Every time I start Bluefire, it tries to load this epub file, and crashes. How can I repair it? I do not want to delete the app because I have many books there.

A reboot of my ipad does not help

Perhaps that epub is corrupted...

[Iznogood]

I've run it through Flightcrew, and it only reports that some anchors lack a name attribute. I don't think that's a reason for Bluefire to crash.

But my problem is that I cannot restart Bluefire any more; it starts to load the (possibly) corrupt or at least invalid epub and crashed. How can I make forget all about the corrupted/invalid file and load my library again?

[rfog]

Originally Posted by norway1456

I've run it through Flightcrew, and it only reports that some anchors lack a name attribute. I don't think that's a reason for Bluefire to crash.

But my problem is that I cannot restart Bluefire any more; it starts to load the (possibly) corrupt or at least invalid epub and crashed. How can I make forget all about the corrupted/invalid file and load my library again?

Other Apps used to have a "reset" option in general iPad options, but Bluefire seems not...

I'm afraid your unique solution is to remove and reinstall app and then your library.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by norway1456

I don't know if this is the right thread for this, but here goes...

I recently got an epub in the mail. I clicked the link, chose open in Bluefire. Bluefire started loading the book, and crashed shortly thereafter. I retried, with the same result. It turned out the book had files in it larger than 300kB, which (probably?) caused the crash.

Every time I start Bluefire, it tries to load this epub file, and crashes. How can I repair it? I do not want to delete the app because I have many books there.

A reboot of my ipad does not help

email yourself a valid working ePub and then you can specify that Bluefire open that. If the correct ePub is in the library, you can delete it.

Or you can go into iTunes to see if the ePub is in the Bluefire library and if so, delete it. Also delete the email message with the attachment as well.

[Iznogood]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

(...) you can go into iTunes to see if the ePub is in the Bluefire library and if so, delete it. Also delete the email message with the attachment as well.

Thanks. Deleting the corrupted file from iTunes helped

[Shykat]

First off, a question for everyone. When visiting the main BlueFlame site, it shows the ebooks appearing on the screen in what they call the Library view where you can just see the covers of your books. In some of their screen shots, you can see an option to switch between library view and list view. On my iPhone, that setting doesn't seem to be there and I'm only able to see my books in List View. Am I missing the location of that setting? If so, where can I find it. I do have the newest version of BlueFlame since I've only had my iPhone for about 3 weeks.

Other suggestions for BlueFlame:

1. A way to mark the book as READ.

2. After a book has been opened, I don't want it's location in the list to change. Currently, when you open a book, it moves to the top of the list. I want it to stay in its original location in the list since reading books in the order I have loaded them into the program is important to me.

3. As mentioned above, sorting the books in to the order in which I have loaded them into BlueFlame is very important to me. I would like for the books to stay in the order I added them. I would love for a new tab to be added for "order added to device"... and if possible... sort ascending or sort descending, too.

4. When you click INFO on a book, I would love for you to add the Blurb about the book. I think it's in the metadata but not totally sure. I know, when I work with the ebooks in Calibre, I edit the metadata to add the book's blurb if it's missing.

5. I would love for a setting where you could turn the time/battery bar on or off when reading a book. It doesn't take up that much space at the top of the screen and it is something that I do look at. I know I can just tap the screen while reading the book and the information is there... I would just like it to be "always on" with the option to reset to "tap screen for information".

6. The ability to change where to tap the screen to page forward or back would be nice. I hold my iPhone in my left hand most of the time and it would be nice to not have to stretch my thumb to the right side of the screen to page forward. I would like the ability to switch sides so tapping on the left side of the screen would go forward and the right side would go back.

So far, for me, Requests 1, 2 and 3 are the most important. Any chance that those first three requests might be added in an upcoming update?

[Micah]

Thanks for the suggestions.

[Shykat]

Any word on a possible date for the next update? I'm anxious to see what new things have been added.... and keeping my fingers crossed that some of mine might have been on this current list of additions.