Suggestion - Web site for PD Sony Reader Books?

[Stingo]

Hadrien,

I did not intend to dis your site. I think that Feedbooks looks great and, when graphic novels, manga and papers begin appearing on it I will probably use the service. For my purposes I prefer the three font size LRF format better for books. However, from what I have seen you are generating the highest quality PDF's. I wish you much success and future growth.

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by Stingo

Hadrien,

I did not intend to dis your site. I think that Feedbooks looks great and, when graphic novels, manga and papers begin appearing on it I will probably use the service. For my purposes I prefer the three font size LRF format better for books. However, from what I have seen you are generating the highest quality PDF's. I wish you much success and future growth.

You didn't sound like someone dissing at all, you were just asking a question...
As far as I'm concerned, I don't need the three font sizes, just one, but I really dislike the fact that's there's a lack of hyphenation and way too much blank spaces in most RTF/LRF files. I'm all for reflowing capabilities, but I believe that a reflowed text should look like a book/magazine and support the kind of formatting that LaTeX provides but in realtime. I really like e-ink because it looks like real ink, that's also why I'm using formatted documents that are much closer from the usual paper materials, than what a screen usually render.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by sartori

I like NatCh's idea of posting books by their title.

How about a standard way to start a thread i.e.

Dickens, Charles - Bleak House (Ver. 1 - 26 Mar 07)

That way people can discuss each book and also point out typos and formatting errors and the original creator could then update the version number and creation date so you always know if you have the most current version.

Like the one I've just uploaded to "Reader Contents", for example?

[Alexander Turcic]

I need one last input.

We could implement individual upload sections for each e-reader -- or we could implement a single upload section used to upload e-books for any e-reader. I tend towards the second implementation, and here is why:

It's quite possible that an e-book is compatible with more than one device. Of course this is not the case for e-books converted into a proprietary format, such as LRF. But on the other hand, if we added upload sections for each reader, it's possible that someone will miss a nice e-book just because it wasn't posted for his e-reader device, even though it would have been compatible.

It was suggested that we use the book title and author for thread names when posting to the upload section (something like Dickens, Charles - Bleak House), and I agree. It will help to keep the section organized and it will make searching for e-books a lot easier (notice you can limit your search by title or by post content). In addition, should we go with a single upload section, we may want to add the format(s) to the title, like Dickens, Charles - Bleak House (LRF) .

[HarryT]

A suggestion:

Perhaps, for those devices which have a device-specific format (eg LRF for the Sony Reader) there could be an "Uploads" sub-forum within the device's forum, and then have a general "Open Formats" (RTF, HTML, PalmDoc) uploads forum for non-device-specific formats "outside" the device forums?

Or do you think that would get too complicated?

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Or do you think that would get too complicated?

It may become complicated for the user. From my experience it seems the fewer forum sections the more accessible a forum becomes.

I am curious... what's your reasoning for favoring multiple upload sections? Do you think a single upload section could become too messy?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

It may become complicated for the user. From my experience it seems the fewer forum sections the more accessible a forum becomes.

I am curious... what's your reasoning for favoring multiple upload sections? Do you think a single upload section could become too messy?

Three main reasons:

1. As you say, it could get messy if there's a mixture of device-specific and "open" formats all mixed up. It would be necessary to impose quite a rigid naming convention to allow people to find things which interested them, and that could be quite a lot of work for you or the other moderators (if there are any?) if people uploaded things with the "wrong" title.

2. As I said in my reply to NatCh above, a Reader-specific book section gives people interested in developing Reader books a specific place to talk about them. This could get lost in a "general" uploads area.

3. Pure "laziness" on my part. I only ever look in the "Sony Reader" section of MR and it would be nice to be able to see if there were any Reader books in my "home" forum without having to look around elsewhere. That's just idleness on my part, though - I'm sure I could get used to looking elsewhere .

Obviously, though, all this is nothing but a personal opinion. Please go with whatever you think is best. It's very kind of you to provide us with an upload forum in whatever form it takes. I'll be happy with it no matter where it is!

[Antonio]

I love everything about Feedbooks, except that the text appears, at least to me on my reader, to be significantly lighter than other formats.

I have been reading novels from feedbooks, and uploaded a few that I wanted to read because the experience of the chapter headings, small margins and flowing is so nice. Then I downloaded a long article off the web into word, saved it as a rtf file, and put it on my reader.

When I opened it and started reading, I was surprised at how much darker the text was, and at how much of a difference this makes in different lighting situations. The fact that I can't increase the font size on the fly for feedbook books makes it even more of an issue, since if you could simply increase the font size in low lighting, the fainter text might not be as big a deal.

In any case, I am sad to say that I have actually gone to PG and downloaded the html of the novel I was in the middle of, and saved it as an rtf. I do sorely miss the beautiful formatting of the feedbooks version, but feel that the overall experience ends up being better with the easier to read dark text. Particularly for my quickly atrophying 40 year old eyes.

So, for a book that I really want to savor, I probably will want to do some more formatting, and if I were to put in that time, it would be great to have a place to share the fruits of those labors. And, of course, a place to check first whether someone else has done the work already...

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Three main reasons:

All valid points. And since no one disagrees I say let's try it then.

[Alexander Turcic]

Upload section for the Sony Reader added:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=126

In the next few days we'll add the equivalent section for the iRex iLiad, and we'll also sort through older posts to find articles (with attached e-books) that may be moved to the new sections.

[Antonio]

Thank You, Thank You!

If this generates any interest, it could end up being amongst the most useful things on mobilread.

While you're at it, I assume the Complete Works of William Shakespeare thread would qualify, even if it isn't technically an upload. It is perhaps the best example I have seen of formatting for the reader.

Again, thanks.

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by Antonio

I love everything about Feedbooks, except that the text appears, at least to me on my reader, to be significantly lighter than other formats.

I have been reading novels from feedbooks, and uploaded a few that I wanted to read because the experience of the chapter headings, small margins and flowing is so nice. Then I downloaded a long article off the web into word, saved it as a rtf file, and put it on my reader.

When I opened it and started reading, I was surprised at how much darker the text was, and at how much of a difference this makes in different lighting situations. The fact that I can't increase the font size on the fly for feedbook books makes it even more of an issue, since if you could simply increase the font size in low lighting, the fainter text might not be as big a deal.

In any case, I am sad to say that I have actually gone to PG and downloaded the html of the novel I was in the middle of, and saved it as an rtf. I do sorely miss the beautiful formatting of the feedbooks version, but feel that the overall experience ends up being better with the easier to read dark text. Particularly for my quickly atrophying 40 year old eyes.

So, for a book that I really want to savor, I probably will want to do some more formatting, and if I were to put in that time, it would be great to have a place to share the fruits of those labors. And, of course, a place to check first whether someone else has done the work already...

Well, using fonts that are "bolder" is possible. I still have to make some sort of poll to define the template for both Sony and iLiad. I've been busy adding all sorts of features lately (added some sort of recommandation today, like what Amazon does, based on what people download), but I'll make a real poll about this quite soon.

And it's also quite easy to create custom pdf, you just set the settings once and afterwards you just have to hit the custom PDF button.

On the old books that are still in cache, the font was Times, which looks fine on an iLiad but pretty faint on the Sony reader. But we switched to Bookman afterwards. Once we'll have the results of the polls about those template, I'll delete the whole cache, this way the books will all have the same template.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

Upload section for the Sony Reader added:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=126

In the next few days we'll add the equivalent section for the iRex iLiad, and we'll also sort through older posts to find articles (with attached e-books) that may be moved to the new sections.

Thank Alex - that's wonderful!

Were you able to increase the maximum size of an uploaded file from 5MB to 10MB, as we discussed by PM?

[ath]

Originally Posted by Hadrien

Well, using fonts that are "bolder" is possible.

It's probably mainly a question of finding typefaces that were created to be highly legible. Newspaper typefaces are candidates, though not necessary best choices, as are typefaces designed for computer screen or other low-resolution usage (such as Lucida Fax or Minion Web). Some care should be taken to ensure that the font has the necessary complement of characters: an italic that works on screen and small caps are probably the most important.

If the typeface has different designs depending on size (that is, one font for 6-8 pt text, one for 8-12, and so on), the 'smallest' font seems to be the best, as it is relatively wider and 'cleaner' than the other size designs, which helps with low-contrast reading.

Bookman, Century Schoolbook and other Clarendon-style typefaces are further examples of such 'clear' designs. My own favourites for the moment are Adobe Minion and Bitstream Oranda.

And as not everyone can afford to buy what often are rather high-priced fonts, some of the fonts included with Windows (such as Georgia and Verdana) are useful alternatives. (Haven't seen the new MS fonts in detail yet, but Candara and Cambria look promising, assuming that they are embeddable: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=47&aid=78683 . As they're designed for ClearType, they may not work as well on epaper, though)

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thank Alex - that's wonderful!

Were you able to increase the maximum size of an uploaded file from 5MB to 10MB, as we discussed by PM?

Done. We increased the upload limit to 10MB for the following file extensions: ZIP, RAR, GZ