iRex Community Development Help - Page 2

Martijn · 01-24-2008, 10:44 AM

I love to participate.

I don't have any experience with porting stuff to a different platform, but I've got plenty of programming experience and linux experience, so I think I should be able to figure things out and contribute eventually.
I'm currently working on my PhD thesis, however, so I'm a bit busy

As far as names go: how about something that involves Homer, the writer of the Illiad?

Jaapjan · 01-24-2008, 10:51 AM

I am a little confused / unclear on -what- they are offering to provide exactly. Are they opening up the hardware? Allow custom Kernel's / Contentlisters and who knows what?

Or...?

tribble · 01-24-2008, 11:05 AM

Well, you can do that already, if you know what you are doing. I sincerely hope, that they give us more insight to the contentlister, to get it replaced

carandol · 01-24-2008, 11:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tribble

Well, you can do that already, if you know what you are doing. I sincerely hope, that they give us more insight to the contentlister, to get it replaced

One of the problems with all the e-book readers seems to be that the designers are thinking of them as a replacement for a book, when they are also a replacement for a small library. Humanity has had thousands of years of experience finding ways of organising libraries; it seems a bit pre-Assyrian to be back to alphabetical order by title!

tribble · 01-24-2008, 11:30 AM

very true.

Jaapjan · 01-25-2008, 07:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tribble

Well, you can do that already, if you know what you are doing. I sincerely hope, that they give us more insight to the contentlister, to get it replaced

Perhaps I am a little out of it. But why aren't their home-brew firmware's/community's/custom drivers/custom contentlisters yet if all this is available?

tribble · 01-25-2008, 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaapjan

Perhaps I am a little out of it. But why aren't their home-brew firmware's/community's/custom drivers/custom contentlisters yet if all this is available?

Not too many devices around and too few really geeky developers. And those who could maybe do this seem to have just not enough time to try. and since documentation from iRex is very slim so far, it would be too much trial and error.

Someone already had a 2.6 kernel running on the iLiad. So most of it is possible. And we can reflash, so alson as nobody tempers with the bootmanager, it should be reflashable all the time.

Other than that, i dont know. When i find the time, i will first try to get inside pdf search going. And the we will see. There is just not enough time

Jaapjan · 01-25-2008, 08:17 AM

Really? Where is this person who had it running? It sounds interesting and I'd like to read more about it!

Edit: Found it. Google is your friend.

Hadrien · 01-29-2008, 04:46 PM

Just finished reading your recent post on your blog Adam: http://blog.adamrb.com/2008/01/irex-...community.html

Very interesting stuff.
I agree with you on all of those points.
I'd love to see a real emulator for the iLiad too, it would be very developer friendly.
For the Feedbooks application, we could make it much better if iRex provided a standard set of UI elements to make everything looks like the rest of the system.
I'd love to auto-schedule downloads too, the same way that iDS works.

Unfortunately for the moment, progress on the application will be pretty slow. Stephen left France, and he's now living in New-York. He did all of the work on the iLiad side, while I did the work on the service/API.
We'll see if we can find a way to continue working on it, now that Stephen doesn't have access to a device anymore. I think we'll release most of the applications that we're working on for Feedbooks (for the iLiad, and the one for Windows) through a trac+svn with the source code available for the whole community.

aabeg100 · 01-30-2008, 07:10 AM

Hi, I would love to help in anyway I can .... I have a very solid Java development experience but no linux or porting exposure. I can also be a tester or write documentation.....

As far as name goes I always liked the name Cerebro ( u know the ultra super computer in X-Men)

or
...... maybe we can just call it Duh-O (hows that for a Homer reference)

Asim

rincewind · 01-30-2008, 04:10 PM

Adam, great initiative!

I'd like to participate - I have a PhD in computer science and work full time as a cs researcher, but time is normally the issue. I've programmed quite a lot both i C, C++ and Java although Python is my personal favourite. :-) I have been living in a pure Linux world for some 10 years now, so I will be utterly useless in anything regarding MS products (shiver).

I know I still have some work to do on the community iPDF, most notably getting the gestures even more solid. But I really, really am horribly annoyed with the speed/feel of the iLiad. The content lister is horrible, and should be taken into the woods and shot. If someone starts creating a new one (preferably gesture/scribble based input), I'll try to chip in as best I can. Watching videos of other readers, say the Kindle, makes the iLiad seem slow and sluggish as molasses. Browsing directories, switching between files and so on should not take more than the screen refresh, which sure is long enough. If we make one, maybe we should make it properly multi-threaded so that we can get some work done while doing the screen refresh, e.g. prepare the next page/scan more files etc.

Are there any specific projects being planned, or is this just to check if we have the manpower to do something?

/R

PhilT · 01-31-2008, 05:49 AM

As I've mentioned in many of the other 'call for help' posts I would love to help out. I've got experience in C/C++/C#/Java/Ruby and a number of other languages. I'm a Windows user but know the linux basics so wouldn't be a problem.

Combining the ipdf patches or fbreader along with a search capability would be my top priorities with contentlister rewrite a close second.

Choice of language is also important I think. Java or Ruby are much more productive than C/C++ assuming correct OO discipline and at least in most areas just as fast but it may be a different story on the iLiad. I'd also prefer to see some automated testing going on as I believe this will help stop regressions and produce more maintainable code.

It has been stated that the source code for some of these existing apps is a mess and so I'd be happy to rework it. Though, perhaps rather than attempt an ambitious full rewrite, we start by modularizing then gradually replace. Of course if a rewrite is feasible then I'm all for it especially if a Java version can be written.

Back on the reader aspect. This is a very central part of the reader (as is the contentlister) and I'd like to see one reader to rule them all there by having a consistent interface. So another approach would be to have a basic reader API that we could then use to implement various readers. The API could specify things like zoom, page turn, columns, page counts, searching, etc., etc. and we could then have a bunch of plugins (or even just subclasses) for all the different formats PDF, FB, PRC, CHM, etc., etc.

By having this separation we then have a single user interface for all known book formats. Now I realize that some formats are very different. For example PDFs with lots of graphics would be very different to a PRC with the emphasis being text but in these cases the rendering could be taken care of by the plugin/subclass.

Just thinking out loud really and I've not looked at any code yet so this is all just theoretical (and based on previous experience)

rincewind · 01-31-2008, 06:41 AM

iRex is working on a "superviewer", which probably will do something like you say, just worse... Hopefully they will open source their app, so we can all fix it, but I'm not counting on it.

For me, as I really only use PDF files, I mostly find the content lister the main issue. Also, there is no proper way to create content on the iLiad. As the png editor does not have gestures and fullscreen, I always write in a underlined PDF file. However, I really lack something more structured, like a "meeting book", where I could take notes. These notes would be collected as meetings and viewed in a timeline or something, not as a bunch of individual files that has to be created on my PC...

Of course, a calendar thing would be nice too, although the boot time on the iLiad sort of makes it useless for just looking up and adding an appointment. I think the meeting minutes app would be very nice, preferably based on ipdf but with an option to list meetings and create new meetings/add pages on the fly.

/R

nekokami · 01-31-2008, 09:49 AM

Is iRex even still working on their "superviewer"? It seems like it's been a very long time since I've heard anything about that project. Are they hoping this community will take that project on?

yokos · 01-31-2008, 12:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nekokami

Is iRex even still working on their "superviewer"? It seems like it's been a very long time since I've heard anything about that project. Are they hoping this community will take that project on?

Mmmh, this "superviewer" will be NOT included in 2.12, this said a friend who has got 2.12 RC running.

01-25-2008, 08:17 AM	#23
Jaapjan Avid reader Posts: 262 Karma: 132 Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: The Netherlands Device: HTC Touch Diamond, iLiad Book Edition	Really? Where is this person who had it running? It sounds interesting and I'd like to read more about it! Edit: Found it. Google is your friend. Last edited by Jaapjan; 01-25-2008 at 08:21 AM.

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01-24-2008, 10:44 AM	#16
Martijn Connoisseur Posts: 68 Karma: 855 Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Netherlands Device: iLiad	I love to participate. I don't have any experience with porting stuff to a different platform, but I've got plenty of programming experience and linux experience, so I think I should be able to figure things out and contribute eventually. I'm currently working on my PhD thesis, however, so I'm a bit busy As far as names go: how about something that involves Homer, the writer of the Illiad?

01-24-2008, 10:51 AM	#17
Jaapjan Avid reader Posts: 262 Karma: 132 Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: The Netherlands Device: HTC Touch Diamond, iLiad Book Edition	I am a little confused / unclear on -what- they are offering to provide exactly. Are they opening up the hardware? Allow custom Kernel's / Contentlisters and who knows what? Or...?

01-24-2008, 11:05 AM	#18
tribble iLiad Maniac Posts: 1,382 Karma: 2369 Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Germany Device: Bookeen Opus (i love that thing) and iPad (what an irony)	Well, you can do that already, if you know what you are doing. I sincerely hope, that they give us more insight to the contentlister, to get it replaced

01-24-2008, 11:30 AM	#20
tribble iLiad Maniac Posts: 1,382 Karma: 2369 Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Germany Device: Bookeen Opus (i love that thing) and iPad (what an irony)	very true.

01-29-2008, 04:46 PM	#24
Hadrien Feedbooks.com Co-Founder Posts: 2,263 Karma: 145123 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Paris, France Device: Sony PRS-t-1/350/300/500/505/600/700, Nexus S, iPad	Just finished reading your recent post on your blog Adam: http://blog.adamrb.com/2008/01/irex-...community.html Very interesting stuff. I agree with you on all of those points. I'd love to see a real emulator for the iLiad too, it would be very developer friendly. For the Feedbooks application, we could make it much better if iRex provided a standard set of UI elements to make everything looks like the rest of the system. I'd love to auto-schedule downloads too, the same way that iDS works. Unfortunately for the moment, progress on the application will be pretty slow. Stephen left France, and he's now living in New-York. He did all of the work on the iLiad side, while I did the work on the service/API. We'll see if we can find a way to continue working on it, now that Stephen doesn't have access to a device anymore. I think we'll release most of the applications that we're working on for Feedbooks (for the iLiad, and the one for Windows) through a trac+svn with the source code available for the whole community.

01-30-2008, 07:10 AM	#25
aabeg100 Enthusiast Posts: 29 Karma: 490 Join Date: Dec 2007 Device: iRex Iliad	Hi, I would love to help in anyway I can .... I have a very solid Java development experience but no linux or porting exposure. I can also be a tester or write documentation..... As far as name goes I always liked the name Cerebro ( u know the ultra super computer in X-Men) or ...... maybe we can just call it Duh-O (hows that for a Homer reference) Asim

01-30-2008, 04:10 PM	#26
rincewind Connoisseur Posts: 58 Karma: 479 Join Date: Mar 2007 Device: iLiad	Adam, great initiative! I'd like to participate - I have a PhD in computer science and work full time as a cs researcher, but time is normally the issue. I've programmed quite a lot both i C, C++ and Java although Python is my personal favourite. :-) I have been living in a pure Linux world for some 10 years now, so I will be utterly useless in anything regarding MS products (shiver). I know I still have some work to do on the community iPDF, most notably getting the gestures even more solid. But I really, really am horribly annoyed with the speed/feel of the iLiad. The content lister is horrible, and should be taken into the woods and shot. If someone starts creating a new one (preferably gesture/scribble based input), I'll try to chip in as best I can. Watching videos of other readers, say the Kindle, makes the iLiad seem slow and sluggish as molasses. Browsing directories, switching between files and so on should not take more than the screen refresh, which sure is long enough. If we make one, maybe we should make it properly multi-threaded so that we can get some work done while doing the screen refresh, e.g. prepare the next page/scan more files etc. Are there any specific projects being planned, or is this just to check if we have the manpower to do something? /R

01-31-2008, 05:49 AM	#27
PhilT Enthusiast Posts: 25 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2007 Device: iRex iLiad	As I've mentioned in many of the other 'call for help' posts I would love to help out. I've got experience in C/C++/C#/Java/Ruby and a number of other languages. I'm a Windows user but know the linux basics so wouldn't be a problem. Combining the ipdf patches or fbreader along with a search capability would be my top priorities with contentlister rewrite a close second. Choice of language is also important I think. Java or Ruby are much more productive than C/C++ assuming correct OO discipline and at least in most areas just as fast but it may be a different story on the iLiad. I'd also prefer to see some automated testing going on as I believe this will help stop regressions and produce more maintainable code. It has been stated that the source code for some of these existing apps is a mess and so I'd be happy to rework it. Though, perhaps rather than attempt an ambitious full rewrite, we start by modularizing then gradually replace. Of course if a rewrite is feasible then I'm all for it especially if a Java version can be written. Back on the reader aspect. This is a very central part of the reader (as is the contentlister) and I'd like to see one reader to rule them all there by having a consistent interface. So another approach would be to have a basic reader API that we could then use to implement various readers. The API could specify things like zoom, page turn, columns, page counts, searching, etc., etc. and we could then have a bunch of plugins (or even just subclasses) for all the different formats PDF, FB, PRC, CHM, etc., etc. By having this separation we then have a single user interface for all known book formats. Now I realize that some formats are very different. For example PDFs with lots of graphics would be very different to a PRC with the emphasis being text but in these cases the rendering could be taken care of by the plugin/subclass. Just thinking out loud really and I've not looked at any code yet so this is all just theoretical (and based on previous experience)

01-31-2008, 06:41 AM	#28
rincewind Connoisseur Posts: 58 Karma: 479 Join Date: Mar 2007 Device: iLiad	iRex is working on a "superviewer", which probably will do something like you say, just worse... Hopefully they will open source their app, so we can all fix it, but I'm not counting on it. For me, as I really only use PDF files, I mostly find the content lister the main issue. Also, there is no proper way to create content on the iLiad. As the png editor does not have gestures and fullscreen, I always write in a underlined PDF file. However, I really lack something more structured, like a "meeting book", where I could take notes. These notes would be collected as meetings and viewed in a timeline or something, not as a bunch of individual files that has to be created on my PC... Of course, a calendar thing would be nice too, although the boot time on the iLiad sort of makes it useless for just looking up and adding an appointment. I think the meeting minutes app would be very nice, preferably based on ipdf but with an option to list meetings and create new meetings/add pages on the fly. /R

01-31-2008, 09:49 AM	#29
nekokami fruminous edugeek Posts: 6,745 Karma: 551260 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Northeast US Device: iPad, eBw 1150	Is iRex even still working on their "superviewer"? It seems like it's been a very long time since I've heard anything about that project. Are they hoping this community will take that project on?

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