A homebrewed program for viewing image archives (cbz, cbr,...)

[rkomar]

So, since the device opens the last archive at the correct page when booting, it looks like the application does get the EVT_EXIT event and runs save_settings() properly. It must also have run write_cover(), as well. The question is why isn't that cover saved in the filesystem? This seems to be a problem with the OS rather than the pbimageviewer application itself. I can try adding a sync() call after writing the cover image to try to force the OS to write the data to the physical medium, but that's not guaranteed to work either. I'll PM you with a new version of the application for testing when I modify it this evening (GMT -08:00 here).

[i3ook]

I must congratulate rkomar for pbimageviewer. I installed it in a InkPad 3, and it works much better than the default reader.

I just have a couple of issues:
- The order of archives with a dot in the middle of the chapter number. For example: I see that The file named “*2.5*.cbz” is opened before “*2*.cbz”.
- The fourth button/menu opens the content section with a list of the images of the archive. In this section, the third button opens the selected image instead of displaying the next files of the list. And the navigation icons at the top do not work on tap.

As a feature request for consideration: I miss an improved document manager in pbimageviewer. Currently, when I open pbimageviewer, it only offers the option of opening a directory with images. But this is not a big issue as the Library and Gallery apps can deal on this issue already.

[rkomar]

The entries in the table of contents are sorted in the usual way, with the added caveat that numbers are combined numerically into integers and then compared. The latter does not account for decimal points, so 2.5 comes before 2.c in your example above. I'll look into handling decimal points in numbers, but I'm not sure at this point if I have a good way of doing that.

The OpenContents dialog is rather old, and seems to be falling into disrepair on newer PocketBook systems (along with the OpenPageSelector and OpenDirectorySelector dialogs). It still works on my Inkpad1, but the buttons in the top corners are finicky (you often have to press a few times to get them to work). The inkview API doesn't offer any newer dialogs, so I suspect that they are using a newer internal API for their own apps that they haven't made public. There doesn't seem to be much I can do to make it better on newer devices.

The SDK does not offer any dialogs for searching for files. They seem to have made the design decision that the Library app would be used for that. So, pbimageviewer only offers to browse directories rather than files. I might be able to co-opt the OpenContents dialog to show files on the system, but as you already have problems using that for the table of contents, it probably would not help you much as a file browser.

[i3ook]

Thanks for the explanation and for looking into a possible workaround for handling decimal points in numbers. I assume it would not be an easy task, as the Library app does not have this feature either.

Sorry, I do not know exactly the name of each dialog (OpenContents, OpenPageSelector and OpenDirectorySelector). But here is my experience with this app on a Inkpad3 (Maybe this could be useful for someone).

I assume:

OpenDirectorySelector = The one that appears after launching @Pbimageviewer. It has the text “Open directory with images” on top of it.
This dialog is a bit small in the Inkpad3, but it works quite well on this device.
The first button in the device closes the app; the second one moves you to the parent folder; the third button opens the image viewer and loads the first image of the currently selected folder; and the fourth button does not seem to have any function. The stylus is needed for opening the folder tree of each folder.

OpenPageSelector = Maybe this is the one where a numeric keyboard is displayed.
This works without any issues. The keyboard is big enough for taping on the keys/buttons properly, and it works as expected.

OpenContents = The one that appears after pressing the fourth button of the Inkpad3 while an image is displayed.
The first button in the device closes the app; the second one scrolls the list of images up; the third button opens the image viewer and loads the selected image; and the fourth button does not seem to have any function. The navigation icons/buttons in the top of the screen do not work, and some of them are quite small. I did not find any way to scroll the list of images down. A tap on an image file opens the image (it has the same function as the third button in the device).

The settings dialogs work properly. The navigation icons/buttons in the top work as expected (I thought there could be a small bug in the OpenContents dialog because here the navigation icons work properly).

So, the dialogs are still quite usable in my Inkpad3 although they are old. Could it be possible to add an option to remap the buttons of the device? I think this could be a great way to deal with newer devices.

Now I see the developers of apps for Pocketbooks have to deal with a lot of things.

[rkomar]

The OpenPageSelector stopped working on devices at some point (it didn't show itself), so I replaced it with the Numeric keypad. The OpenDirectorySelector is difficult to use on older Inkpad models (the items are too small to select reliably). The status bar was moved from the bottom of the page on old systems to the top of the page on new systems. That sounds simple, but it caused lots of problems because of the way it was achieved in the code. One of the problems is that the page tabs in the OpenContents dialog are shown in the status bar. That makes sense in the old code where the status bar is at the bottom of the page, but it looks weird on newer devices and you can't seem to use them there. Try enabling the status bar and then opening the contents menu. If the page tabs work for you, then you can use those to jump between pages of contents. Even if they don't work, the arrow icons at the top will probably be easier to use because they aren't in the corners of the screen anymore.

One of the other problems with the new status bar is that a lot of information about the document being read was removed from it. It used to show the page number, the name of the image currently shown, a page map showing what portion of the image was being shown on the screen,... It was useful and many preferred displaying it when reading. Now none of that information appears and it is mostly a waste of space on the screen, so it is usually disabled.

Maybe I should look at temporarily enabling the status bar when the OpenContents dialog is shown. That may make that dialog more usable on newer devices.

[porga]

Which version is latest for Pocketbook Pro 912? I am using some version from 2013.

I made some archives in Winrar (5.50, 64bit) today, renamed them to .cbr, but Pbimageviewer refuses to open them (OpenRar: couldnt open archive)

Edit: error = 13

P.S. When I renamed files, I opened them in Calibre on PC without problem. What might be the problem?

[rkomar]

The first post in this thread has copies of the latest versions. You would use the pbimageviewer.app-Pro-360+ version on the 912.

You should definitely try the newer version. I believe that I upgraded to using unrar-5.3.8 from unrar-4.0.7 in 2015, so that may be more compatible with your Winrar version. If you are still getting error = 13 (ERAR_BAD_ARCHIVE), then your new version of Winrar is probably not compatible with the older version used by pbimageviewer.

I regularly use pbimageviewer on my 902, so I know that the program still generally works on the Pro+ devices.

[porga]

Thanks. I found version that works, indeed that is the one. No luck with RARs, but I found out that adding to ZIP using 7zip works correctly.

Now it works as it should. I am redoing some PDF-s to .cbz, and I plan to share them with everyone later.

Your app is most used app on my device. Keep on rocking!

Originally Posted by rkomar

The first post in this thread has copies of the latest versions. You would use the pbimageviewer.app-Pro-360+ version on the 912.

You should definitely try the newer version. I believe that I upgraded to using unrar-5.3.8 from unrar-4.0.7 in 2015, so that may be more compatible with your Winrar version. If you are still getting error = 13 (ERAR_BAD_ARCHIVE), then your new version of Winrar is probably not compatible with the older version used by pbimageviewer.

I regularly use pbimageviewer on my 902, so I know that the program still generally works on the Pro+ devices.

[rkomar]

Out of curiosity, did you enable "Solid Archiving" for RAR files? I'm not sure that such an archive would work with the unrar version I used. Even if it did work, it would be very slow for reading since pbimageviewer unpacks one image at a time when viewing, but "Solid" archives are not optimized for that.

[rkomar]

I uploaded new versions of the program to the first post, including a version for the latest firmware version 6 devices. I know that those devices handle CBR/CBZ archives out of the box and that most people will be happy with that, but I still use it myself, and thought I should provide it to anyone else that still wants to use it on the new devices.

Besides support for the new devices, I made other changes as well. I replaced the OpenDirectorySelector widget with the OpenContents widget when you start the program from the Applications tab. That makes it easier to read and select items on high res devices, and also makes it possible to select archive files that way. The old way only let you select directories with images. I also changed the sorting algorithm to handle decimal numbers in image file names. Thanks to @i3ook for both suggestions. The status bar is temporarily enabled when OpenContents is called to show the page tabs and make it easier to navigate between tabs using the tiny icons in the top corners. If there are no images to display, a message is popped up for three seconds and then the application closes (to avoid just showing an empty screen and confusing the reader). Fixed some issues with saving the book cover on recent devices which cached the covers; the cached covers were being overwritten in certain cases.

The application for firmware version 6 devices seems to work correctly, except for the handling of 7zip and tar archives. I'll continue to look into it, but it may take a while to fix. If you only read CBR/CBZ archives, then you don't have to worry about that.

[rkomar]

After upgrading the lib7zip/p7zip code used for building the application, I was able to get pbimageviewer to read 7z/CB7 and TAR archives successfully. I updated the pbimageviewer.app-v1.3.0-fwv6.zip attachment in the first post. You also need to download (from the application home page) and install the contents of 7z.so-fwv6.zip to /system/bin to be able to read those types of archives. If you have no intention reading those types of archives, then you don't need to install the 7z.so file to your device.

I was not able to update the older firmware devices to the new libzip/p7zip code, so those stay the same as before. The compilers for those devices won't build the new code.

[Atomic_Punk]

Hi, I have the Pocketbook Color and I'm trying to install your app.

I thought I had the installation right, but clearly not because it's not working.

I have the contents of pbimageviewer.app-v1.3.0-Pro-360+.zip saved to E:system/bin/pbimageviewer.app

I also have it saved to E:applications/pbimageviewer.app so it shows up in the apps folder.

I have the contents of device_cfg.zip saved to the root directory.

I even made a extensions.cfg file in E:system/config/extensions.cfg with the line cbz:@ZIP_file:1bimageviewer.app:ICON_JPG because cbz files are the only ones I really ever read.

Now I'm not sure what I messed up here, but if I try to open the app in the apps folder the device blinks like it is refreshing the screen but nothing else happens. This is also the case when I click on any cbz file. The screen blinks once and then nothing else.

Please help :c

[rkomar]

Install the fwv6 version. The Pro-360+ version is for the PocketBook Pro line that was sold about ten years ago.

[Atomic_Punk]

Thank you! I figured it was something simple like that.

And wow, now that I've played around with it this is a crazy cool app! I was starting to regret my purchase of this device, but you might have just saved it for me.

[rkomar]

Thanks for the praise, and I hope it keeps you using your Color device. I've been using my Color a lot with this application, and am pretty pleased with it.