New Reader with great pdf-support: Mantano Reader (like aldiko+ezpdf)

[GregoryP]

@loyukfai: thanks a lot for all the detail We are aware of the current slowdowns that can occure when using selection/highlight, and it is one of the enhancements that are high on our TODO list.

Lastly, please consider adding more layout customization for EPUB, like background colour, font type, size and line spacing.

We have worked hard on the EPUB customization this week, and I'm pleased to tell you that the next release will be a major up on that side.

Text reflow for PDF could be useful too.

Interestingly, this feature has been present since day 1. You can activate text reflow from the "display settings" button when viewing a PDF. I guess this shows that there is still room for improvement

Cheers.
Gregory

[loyukfai]

Thanks again for taking the time to reply.

BTW, I've just tried transferring an EPUB book between Adobe Digital Editions and Mantano, and it worked. The annotations made on the device wasn't at first transferred back to ADE but the second try is a success.

Cheers.

[Namtar]

Thanks for producing a very good book reader app.

It's very good but could do with some improvements in the library management interface.

It would be good to have an option to import or open specific items - as is done in Aldiko - rather than having to sync the whole machine.

It seems at the moment if you have a large library then the only option is to select everything at once. Even a choice of which directories to scan would be a help.

Also, once you delete an item you do not seem to be able to re-import it as it seems to remember that it has already been imported so does not appear in the syncronisation list.

Saying that though I think the positives outweigh the negatives, especially given how responsive you guy's seem to be to improving the tool. I've paid for the full version and count it as good value.

[GregoryP]

Hi Namtar,

For the import/open of specific items, this has been requested already in the past few days, and we are currently finishing the feature. This should be available very soon :-)

The deleting is indeed as issue, and the in later release (not the next one as we won't have time, but probably the following one) this issue will be fixed.

Thanks alot for your feedback, and we hope the upcming versions will please you even more !

[Oh, Why Not?]

I was just at the point of uninstalling the trial version when the app informed me there was an upgrade. I took the upgrade, almost like it, and I am now considering purchasing the app to encourage further improvements. Keep up the improvements Mantano!

[GregoryP]

Hello Why Not !

Could you please wait a few 30mn? We are preparing a new bugfix release, it will be numbered 1.1.9 :-)

I hope you'll enjoy !

Best regards,

[Oh, Why Not?]

Oops. Already bought. But it put me back one release. However I assume I'll get the new update soon. Keep it going!

[Karina]

Hello, here it is!

The 1.1.9 is just released. The changelogs for 1.1.7 up to this latest 1.1.9 release are the following:

1.1.9:
* Fixed: The generation of book covers from the Settings panel crashed
* Fixed: Sharing text did not work
* Fixed: Text to Speech selector did not display the correct language
* Fixed: Text Align setting while editing a Theme crashed
* Fixed: Selecting a predefined color in the ColorPicker when editing a theme's foreground or background color crashed

1.1.8:
* Simply fixed an incompatibility problem between the trial and paid versions.

1.1.7:
* New fit functionnality for PDF
* Added a file explorer to the library. Can be used to open or import files
* Root sync folders can now be specified
* Improved ePub opening (speed + bookmark precision)
* Margins settings have been added the the themes (horizontal and vertical margins are now independant settings)
* The status bar can now be hidden from the preferences
* Pressing back in the library (or lexicon/notebook) now prompts you before exiting library is now available from the global search
* Book covers can be generated when importing books
* Replaced enter key by a search button in the reader
* Added default dictionary selection in preferences
* Reduced memory footprint
* Reduced splash time
* Fixed broken filter mode when changing tab
* Added progressDialog while applying theme
* Added new dictionaries
* Slide finger on the left side of the screen to change brightness level
* Added new settings :
o Next/previous on volume controls
o Deactivate showing the toolbar on tap
o Prevent seekbar from showing on next/previous
* ePub tags are now imported
* Added quick access colors in the color picker

If you encounter any problem, or any improvement suggestion, please do not hesitate posting on our Customer Support, we are checking it very frequently :-)

Cheers,

Karina

[aceflor]

It is indeed a very nice apk, I like it ! Now if only it had the 2 pages view option, I would be utterly delighted. Donc, si vous avez 5 minutes, pensez à moi :-)

[firewaterwind]

Does it work with Acer Iconia tab now atleast ? I am getting my iconia tab next week and looking at the interface of Manotano, I have already purchased the full version Hope the issue is fixed and it works now

Originally Posted by rfog

Karina, from my about 3000 PDF files stored into a 16 GB SDCARD in my Acer Iconia TAB A500 with Honeycomb 3.0.1, your program haven't been able to recognize any PDF via automatic search.

It is not capable to open any of my PDFs. I've tried some of purchased Scientific American ones (NO DRM), one of about 250 MB scanned by myself and other net available PDF and none had been able to open.

THat with the last available version in the market.

Both RepliGo and ezPDF reader had opened then succesfully. Tried PDF are:

Ensayo sobre ciencia ficción: http://e-archivo.uc3m.es/bitstream/1...ATURA_2008.pdf
Some of Scientific American

Other thing I hate of ebook readers for 10" devices is lack of two/three column mode, mostly in landscape. If you try to read one book in that orientation you will see the insane it is. And only CoolReader implements a two column mode (but it has other problems as lack of formatting)...

[loyukfai]

Glad to see it being updated and issues fixed, $$$ becoming more well spent with every release.

Cheers.

[GregoryP]

Originally Posted by aceflor

It is indeed a very nice apk, I like it ! Now if only it had the 2 pages view option, I would be utterly delighted. Donc, si vous avez 5 minutes, pensez à moi :-)

This feature has been planned for a while. It won't make it into the next release as we have higher priority features/fixes planned, but it will be coming soon.

Does it work with Acer Iconia tab now atleast ?

Yes, it works perfectly on an Acer Iconia (we use one for testing on a daily basis). We did have an issue at some point with files on the sdcard, but this is now fixed.

Glad to see it being updated and issues fixed, $$$ becoming more well spent with every release.

Our pleasure ! The app improves thanks to our users' support and suggestions.

Cheers

[ghostyjack]

I've been dispairing to ever see an Android ePub reader that actually uses the CSS styling in the book.

I thought I'd give this a try and see if it also has the same issue with CSS. To my surprise it doesn't! I can actually see the book in the way it was meant to be! I'm so happy I could cry.

I have come across a couple of things though.

1. When I open the reader and am presented with the library it always defaults to having my books sorted by title. I personally prefer to sort my books by author in this view. Is it possible to have an option to set the "sort by"? Or have it at least remember what my last choice was so next time it opens it in that view.

2. Just having a list of books is not too easy to look through if you have a large list. Is it possible to have an option to create a collection of some form? This would be good for book series (e.g. for a trilogy, etc.) or just for grouping books on a particular subject. I know there is the filer available but this isn't always that effective for this. Also if this (or something similar) gets implemented, it would also be nice to be able to order the books within this collection - something missing from most ebooker readers.

[citac]

Hi, I am also currently trying out your readerapp, and I have a couple of questions.

When I use the explorer to navigate to a folder containing some files, I don't see the txt or html files, which I use for some texts. Yet when I go to the library, some txt and html files are there, and I am able to open them. When it comes to styling, there is absolutely none for txt. Reducing the default font size for epub will automatically change font size for txt and html, making the font too small and barely readable. Can these be handled separately? I know it's possible to apply styles to txt because CoolReader does it, and I would prefer having one app to read most files than a separate app for every file format.

I agree with ghostyjack that having a list of books is not very helpful, and that it would be good if the books can be organized in some way, especially series. Re: tags, I see I can create a tag and apply it to a book, but is it possible to select several books and apply a tag to all of them? I was unable to find anything about that in the user manual. (In fact, is it possible to edit metadata directly in the app instead of in an outside application?)

Re: paging, I noticed that there is a kind of a "click" sound when I use volume buttons to go forward and backwards; is there a way to turn this behavior off? Also, I can go forward by tapping the right side of the screen but tapping the left to go back only brings up the settings. Is it possible to address this issue?

This seems like a fine reader, and I like the way it handles pdf. While I do prefer a single app for multiple formats, I wasn't very satisfied with the way pdfs are handled in other apps. I like the note, annotation and highlighting options, and am interested in finding out more about text to speech. I have the next 7 days to try it out. I will post in this thread again if I have any more questions.

[GregoryP]

Originally Posted by ghostyjack

1. When I open the reader and am presented with the library it always defaults to having my books sorted by title. I personally prefer to sort my books by author in this view. Is it possible to have an option to set the "sort by"? Or have it at least remember what my last choice was so next time it opens it in that view.

This is one of the requests that comes back the most these days and should be integrated this week. The library needs to keep its state/options even when exiting the app.

2. Just having a list of books is not too easy to look through if you have a large list. Is it possible to have an option to create a collection of some form? This would be good for book series (e.g. for a trilogy, etc.) or just for grouping books on a particular subject. I know there is the filer available but this isn't always that effective for this. Also if this (or something similar) gets implemented, it would also be nice to be able to order the books within this collection - something missing from most ebooker readers.

We currently rely on the tag system to manage book grouping. I agree it would be nice to be able to order the books manually, we'll have to think about this

When I use the explorer to navigate to a folder containing some files, I don't see the txt or html files, which I use for some texts. Yet when I go to the library, some txt and html files are there, and I am able to open them. When it comes to styling, there is absolutely none for txt. Reducing the default font size for epub will automatically change font size for txt and html, making the font too small and barely readable. Can these be handled separately? I know it's possible to apply styles to txt because CoolReader does it, and I would prefer having one app to read most files than a separate app for every file format.

Sounds weird, I'll have to look at that this week...

Re: tags, I see I can create a tag and apply it to a book, but is it possible to select several books and apply a tag to all of them? I was unable to find anything about that in the user manual. (In fact, is it possible to edit metadata directly in the app instead of in an outside application?)

An upcoming version will make it possible to change the metadata in Mantano Reader, but we currently have not planned to apply those changes to the actual epub files. We'll see to what extent this could be done.

Re: paging, I noticed that there is a kind of a "click" sound when I use volume buttons to go forward and backwards; is there a way to turn this behavior off? Also, I can go forward by tapping the right side of the screen but tapping the left to go back only brings up the settings. Is it possible to address this issue?

I'll check that out. I haven't had that issue on my Nexus One or on the tablets we used for testing.

This seems like a fine reader, and I like the way it handles pdf. While I do prefer a single app for multiple formats, I wasn't very satisfied with the way pdfs are handled in other apps. I like the note, annotation and highlighting options, and am interested in finding out more about text to speech. I have the next 7 days to try it out. I will post in this thread again if I have any more questions.

Thanks a lot for the feedback. If you have any more questions or suggestions, you know where to find us