iLiad Bionic ipdf: better, faster, stronger than Sony Reader! - Page 2

firekat · 11-13-2006, 11:39 AM

This is all very interesting, I am probably going to try this today, but I do need some further information. For someone who is not a hacker I take it that this is what I have to do specifically as I don't want to brick the thing:

shellme.zip - extract to a USB drive root directory. This should give me the following:

a
books
documents
newspapers
notes
shellme.sed

I take it then I extract the ipdf5.sh zip into the newspapers folder.

It is at this point that I get a little lost as in the different threads there are references to different procedures. Even a simple statement like "Unmount", can not make any sense to me. From my small experiences playing with linux you would put the unmount command in a terminal. I have not even seen how I get to a terminal!

Now after that how do I get this to run on the iLiad? Sorry but I am kinda lost with some of the directions in some of the other threads. Your step by step instructions would be greatly appreciated.

If after all of this I can get it running it would be to your credit that you got someone with just DOS experience and some rudimentary command line skills to run your hacks!

Please! I am very interested!

Thanx!

vranghel · 11-13-2006, 02:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yokos

Any risks?
No risks, I think. I used ipdf5.sh & got no bricked iLiad. er_registry.txt was not changed.

Ok...for me this is the most important part.

Scotty, can you tell us what are the involved risks? Any chance of bricking the iliad by doing this?

Also a more detailed guide for me and firekat (and others probably) would be greately appreciated! We just dont want to misunderstand the instructions and do something that we might regret (e.g bricking)

scotty1024 · 11-13-2006, 03:23 PM

The install script would at worst case leave you with no PDF viewer, which you could then be able to fix.

You wouldn't be locked out of your iLiad e.g. root access would still be available.

Your iLiad doesn't need the PDF Viewer to boot e.g. no risk of bricking.

What the script does is copy your existing PDF viewer to your internal iLiad USB drive. It then copies the version 5 ipdf into /usr/bin/xpdf to have it take over as your PDF Viewer.

The process is fully reversible and frankly the most likely failure mode is the copy from xpdf to the internal drive and having that drive run out of space. If that happened the factory PDF Viewer would be left in place and you would need to free up 50KB of space on your iLiad's drive.

This isn't anywhere near as dangerous as manually installing the [SHELL] hack or the on screen clock.

firekat · 11-13-2006, 05:55 PM

Sounds great!

Now how do we do it? Also prior to us proceeding I think it would be wise to include instructions on:

Quote:

The process is fully reversible

So that way we know we have a full safety net

Why you are not employed by iRex is beyond me. Sounds like you can really take this device to the upper levels and make it perform to it's full potential.

Thanks for all your efforts!

Looking forward to seeing pdf's fly on my iLiad

scotty1024 · 11-13-2006, 10:45 PM

firekat the [SHELL] hack and the ipdf install script are two different projects.

The [SHELL] hack allows an iLiad user to run shell scripts directly from the iLiad's main menu. It was designed and polished to be accessible to "Average Joe" users with minimal DOS experience. This "hack" would then allow them access to applications such as GNU Chess and x48.

Now ipdf on the other hand was never polished by me to be such an application. I had thought something was going to work out with iRex to make it available but its pretty clear that isn't going to happen. I am busy working on something far larger than ipdf that will provide the speed of ipdf and many other features, and it will be intended for "Average Joe's" to use.

Someone else came along and decided what I had accomplished with ipdf was important enough to try and polish it into something "Average Joe's" could access.

They seem to be off to a good start with the scripts, aren't doing anything obviously silly and all I can wish is that they were here to follow up with your questions.

I can't do all of this myself so I am supportive of their efforts, we need more iRex developers, but please understand that it is their project to create an install script for ipdf.

yokos · 11-14-2006, 07:37 AM

[EDIT] deinstallipdf.sh.zip is for 2.7.0 users only

I have tested your ipdf rev 5 for a while, I like the look & feeling, when the page get's converted in a new one.

I found some bugs:

I have some problems with some hyperlinks in some pdfs. I can't find any rule, why the don't work. [OT: this reminds of an earlier version of xpdf: same symptom]
Zooming doesn't work how it should. If your draw a zooming rectangle, the page gets zoomed with wanted ratio, but the wrong area - always the top of page - is zoomed.
pan feature is gone. You can click on pan icon, it get's inverted, but you can't pan with stylus.

De-installation of ipdf
You can use the attached deinstallipdf.sh, if you previously installed ipdf with the above posted ipdf5.sh.
Copy deinstallipdf.sh to any folder you want on USB drive, MMC, or CF , & run it by clicking on it in iLiad's contentlister.

How does deinstallipdf.sh work? It undos the steps which were taken to install ipdf, to sum up: you get factory settings back.
It moves the back-up copy of xpdf - created by ipdf5.sh - to the place of iLiad's pdf viewer.

Content of the de-installation shell script [deinstallipdf.sh]:

Code:

cd /usr/bin
mv xpdf.orig xpdf

[EDIT]: I have written a "step-to-step-guide to do the [SHELL] hack" here in this thread. Again, first to the shell hack, then do the next step [ipdf, x48].

firekat · 11-15-2006, 04:13 PM

Ok guys! The instructions were very good, even if there was sweat dripping from my fingertips!

I got the shell installed and have ipdf5 running! Yeow! It is real fast compared to the stock one. The progress bars on the bottom of the page don't count down more than two or three blocks before the pdf opens. The redraw does as first look weird with that Matrix kind of overwrite. There is a bit more pronounced ghosting - which gives me some concern as it is actually a bit more white that the normal background. I find that paging through the directory structure pages a number of times tends to clear it up a bit.

The only thing that disturbs me about the ghosting is not knowing if it is
detrimental to the e-ink screen.

Special Thanks to yokos & scotty for all their work on this stuff. Thanks to everyone else as well!

I look forward to trying some of the other hacks.

Is ipdf going to be improved some more? I am super impressed so far.

scotty1024 · 11-15-2006, 04:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by firekat

Is ipdf going to be improved some more? I am super impressed so far.

Version 6 will be out today or tomorrow. I've been learning quite a bit about e-Ink the last couple of days.

CommanderROR · 11-15-2006, 04:41 PM

Since I'm one of those sad 2.7.1 guys I can't really experience this with my own eyes, but I think that i'd prefer slightly slower fps with no ghosting to fast refresh with ghosting...but I guess adding that option should not be a major problem...

scotty1024 · 11-15-2006, 05:48 PM

Unless you're iRex, where freedom of choice isn't an option(tm).

Actually I'm with you, I've been experiencing more motion sickness with the Matrix effect when reading on the bus.

Which is why I've been experimenting with my own "black flash" that is less visually intrusive, faster and seems to fix up the ghosting...

CommanderROR · 11-15-2006, 06:29 PM

cool!

Now I just hope that someone somehow manages to convince iRex that we actually want to use these new and improved apps...*grrr*

bedwere · 11-15-2006, 06:49 PM

Forgive me for a seemingly silly question: is there any way to downgrade to 2.7 and then try these wonderful tools?

vranghel · 11-15-2006, 08:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bedwere

Forgive me for a seemingly silly question: is there any way to downgrade to 2.7 and then try these wonderful tools?

As of this moment there is NO (public/known/easy) way to downgrade

firekat · 11-15-2006, 08:51 PM

Commander,

You would be very disappointed with the ghosting. It can be very strong on some documents. I tried opening one of the books that came on iLiad and the ghosting was not too bad. With my technical documents it was very noticeable. The re-write is kind of strange when you first see it, and like scotty said you can get a little weird vertigo watching it. Still I overwhelmingly applaud everyone's effort on all of this. The independent people working on this device seem to be moving very rapidly in increasing the functionality of the device.

The thing that I find interesting and intriguing is that after installing the shell and running the ipdf it seemed that everything ran faster. Navigation through directories with the arrow buttons seemed to be much more responsive, the whole device seemed to be running a little quicker. I don't know if this is fact or just a wishful expectation.

The biggest factor in all of this is that it seems that this device has the potential to live up to our expectations, it is just a matter of time, patience, skill and, cooperation (hint - iRex).

I don't know what iRex's true intention is for this device. For all we know it could already be launched, widely distributed and fully functional in an arena that we have no knowledge of whatsoever.

On a side note: I just installed Firefox 2.0 I am not sure if it is this bulletin board or Firefox, but now these message reply boxes have spell check in them. The suspect word will be red underlined, right clicking on it brings up different alternatives. Cool!

yokos · 11-16-2006, 08:38 AM

Hallo 2.7.1 user, who want to install scotty's ipdf.
Please wait a moment, I will post sh files for installation & deinstallation in just some moments.

@ scotty: When do you publish ipdf rev 6?

11-15-2006, 08:51 PM	#29
firekat Groupie Posts: 157 Karma: 314 Join Date: May 2006	Commander, You would be very disappointed with the ghosting. It can be very strong on some documents. I tried opening one of the books that came on iLiad and the ghosting was not too bad. With my technical documents it was very noticeable. The re-write is kind of strange when you first see it, and like scotty said you can get a little weird vertigo watching it. Still I overwhelmingly applaud everyone's effort on all of this. The independent people working on this device seem to be moving very rapidly in increasing the functionality of the device. The thing that I find interesting and intriguing is that after installing the shell and running the ipdf it seemed that everything ran faster. Navigation through directories with the arrow buttons seemed to be much more responsive, the whole device seemed to be running a little quicker. I don't know if this is fact or just a wishful expectation. The biggest factor in all of this is that it seems that this device has the potential to live up to our expectations, it is just a matter of time, patience, skill and, cooperation (hint - iRex). I don't know what iRex's true intention is for this device. For all we know it could already be launched, widely distributed and fully functional in an arena that we have no knowledge of whatsoever. On a side note: I just installed Firefox 2.0 I am not sure if it is this bulletin board or Firefox, but now these message reply boxes have spell check in them. The suspect word will be red underlined, right clicking on it brings up different alternatives. Cool! Last edited by firekat; 11-15-2006 at 08:55 PM.

11-16-2006, 08:38 AM	#30
yokos Pac-Man caught my iLiad. Posts: 807 Karma: 3595 Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Germany; next to Baltic Sea Device: Boox Max Lumi, iRex iLiad (RIP)	Hallo 2.7.1 user, who want to install scotty's ipdf. Please wait a moment, I will post sh files for installation & deinstallation in just some moments. @ scotty: When do you publish ipdf rev 6? Last edited by yokos; 11-16-2006 at 08:51 AM.

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11-13-2006, 11:39 AM	#16
firekat Groupie Posts: 157 Karma: 314 Join Date: May 2006	This is all very interesting, I am probably going to try this today, but I do need some further information. For someone who is not a hacker I take it that this is what I have to do specifically as I don't want to brick the thing: shellme.zip - extract to a USB drive root directory. This should give me the following: a books documents newspapers notes shellme.sed I take it then I extract the ipdf5.sh zip into the newspapers folder. It is at this point that I get a little lost as in the different threads there are references to different procedures. Even a simple statement like "Unmount", can not make any sense to me. From my small experiences playing with linux you would put the unmount command in a terminal. I have not even seen how I get to a terminal! Now after that how do I get this to run on the iLiad? Sorry but I am kinda lost with some of the directions in some of the other threads. Your step by step instructions would be greatly appreciated. If after all of this I can get it running it would be to your credit that you got someone with just DOS experience and some rudimentary command line skills to run your hacks! Please! I am very interested! Thanx!

11-13-2006, 03:23 PM	#18
scotty1024 Banned Posts: 1,300 Karma: 1479 Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Peoples Republic of Washington Device: Reader / iPhone / Librie / Kindle	The install script would at worst case leave you with no PDF viewer, which you could then be able to fix. You wouldn't be locked out of your iLiad e.g. root access would still be available. Your iLiad doesn't need the PDF Viewer to boot e.g. no risk of bricking. What the script does is copy your existing PDF viewer to your internal iLiad USB drive. It then copies the version 5 ipdf into /usr/bin/xpdf to have it take over as your PDF Viewer. The process is fully reversible and frankly the most likely failure mode is the copy from xpdf to the internal drive and having that drive run out of space. If that happened the factory PDF Viewer would be left in place and you would need to free up 50KB of space on your iLiad's drive. This isn't anywhere near as dangerous as manually installing the [SHELL] hack or the on screen clock.

11-13-2006, 10:45 PM	#20
scotty1024 Banned Posts: 1,300 Karma: 1479 Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Peoples Republic of Washington Device: Reader / iPhone / Librie / Kindle	firekat the [SHELL] hack and the ipdf install script are two different projects. The [SHELL] hack allows an iLiad user to run shell scripts directly from the iLiad's main menu. It was designed and polished to be accessible to "Average Joe" users with minimal DOS experience. This "hack" would then allow them access to applications such as GNU Chess and x48. Now ipdf on the other hand was never polished by me to be such an application. I had thought something was going to work out with iRex to make it available but its pretty clear that isn't going to happen. I am busy working on something far larger than ipdf that will provide the speed of ipdf and many other features, and it will be intended for "Average Joe's" to use. Someone else came along and decided what I had accomplished with ipdf was important enough to try and polish it into something "Average Joe's" could access. They seem to be off to a good start with the scripts, aren't doing anything obviously silly and all I can wish is that they were here to follow up with your questions. I can't do all of this myself so I am supportive of their efforts, we need more iRex developers, but please understand that it is their project to create an install script for ipdf.

11-15-2006, 04:13 PM	#22
firekat Groupie Posts: 157 Karma: 314 Join Date: May 2006	Ok guys! The instructions were very good, even if there was sweat dripping from my fingertips! I got the shell installed and have ipdf5 running! Yeow! It is real fast compared to the stock one. The progress bars on the bottom of the page don't count down more than two or three blocks before the pdf opens. The redraw does as first look weird with that Matrix kind of overwrite. There is a bit more pronounced ghosting - which gives me some concern as it is actually a bit more white that the normal background. I find that paging through the directory structure pages a number of times tends to clear it up a bit. The only thing that disturbs me about the ghosting is not knowing if it is detrimental to the e-ink screen. Special Thanks to yokos & scotty for all their work on this stuff. Thanks to everyone else as well! I look forward to trying some of the other hacks. Is ipdf going to be improved some more? I am super impressed so far.

11-15-2006, 04:41 PM	#24
CommanderROR eink fanatic Posts: 2,022 Karma: 4924 Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Germany Device: STAReBOOK, iRex Iliad, Sony 505, Kindle 2	Since I'm one of those sad 2.7.1 guys I can't really experience this with my own eyes, but I think that i'd prefer slightly slower fps with no ghosting to fast refresh with ghosting...but I guess adding that option should not be a major problem...

11-15-2006, 05:48 PM	#25
scotty1024 Banned Posts: 1,300 Karma: 1479 Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Peoples Republic of Washington Device: Reader / iPhone / Librie / Kindle	Unless you're iRex, where freedom of choice isn't an option(tm). Actually I'm with you, I've been experiencing more motion sickness with the Matrix effect when reading on the bus. Which is why I've been experimenting with my own "black flash" that is less visually intrusive, faster and seems to fix up the ghosting...

11-15-2006, 06:29 PM	#26
CommanderROR eink fanatic Posts: 2,022 Karma: 4924 Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Germany Device: STAReBOOK, iRex Iliad, Sony 505, Kindle 2	cool! Now I just hope that someone somehow manages to convince iRex that we actually want to use these new and improved apps...grrr

11-15-2006, 06:49 PM	#27
bedwere Enthusiast Posts: 44 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: San Diego, CA, U.S.A. Device: Kindle DX Graphite	Forgive me for a seemingly silly question: is there any way to downgrade to 2.7 and then try these wonderful tools?

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