Cool Reader on Android

[Westlyn]

Originally Posted by Dave_S

Can you point out even one case of successful LIT support outside the Windows camp? All I have ever seen is complaints about the LIT support provided by the Hanlin line of readers.

There are converters for Palm formats too. I started there myself, and have converted ALL of my old Palm format books to both FB2 and EPUB to future proof them.

We're obviously not understanding each other. I'm not a MS zealot re the superiority of LIT or any other format on any particular hardware/OS.

I simply don't want to convert my existing book library from whatever file formats it's currently in.

In my case as an ex windows mobile user, my collection has a high proportion of LITs but I've a whole bunch of epubs too.

I know how to convert and I have the tools to do it for pretty any format of book I've acquired.

What I've tried to communicate is I'd prefer not to convert.

There is too much time involved in me having to do this for my collection and I think there are plenty of other people like me that don't want to convert everything they own to the latest 'future proof format' - that format will change too.

I know I can convert the files, but as I've explained previously: in my experience the result is often not an exact copy in layout etc which can be highly unsatisfactory and time consuming to fix especially since I'm not an expert in CSS.

I just want to use a reader that can work 'OK', not even perfectly, with most of the most common formats 'out there' - in my experience LIT is very common amongst former Windows Mobile users.

I don't care how good LIT support was on a Hanlin or indeed how good it was on windows mobile hardware. So I see no need to point you to successful support outside of windows - it's not relevant to my request.

I do know the internal core of LIT is basically an HTML content file so any hardware that can't handle LIT well obviously couldn't handle HTML properly either.

I had a Windows mobile phone and PDA both of which can read .LIT files.

Many other people also have previously had these devices and like me have downloaded for example Baen ebooks in LIT format, Fictionwise or Project Gutenburg books in LIT format. There are a lot of people like me, otherwise why would Baen offer LIT even today as a downloadable format.

So if the developer of an application like CR3 is willing to add support for the formats I'm interested in that's my best outcome.

If he says no then that's fine - I will continue to use CR3 until something better comes along - and one of my selection criteria for 'better' will be if the new app supports one or more of the additional book formats I'm interested in.

Let's not turn this into a Windows vs. XXXX type debate. And please understand my starting point is that I'm simply not going to convert all my 'legacy' book formats to EPUB.

[RainingLemur]

Originally Posted by Dave_S

The best way to find out is to try it yourself. Everyone has different tastes and their own opinions. FWIW, I like CR3 better than others that I have tried, but that is just me.

Well, yeah. That's a no brainer. I have it downloaded already, and plan on tinkering with it at home. I was at the least hoping to see if there was any other users that used both and preferred one to the other, etc. Thanks anyhow!

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by Westlyn

And please understand my starting point is that I'm simply not going to convert all my 'legacy' book formats to EPUB.

In that case you are most likely going to have to keep your "legacy" ebook reader in good working order, because it is highly unlikely that any developer is going to waste much time supporting obsolete formats. Your position is reminiscent of someone with a vinyl record collection demanding that ipods work with unconverted vinyl recordings.

[sav.here]

Originally Posted by RainingLemur

Well, yeah. That's a no brainer. I have it downloaded already, and plan on tinkering with it at home. I was at the least hoping to see if there was any other users that used both and preferred one to the other, etc. Thanks anyhow!

Yes, I use both of them and no I don't prefer one over the other. Both have there pros and cons. While CR3 have better font rendering and better choice of backgrounds, FBReader have slightly faster epub rendering and better library management. CR3 is the best challenger to FBReader. It has just started it's journey and it is already almost at par with the giants (Aldiko, FBReader) and certainly better than some (Laputa, Moon+, iReader). Give it some time and support and it will out grow them all.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Dave_S

Can you point out even one case of successful LIT support outside the Windows camp? All I have ever seen is complaints about the LIT support provided by the Hanlin line of readers.

Not that I particularly care that coolreader doesn't do LITs (mobi-support, however...), but I hear Stanza for MacOS supports LITs just fine.
http://www.lexcycle.com/faq/which-fi...upport-reading

Golden Crater software's Tiny Reader also supports LITs successfully on WinMo Smartphones that don't run MS Reader itself.

Both LIT and ePub are based on oeb and have very similar structures which is why Calibre converts them to epub as fast as anything. The main difference is in the external compression and the metadata file. If you explode a LIT with the CLIT tool, you can open the resulting oeb file with any app supporting oeb; that's an old two-step path to cleanly converting LITs to Mobi.

Also, as an owner of a Hanlin V3-base BeBook 1, I can tell you the LIT support failures are because the Hanlin parser doesn't know how to deal with multi-part LITs, which is a standard feature of epubs, too. It seems they only tested it with LITs created from inside MS Word (which are single file), not from ReaderWorks--which is what most commercial LITs are made with--or Calibre.

There is no legal or technical reason why LIT support can't be readily piggybacked off epub support other than the fact that there is no developer interest in it. Ditto for mobi support. I wouldn't mind seeing it but if the devs can't be bothered...
(shrug)

Hopefully there will be more interest in OPDS support...

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Also, as an owner of a Hanlin V3-base BeBook 1, I can tell you the LIT support failures are because the Hanlin parser doesn't know how to deal with multi-part LITs

Thanks for your explanation. I have always been a bit curious why LIT support was so bad on Hanlin devices.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

There is no legal or technical reason why LIT support can't be readily piggybacked off epub support other than the fact that there is no developer interest in it.

There does not seem to be much interest in publishing in LIT or PDB formats anymore either is there? Amazon is keeping MOBI format going, so that is one old format that might be worth supporting? The others are better off just being converted to a format that is still viable, IMHO.

[Mastiff]

LIT? Talk about flogging a dead horse (format) to bits...

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Dave_S

There does not seem to be much interest in publishing in LIT or PDB formats anymore either is there?

There are still quite a few of LIT ebooks listed at Fictionwise and other second-tier ebook retailers. Whether anybody is buying is unclear.
But even when LITs, Mobi, and PDB were the only formats in broad use there was no developer action on supporting LIT. I'm not going to try to psychoanalyze anybody but since both Coolreader and FBReader originated on Linux and LIT bears the stamp of "eee-vile" Microsoft and Mobi of "eee-vile" Amazon...

Not holding my breath to see either (or pdb, now owned by B&N) supported on Coolreader.

Most of my commercial LITs are from BAEN, anyway. So it's no effort to redownload them as epub or Mobi.

[eksor]

Originally Posted by Dave_S

In that case you are most likely going to have to keep your "legacy" ebook reader in good working order, because it is highly unlikely that any developer is going to waste much time supporting obsolete formats. Your position is reminiscent of someone with a vinyl record collection demanding that ipods work with unconverted vinyl recordings.

Hi:

Please, excuse me for jumping on this thread.

I just want to say that the analogy is not correct, because vinyl records (as everybody knows) are analog and thus a different physical format. LIT, PDB, PRC are different logical formats and the effort to support them cannot be compared with the impossibility of vinyl records being played by an iPod. As a matter of curiosity, see this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record.

We are in a digital era and maybe digital works must be preserved as the physical works. For instance, old arcade videogames can be played in emulators and so on.

Regards.

[Mastiff]

I agree fully. But preserved by getting converted into anoter format that is in use. Like all my CD's (and those vinyls that I haven't been able to find in digital format) are converted to high quality FLAC, which can then be converted to the next, great lossless format, still without loss!

[Westlyn]

Originally Posted by eksor

Hi:

Please, excuse me for jumping on this thread.

I just want to say that the analogy is not correct, because vinyl records (as everybody knows) are analog and thus a different physical format. LIT, PDB, PRC are different logical formats and the effort to support them cannot be compared with the impossibility of vinyl records being played by an iPod. As a matter of curiosity, see this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record.

We are in a digital era and maybe digital works must be preserved as the physical works. For instance, old arcade videogames can be played in emulators and so on.

Regards.

Thanks you made the point that I would have made about the analogy being invalid.

[Westlyn]

Originally Posted by Dave_S

In that case you are most likely going to have to keep your "legacy" ebook reader in good working order, because it is highly unlikely that any developer is going to waste much time supporting obsolete formats. Your position is reminiscent of someone with a vinyl record collection demanding that ipods work with unconverted vinyl recordings.

I'm not going to keep debating this with you, let's agree to disgree.

We have differing views about the definition of legacy and how best one should handle that at least in the short term.

Ultimately I may have to convert the ebooks but as I've tried to explain, my experience has been that conversion was not good enough because of formatting issues - so the conversion tools are not a no-brainer to justify a big effort converting to epub especially if we have epub superceded by the next 'standard' format in a year or 2.

Using an analogy, you can convert DVDs to .MP4 or .MKV using the latest H.264 codec, but the conversion will degrade the video quality slightly. Alternatively you can get a video player program that can play both DVD and .mp4 which covers both the older files and the newer ones you buy.

And if you retain the original file you can convert to a future .MP5 format with the minimum of quality loss compared to a conversion of DVD -> MP4 -> MP5. And you might still get a player that supports dvd, mp4 AND mp5.

I basically don't agree that .LIT is obsolete (yet) which was somewhat supported by the later posts too, and some of the later posts demonstrate that the format is pretty standards based too, so adding support is not too big a deal for a developer.

As I've said all along - it will be up to the developer (and not you or me) to decide what he does or doesn't do re additional ebook format support. I'm OK with whatever he decides.

But I have tried to make a case for why some people (and not just me) would prefer to find a reader that can read both .LIT and .PDB ebooks too. It's clearly not that hard technically to add support (at least for non-drm which is all I want) so the programming effort should not be too onerous. Let's just let Buggins decide to add .LIT support, or not, as the case may be.

[Westlyn]

Originally Posted by Mastiff

I agree fully. But preserved by getting converted into anoter format that is in use. Like all my CD's (and those vinyls that I haven't been able to find in digital format) are converted to high quality FLAC, which can then be converted to the next, great lossless format, still without loss!

So when there is a true lossless ebook converter, we should convert our old formats - agreed. My experience is that the ebook converters are not yet 'lossless'.

Todays converters tend to be more like a lossy mp3 converter rather than Flac.

And should I choose flac or APE or WMA lossless as my archival format? It all comes down to personal preference and for some people at least the best option may be to retain the original CD and convert only when necessary.

[RainingLemur]

Update: After playing with Cool Reader for a couple days, I've decided to stick with FBReader. At least, for the time being. FBReader just seems to be more..."full" than Cool Reader at the moment.

Maybe in a couple-few releases, I'll make the transition. But, for now, I'll stick with what's familiar.

[TallMomof2]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

There are still quite a few of LIT ebooks listed at Fictionwise and other second-tier ebook retailers. Whether anybody is buying is unclear.

This is true only for multiformat ebooks at Fictionwise. The only format with DRM offered is the Secure eReader format. I still have secure LIT format books on my bookshelf but they are no longer offered for sale in that format. (And if its and Agency ebook, it's not offered for sale at all.)