Firmware updates, dictionaries, fonts and third-party software for M92

[PF4Mobile]

Originally Posted by Booxtor

@downtom1988:
I am monitoring the wishes, suggestions, bug reports etc. here very intently.
There are not only Onyx ingenieurs who is progressing the project. We are also in contact with some other freelancers.
Some of your suggestions isn't new and are already in development. So just please be patient.

Nice to hear that it is happening
That will make our friend Beryl, happier

It wouldn't hurt to tell us which ones are being addressed

If I had the time to focus on this I would have hired a freelancer to write software for this device. Small add ons that could sell for 5$ there is lots of room for business here. I hope you are on that track ...
One more thing: if this device is going to become a pack leader that could be by just making a very good PDF reader application. This is why many buy it and there is no ezPDF like application yet in the eInk word.

[kodomo]

Originally Posted by PF4Mobile

Nice to hear that it is happening
That will make our friend Beryl, happier

It wouldn't hurt to tell us which ones are being addressed

I concur.
Booxtor: would you agree to maintain status information on https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Boox_M92_wishlist ? Maybe this would reduce request redundancy and calm a bit the impatient...

[kodomo]

Originally Posted by downtom1988

3. Some (optional?) shortcut symbols / a toolbar for the annotation tools would be very convenient, in particular between making and erasing a sketch and annotation, respectively (as continuing with the former annotation mode is the most likely action after erasing an mistake). A good solution (as far as I can see ;-) ) is to have two corresponding symbols instead of one between the page slider and the clock, one active, the other one inactive.

4. A tool for highlighting or underlining that neatly follows the words. I know that it already exists in the annotation mode, but it's quite annoying to click on OK each time (since I don't wish to actually write something in most annotations.

5. This forum is actually not the perfect tool for new customers to get access to firmware updates etc. Couln't find anything on Onyx's webpage; in addition, this forum and this thread in particular were difficult to discover in Google.

Hi!

could you add (4) to the wishlist page, please? I don't think it has been requested before...

W.r.t. 3: I initially felt like this as well... but the more I use the device, the more I get to the conclusion that the toolbar may be a customer expectancy thing rather than an efficiency thing. Consider the following: Unless you have a shortcut (e.g. long home button pressing) to switch functionality, both menu and toolbar need several screen refreshes, and you have to select some icon (no difference here). However, you can summon the menu by your free (left) hand without moving the right hand all the way down to a small icon you have to hit sucessfully (menu has an advantage here).
The longer I use the device, the more I think that it would benefit a lot by a more clever menu structure (or a 'most often/recently used items' tab in the menu).
What do you folks think about this?

W.r.t. 5: This is something that confused me as well in the beginning. It's a double edged sword, as we rely and depend a lot on Booxtor's good will and patience with us eternally complaining folks :P . If/when he gets tired of acting as relay... But as you wrote, a.t.m. it seems to work out well, and his word seems to be heard at Onyx (thank you, booxtor, for interfacing ).

Please keep in mind that 1.7 is an experimental firmware image - bugs are to be expected (though I'm not sure either to what extend we're expected/welcome to report them... somewhere...)

P.S.: To avoid icons permanently switching places excessively in the above mentioned new menu tab, I'd order them along the other tabs (effectively rendering it a 'the last 4 used icons of each category')
Booxtor: Do you know whether Onyx is actually interested in such feedback on the UI, or whether I am wasting my breath with this?

[Booxtor]

Originally Posted by kodomo

I concur.
Booxtor: would you agree to maintain status information on https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Boox_M92_wishlist ? Maybe this would reduce request redundancy and calm a bit the impatient...

I will try to do it. Thanks for your work, kodomo!

[PF4Mobile]

Originally Posted by kodomo

Hi!

could you add (4) to the wishlist page, please? I don't think it has been requested before...

It is on my list (#3)with bugs and feature requests
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=169932
We have reached 16 pages here, mixed comments, hard to follow.

Bugs:

1) when reading a PDF in portrait, 1 page layout, I zoom in to 175%. After that I change the layout to "scroll page" and the zoom gets back to "whole page". If I go to Zooming again and check my initial zoom is selected 175% but what I am seeing on the screen is still "whole page" Pressing the button again gets the zoom back to 175%

2) annotations and panning with the stylus are conflicting in functionality while the right side button does not always move the documents (see #3)
The < and > left buttons should be configured to advance in the document ONE SCREEN not ONE PAGE. The OK button should be used for finer document window or position adjustments (left right and up down) as it sometimes works.
This will eliminate the need to use the stylus to move the document on the screen

At this moment the OK button does the same thing as the arrows. (let say I am in Landscape mode an I see just one section of the page. There is no way to see a diagram or figure that would be split between two consecutive sections because the OK button does not permit finer adjustments of the page position.

3) Landscape mode, zoom to width, and one page layout selected. You see let's say half of a page. The reader is captive in that page. If you push the OK button in any direction you do not get out of that page. The same goes for < and >. The reader will cylce between the two halves.


Feature requests:

1. Highlighted text should also be merged into the original PDF so you can transfer the annotated file on desktop and see the annotations there.
   
2. Drawing (lines, rectangles, circles) when in scribbling mode. This is a standard function for a PDF reader
   
3. Underlining text would also help a lot.
   
4. An undo last action button on the bottom status bar would also help
   
5. Replace the long slider at the bottom of the page with a tool bar with the most used tools like highlighter, eraser, sketching and so on
   
6. The configuration screen shall not close after each selection you make. It should have its own "Close" button. It is really annoying to have to go through the same sequence when you change something

[kodomo]

Originally Posted by Booxtor

I will try to do it. Thanks for your work, kodomo!

Cool - thx & very much welcome

Out of curiosity... is Onyx interested in UI feedback such as in my previous post? Will they take notice if their user community discusses how the UI could be more streamlined/should behave?

[Beryll Snyder]

Originally Posted by PF4Mobile

It is on my list (#3)with bugs and feature requests
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=169932
We have reached 16 pages here, mixed comments, hard to follow.

Bugs:

1) when reading a PDF in portrait, 1 page layout, I zoom in to 175%. After that I change the layout to "scroll page" and the zoom gets back to "whole page". If I go to Zooming again and check my initial zoom is selected 175% but what I am seeing on the screen is still "whole page" Pressing the button again gets the zoom back to 175%

2) annotations and panning with the stylus are conflicting in functionality while the right side button does not always move the documents (see #3)
The < and > left buttons should be configured to advance in the document ONE SCREEN not ONE PAGE. The OK button should be used for finer document window or position adjustments (left right and up down) as it sometimes works.
This will eliminate the need to use the stylus to move the document on the screen

At this moment the OK button does the same thing as the arrows. (let say I am in Landscape mode an I see just one section of the page. There is no way to see a diagram or figure that would be split between two consecutive sections because the OK button does not permit finer adjustments of the page position.

3) Landscape mode, zoom to width, and one page layout selected. You see let's say half of a page. The reader is captive in that page. If you push the OK button in any direction you do not get out of that page. The same goes for < and >. The reader will cylce between the two halves.


Feature requests:

1. Highlighted text should also be merged into the original PDF so you can transfer the annotated file on desktop and see the annotations there.
   
2. Drawing (lines, rectangles, circles) when in scribbling mode. This is a standard function for a PDF reader
   
3. Underlining text would also help a lot.
   
4. An undo last action button on the bottom status bar would also help
   
5. Replace the long slider at the bottom of the page with a tool bar with the most used tools like highlighter, eraser, sketching and so on
   
6. The configuration screen shall not close after each selection you make. It should have its own "Close" button. It is really annoying to have to go through the same sequence when you change something

Still plenty of requests.
I would be interested to know in which way are you close to your goal to read a couple of thousand PDFs on this device in a manner that does not involve a lot of fiddling around with the actual document you want to read.
How many of you documents could you read/annotate and what is you degree of satisfaction so far?
Or are you in a state of expectation of things to come and the serious/professional use is postponed until when?

[Beryll Snyder]

Originally Posted by kodomo

Cool - thx & very much welcome

Out of curiosity... is Onyx interested in UI feedback such as in my previous post? Will they take notice if their user community discusses how the UI could be more streamlined/should behave?

Communication happens through a mediator - for reasons undisclosed so far - they seem to be incomunicado - and as Booxtor only answers some questions, you might be left in the dark on that one ...

[PF4Mobile]

Originally Posted by Beryll Snyder

Still plenty of requests.
I would be interested to know in which way are you close to your goal to read a couple of thousand PDFs on this device in a manner that does not involve a lot of fiddling around with the actual document you want to read.
How many of you documents could you read/annotate and what is you degree of satisfaction so far?
Or are you in a state of expectation of things to come and the serious/professional use is postponed until when?

I have literally stormed through the one quoted here before
It would be naive to expect much from a 9.7" for PDF reading
Extremely naive.

I read in landscape mode, the documents are quite complex and I am happy with it so far.
Scribbling works perfect for me.
I would like to see the above fixed or implemented. If it happens I am going to congratulate myself for betting on this horse and I am going to see what you have to say because you did not give Onyx a chance to prove they can do it. at the beginning I was really revolted by the quality of the M90 and what happened with the users who bought that. But let's face it, the things have changed for good. you have support, feedback (It is OK that Booxtor filters our complains, one voice, trusted an clear will help more that an 1000 choir)

I did not have to do anything to my docs.
Once I learned how to use the zoom between two points tool I was more than OK. I would really appreciate to have tools on the bottom bar (the workflow is not the best) but I can live with that and I am positive that is going to change... I do not need it much since I am mostly scribbling and process the doc later on desktop.

[Mono]

Originally Posted by Beryll Snyder

Still plenty of requests.
I would be interested to know in which way are you close to your goal to read a couple of thousand PDFs on this device in a manner that does not involve a lot of fiddling around with the actual document you want to read.

There is not a better solution in the long run. We can either print it and read it on paper or use M92 or PB9xx. Printing on paper is more expensive and probably not so ecological.

Even thought it does not work to 100% now, I am quite sure it will in near future. So, it is worth being in small troubles now with the goal to crop effort invested later on.

What would you recomend for reading 1000+ pages a year? I would like to hear the recomenation for now, not for future using comming devices. We need to read right now, not in the future.

[kodomo]

Originally Posted by FMP

1. Unless I'm missing something the "Select Background" icon under the "Create Scribble" application is not giving options at the moment. It would be good to have at least lined and gridded backgrounds.

I saw the documented templates in (an apparently ignored directory of) the filesystem of the M92.
The documentation specifies that you may place your own templates onto the SD card.
As a workaround, I combined some of the templates with some others that I extracted from my Iliad... any .png works fine.

I'll attach the files to this post - just extract them into the top directory of your SD card.

Mind that the background does not seem part of the scribble unless it's exported... so the background vanishes when the SD card is removed and needs to be re-selected when it is inserted (only applies for documents that have been opened in between).
On the positive side that means that you can use the background as scribbling aid and then remove it prior to exporting the document

[kodomo]

Hm - I just stumbled across a very inconvenient thing :
If I get this correctly, then annotations are kept separately in a database. This database apparently uses the ${path}/${filename} as associating identifier.

When a file is renamed or removed, all annotations are seemingly removed (i.e. disassociated) from the document, until it resumes its original position and name. (so one may never move a document one plans on continuing to work on - or at least has to remember its position)

What's worse is that the DB is not even updated when the file is moved with the file operations on the M92 itself.

OK - knowing this, one may work around this issue, but I think that is an important thing to fix (and it will confuse every customer that does not have the technical background information).

I think that _all_ information w.r.t. a file should be local to its position so that it is easily moved along with the document. Irex solved this issue by replacing every .pdf file by a corresponding directory into which they placed the document and all metadata. If the DB is an sqlite DB (is it?), this should be fairly easy to do (I see no need for a global DB, when you can have one per document).

(Adding it to the wishlist... )

Update: I just saw that at least sketches (unsure about highlight annotations(?)) are kept in a hidden directory .onyx in the respective directory... so it's not all the way as bad as I thought in my initial shock... nonetheless, the contents do not follow any renaming/file moving... and it's not a good idea in situations where customers are not aware of this and may want to manage directories on their PCs rather than the reader itself... inadvertedly (seemingly) 'losing' their work

P.S.: Annotation export is somewhat broken in 1.7 - spaces of highlighted text are not exported (they are simply omitted )

[FMP]

Many thanks for post #236 Kodomo!

[Mono]

Originally Posted by kodomo

Hi!
The longer I use the device, the more I think that it would benefit a lot by a more clever menu structure (or a 'most often/recently used items' tab in the menu).
What do you folks think about this?

I agree, I already suggested this solution some time ago. Also to use the current tool icon on toolbar (which does nothing now) to invoke a menu with last say 10 used tools.

Also would be helpfull if the device remembers basic setup for portrait and landscape (in given document would be the best or at least generaly for all documents). It would speed up landscape/portrait switching within the document.

And also sepatate tool icons for portrait, landscape, upside-down and reversed landscape would be fine.

And if it would be possible to add to go to page dialog, also last 6-10 open pages would be great. The info should be available somewhere (it is already possible to sequeintialy traverse by open page history) so it is just a simple interface thing.

[kodomo]

Originally Posted by Beryll Snyder

Communication happens through a mediator - for reasons undisclosed so far - they seem to be incomunicado - and as Booxtor only answers some questions, you might be left in the dark on that one ...

*lol* Thank you for this helpful answer