CC iOS Alpha 3

Steve_Haley · 09-23-2016, 10:14 AM

We're nearly ready for the 3rd round of testing for the iOS version! This will be getting ready for our first public release. We're aware a few features are missing, but I hope that what we've got will now be good enough for a first version. (The 2 main missing features are the cloud connections and the translations.) Hopefully you'll agree, and part of this process will be getting your help verifying that we haven't missed anything important.

So, to get this started, if you'd like to be involved, message me an email address and the list of devices you'd like to test on. As before, I'd like to make sure we have a spread of both hardware and iOS versions. (For those who've helped in earlier versions, please let me know if you'd like to stay involved.)

At the end of today and then again starting next week, I'll issue invitations to 'Fabric / Crashlytics'. This is the service we're using to manage the testing process. That email will contain instructions on how to proceed, but basically you'll have to create an account with them and then register devices to your account. Once you've done that, they send me the list of devices that will be involved and I pass that list on to Apple. Apple then gives me a file which authorises those devices to install the app without having had to go through the App Store first.

I'm looking forward to this, it's taken a lot of work to get to this point!

Steve

Steve_Haley · 09-27-2016, 06:05 AM

I've received a few messages from people asking if we're still taking testers - yes we are! Send me a private message with your email address and I'll return an invite to the system we're using to manage the testing (Fabric/Crashlytics).

Steve_Haley · 09-28-2016, 09:30 AM

I've just sent invites to a few more people. If everything goes to plan, we'll start sending people the app tomorrow morning (GMT; we're in England). Thanks again!

Steve_Haley · 09-29-2016, 12:05 PM

Only somewhat later than planned, the latest test version went out just a moment ago. As I wrote in that email, please leave the feedback in this thread (rather than replying to the email) so that everyone can see what's happening. Thanks!

pwalker8 · 09-29-2016, 01:51 PM

ok, I'm generally not the fan boy type, but I have to say - This totally rocks! All the features that I had hoped would be there (well, ok, not manual sort, but that was a bit of a pipe dream anyway). It's going to take a few days to test everything, but I absolutely had to say that.

Steve_Haley · 09-30-2016, 11:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pwalker8

ok, I'm generally not the fan boy type, but I have to say - This totally rocks!

I'm glad to hear that!

Mike4672 · 10-01-2016, 11:13 AM

I installed CC on an iPad Air 2 and an ipad iPad Mini 4 both running iOS 10.0.1. I only had one issue upon installation. Once CC was installed it only showed one reading app... Amazon's Kindle. I have other reading apps on my iPads, such as Bookari, Marvin, MapleRead, Hyphen, yet it wouldn't show any of those. Through trial and error I found that backing out of CC, then locking my iPad, unlocking the iPad and reentering CC fixed the problem. All of the reading apps showed up and CC has worked perfectly.

I have no idea why the initial installation required what I had to do, but once you get past that issue, CC is working great. I've had no other issues with it.

I've since updated to iOS 10.0.2 and CC is still working great.

kaufman · 10-01-2016, 05:14 PM

I've installed it, and the basic interface seems to be fine. I have run into an issue in that if I try to upload more than about 200 books at a time, the connection breaks before it starts uploading the books.

Edit: I think I figured it out. It disconnects when the iphone screen turns off.

Edit 2: Nope, its not just that. It also disconnects on long transfers even if the screen stays on.

pwalker8 · 10-02-2016, 09:42 AM

I found that on wireless connections, the connection would disconnect when the screen turned off. I was able to download 500+ books at a time. I did find it more efficient to download in groups of 200, since the bigger the group of books, the longer Calibre took to start sending them.

My issue is that on my iPad Pro, everything works fine, but on my iPad mini, once I do the initial download via wireless, the wireless connection attempt bombs while it's trying to sync. I sent the log in along with the Calibre stack trace.

pwalker8 · 10-02-2016, 07:30 PM

Well, I tried removing CC, resetting the iPad mini, then reinstalling CC and downloading all the books via wireless sync. No problems downloading everything, but when I disconnected and then tried to reconnect, boom. It really seems odd that one would have the problem and the other would not when both are at the same rev of iOS.

Steve_Haley · 10-03-2016, 08:45 AM

Thanks for your posts everyone; we're looking into it. I'll give more detail once we have some answers.

Steve_Haley · 10-04-2016, 05:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike4672

Through trial and error I found that backing out of CC, then locking my iPad, unlocking the iPad and reentering CC fixed the problem. All of the reading apps showed up and CC has worked perfectly.

If you wouldn't mind, could you uninstall CC, reinstall it and check again? I'd like to know whether the problem of not seeing the reader apps happens consistently the first time the app is run, or whether the issue was just random. I think it's unlikely it will happen again, but I'd like to check.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kaufman

I've installed it, and the basic interface seems to be fine. I have run into an issue in that if I try to upload more than about 200 books at a time, the connection breaks before it starts uploading the books.

Edit: I think I figured it out. It disconnects when the iphone screen turns off.

Edit 2: Nope, its not just that. It also disconnects on long transfers even if the screen stays on.

Just to double check. When you say it disconnects on long transfers even with the screen on, do you mean with CC still in the foreground, or were you using another app? We're aware that iOS doesn't like long-running processes for background apps; essentially CC gets put on a timer when it goes into the background, where it only has a few minutes before the system switches it off. Unfortunately switching to another app is viewed the same as turning the screen off, in the sense that CC is no longer in the foreground. I'm not sure at the moment what the solution to this will be, beyond the 'soft fix' of suggesting people leave the screen on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Well, I tried removing CC, resetting the iPad mini, then reinstalling CC and downloading all the books via wireless sync. No problems downloading everything, but when I disconnected and then tried to reconnect, boom. It really seems odd that one would have the problem and the other would not when both are at the same rev of iOS.

Yeah, I don't have a suggestion for this yet

I'm reworking the logging system to get more relevant information; it doesn't seem to have logged anything which would help diagnose this situation.

pwalker8 · 10-04-2016, 09:03 AM

ok. I can replicate it fairly consistently.

I ran into one thing that isn't really a bug per se, but rather it was simply unexpected behavior. When I downloaded all the books, I found that it would sometimes download the epub format and sometimes the mobi format. There doesn't seem to be a particular pattern. Of course, when I go into the settings and turn off all the formats except epub, or if I choose download specific format, that ensures that I get epub, but the default is all formats are on in the settings. It may be something to think about in the final version.

Steve_Haley · 10-04-2016, 10:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pwalker8

...the default is all formats are on in the settings. It may be something to think about in the final version.

This was actually done deliberately. To begin with only a few formats were marked as supported by default, and we found that this confused a lot of people. By now stating all formats are supported, we use whatever format people already have their book in without displaying error messages. The hope is that the advanced users who have a preference regarding the formats will be able to configure the settings - as you did!

Edit: I'm referring to when we've had to help members of the public use the Android version, rather than people testing the iOS version here on MobileRead.

chaley · 10-04-2016, 11:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pwalker8

... default is all formats are on in the settings. It may be something to think about in the final version.

It should choose the format furthest up CC's list. If a book has both epub and mobi, and if epub is higher up CC's list than mobi then you should get epub. If there is no epub or if the order is reversed then you should get mobi.

09-23-2016, 10:14 AM	#1
Steve_Haley CC iOS Developer Posts: 142 Karma: 53024 Join Date: Jul 2012 Location: England Device: Variety phones/tablets	CC iOS Alpha 3 We're nearly ready for the 3rd round of testing for the iOS version! This will be getting ready for our first public release. We're aware a few features are missing, but I hope that what we've got will now be good enough for a first version. (The 2 main missing features are the cloud connections and the translations.) Hopefully you'll agree, and part of this process will be getting your help verifying that we haven't missed anything important. So, to get this started, if you'd like to be involved, message me an email address and the list of devices you'd like to test on. As before, I'd like to make sure we have a spread of both hardware and iOS versions. (For those who've helped in earlier versions, please let me know if you'd like to stay involved.) At the end of today and then again starting next week, I'll issue invitations to 'Fabric / Crashlytics'. This is the service we're using to manage the testing process. That email will contain instructions on how to proceed, but basically you'll have to create an account with them and then register devices to your account. Once you've done that, they send me the list of devices that will be involved and I pass that list on to Apple. Apple then gives me a file which authorises those devices to install the app without having had to go through the App Store first. I'm looking forward to this, it's taken a lot of work to get to this point! Steve

10-01-2016, 05:14 PM	#8
kaufman Calibre Companion Fanatic Posts: 873 Karma: 1088610 Join Date: Nov 2006 Device: Galaxy Note 4, Kindle Voyage	I've installed it, and the basic interface seems to be fine. I have run into an issue in that if I try to upload more than about 200 books at a time, the connection breaks before it starts uploading the books. Edit: I think I figured it out. It disconnects when the iphone screen turns off. Edit 2: Nope, its not just that. It also disconnects on long transfers even if the screen stays on. Last edited by kaufman; 10-01-2016 at 05:31 PM.

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09-27-2016, 06:05 AM	#2
Steve_Haley CC iOS Developer Posts: 142 Karma: 53024 Join Date: Jul 2012 Location: England Device: Variety phones/tablets	I've received a few messages from people asking if we're still taking testers - yes we are! Send me a private message with your email address and I'll return an invite to the system we're using to manage the testing (Fabric/Crashlytics).

09-28-2016, 09:30 AM	#3
Steve_Haley CC iOS Developer Posts: 142 Karma: 53024 Join Date: Jul 2012 Location: England Device: Variety phones/tablets	I've just sent invites to a few more people. If everything goes to plan, we'll start sending people the app tomorrow morning (GMT; we're in England). Thanks again!

09-29-2016, 12:05 PM	#4
Steve_Haley CC iOS Developer Posts: 142 Karma: 53024 Join Date: Jul 2012 Location: England Device: Variety phones/tablets	Only somewhat later than planned, the latest test version went out just a moment ago. As I wrote in that email, please leave the feedback in this thread (rather than replying to the email) so that everyone can see what's happening. Thanks!

09-29-2016, 01:51 PM	#5
pwalker8 Grand Sorcerer Posts: 7,196 Karma: 70314280 Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Atlanta, GA Device: iPad Pro, iPad mini, Kobo Aura, Amazon paperwhite, Sony PRS-T2	ok, I'm generally not the fan boy type, but I have to say - This totally rocks! All the features that I had hoped would be there (well, ok, not manual sort, but that was a bit of a pipe dream anyway). It's going to take a few days to test everything, but I absolutely had to say that.

10-01-2016, 11:13 AM	#7
Mike4672 Member Posts: 17 Karma: 10 Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Wisconsin Device: Kindle Paperwhite; iPad Air 2, iPad Mini 4, LG G3	I installed CC on an iPad Air 2 and an ipad iPad Mini 4 both running iOS 10.0.1. I only had one issue upon installation. Once CC was installed it only showed one reading app... Amazon's Kindle. I have other reading apps on my iPads, such as Bookari, Marvin, MapleRead, Hyphen, yet it wouldn't show any of those. Through trial and error I found that backing out of CC, then locking my iPad, unlocking the iPad and reentering CC fixed the problem. All of the reading apps showed up and CC has worked perfectly. I have no idea why the initial installation required what I had to do, but once you get past that issue, CC is working great. I've had no other issues with it. I've since updated to iOS 10.0.2 and CC is still working great.

10-02-2016, 09:42 AM	#9
pwalker8 Grand Sorcerer Posts: 7,196 Karma: 70314280 Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Atlanta, GA Device: iPad Pro, iPad mini, Kobo Aura, Amazon paperwhite, Sony PRS-T2	I found that on wireless connections, the connection would disconnect when the screen turned off. I was able to download 500+ books at a time. I did find it more efficient to download in groups of 200, since the bigger the group of books, the longer Calibre took to start sending them. My issue is that on my iPad Pro, everything works fine, but on my iPad mini, once I do the initial download via wireless, the wireless connection attempt bombs while it's trying to sync. I sent the log in along with the Calibre stack trace.

10-02-2016, 07:30 PM	#10
pwalker8 Grand Sorcerer Posts: 7,196 Karma: 70314280 Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Atlanta, GA Device: iPad Pro, iPad mini, Kobo Aura, Amazon paperwhite, Sony PRS-T2	Well, I tried removing CC, resetting the iPad mini, then reinstalling CC and downloading all the books via wireless sync. No problems downloading everything, but when I disconnected and then tried to reconnect, boom. It really seems odd that one would have the problem and the other would not when both are at the same rev of iOS.

10-03-2016, 08:45 AM	#11
Steve_Haley CC iOS Developer Posts: 142 Karma: 53024 Join Date: Jul 2012 Location: England Device: Variety phones/tablets	Thanks for your posts everyone; we're looking into it. I'll give more detail once we have some answers.

10-04-2016, 09:03 AM	#13
pwalker8 Grand Sorcerer Posts: 7,196 Karma: 70314280 Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Atlanta, GA Device: iPad Pro, iPad mini, Kobo Aura, Amazon paperwhite, Sony PRS-T2	ok. I can replicate it fairly consistently. I ran into one thing that isn't really a bug per se, but rather it was simply unexpected behavior. When I downloaded all the books, I found that it would sometimes download the epub format and sometimes the mobi format. There doesn't seem to be a particular pattern. Of course, when I go into the settings and turn off all the formats except epub, or if I choose download specific format, that ensures that I get epub, but the default is all formats are on in the settings. It may be something to think about in the final version.

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