Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

I hold it with my left hand and thus hit the screen with my right hand. As I am learning to play guitar the nails on my right hand (use for fretting as opposed to strumming) are non-existent (well really short). So the setting for finger as opposed to stylus touch help me quite a bit. If I was right handed I might just use the stylus for tapping stuff, but now I don't need it.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

I know, but this button appears at every screen touch and disappears only after several seconds. Besides, latest version (18) does not have the button on the toolbar (seems replaced by globe). So, when you are full screen, you have to live with the button appearing, and with the button absence otherwise.
Currently I have disabled the button, set up full screen startup, and using keyboard when need toolbar/menu.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

I do the exact opposite. Hold the device with my right hand and tap with my left hand (either using the stylus). Lets make a poll to define left/right handedness in mobile era :)

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

I'm not planning on adding these - the menus are already getting somewhat cramped. The menus are all defined via the XML files (in /usr/share/FBReader/default) so you can add/remove whatever items you like.

There seems to be a bit of an issue in the current upstream version with CSS. Sometimes the styles either don't get applied or don't get removed. It's a horrendously complicated bit of code though, and I haven't managed to figure out what's meant to be going on in there yet.

Damn - I hadn't realised that adding that had pushed off the fullscreen button. You can edit the /usr/share/FBReader/default/toolbar.xml file and take out the network library (or any other one you don't use) if you'd prefer to see the fullscreen button. If you're using the indicator bar (rather than OS scrollbars) then you can add a small fullscreen button to there (appears in the bottom-right corner) which I find a lot better than the overlay button.

I've just uploaded 0.12.10-19 now. This only adds support for using MStarDict or QStarDict as reference dictionaries. I've only pushed this release for Fremantle as I need to look at whether these are available for Diablo (or what alternatives there are).

For MStarDict you'll need to either download my patched version from here or download the patch and compile it yourself. I'll be sending the patch on to the current maintainer, so hopefully they'll upload a patched version.

For QStarDict, basic support will work with the current version. Unfortunately it doesn't provide any support for bringing the window to the foreground though, so for that you'll need my patched version from here (or compile it yourself with this patch). I'll also be sending this patch on to the current maintainer.

EDIT: Oh, you'll also need to launch it first with the current version, as it doesn't include a DBus service file to allow the system to auto-launch it when required. The patched version does though.

Finally, the source code changes can be downloaded from here.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

You can turn the N900 to 'upside portrait', for lack of a better phrase, and set FBReader to turn its display the same way. Then you have the volume rockers with which to page up and down under your index and middle finger even when holding the device in your right hand.

For example. No other e-book reader on the N900 - or anywhere else - that I know of can do the same.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

Was afraid of that :( At the moment I'm experiencing the irony of a free Black Library book managing a very nice first-line indent and a 0.5em margin-top; while a book produced from XHTML by Calibre can't manage the exact same trick with the exact same properties.

Finding the source of that little connundrum is proving difficult.

Luckily, with your changes to the preferences section I can tell FBReader to render as I want it, regardless. It's just a smidgeon tricky when purchasing books.

... not that purchasing DRM-free epub is a huge past-time around here.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

It's all I buy anyway - from baen & smashwords mostly, and I've bought one or two from fictionwise as well. Plus O'Reilly for technical books.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

So many optimizations made to enhance fbreader for the n900 that I am afraid users who have not been following all the progress would have quite a time figuring out the optimizations which (just in my opinion) are kind of scattered now across the different sections..how about a simple option to optimize for full screen....could be as simple as a tab that contains check boxes of all the full screen enhancing optimizations you have implemented, so a new fbreader user would not have to fish around.

For instance if you start with simply, full screen mode with no toolbar, no exit full screen button (the old one that pops up every time you touch the screen) and the menu in the bottom right, (which has exit full screen anyway) and left the other stuff to be checked at the users discretion, It might make for an easier transition for someone to start using fbreader optimized for the n900. Just a thought, I guess it would also probably need (I know you are not hot on adding to the menu) a link to open up preferences from the menu.

Just my one and a half cents, I do think the optimizations are kind of scattered throughout the preferences as it is, and a reasonable set of defaults for full screen optimization could help. after that If a user could not figure out using it after clicking on the menu icon, they probably would not be a n900 user anyway...along those lines, upon first installing it could even ask the question "optimize for full screen use?" and let the user click yes or no...

Basically what I am saying is I don't think fbreader is optimized in its default configuration for the n900 and simply having it open your book in full screen with a menu option that gives access to all important navigation plus the overall preferences might make it easier for a new user (now I am ducking as I am sure you are sick of all my suggestions)...

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

I see every time you expand in network library (drill down) the books move further to the right, as it is now drilling down to a book in smashwords, you can't read the full book title...

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

With the latest update and patches applied, I can confirm that MStarDict is auto-started and auto-focused, however it lists the possible words in the dictionaries. It would be nice to get the word definition for the first listed word in the list. After switching into FBreader and tapping another word (I set single-click for dict setting) it focuses onto Mstartdict but showing the previous word. It requires one more back tap to get the updated word lists. This also would be nice to directly giving me the first possible word definition.

Unlike MStarDict, QStarDict doesn't auto-start if an instance isn't launched. Q doesn't auto-focus the window either, but shows the definition instantly instead of asking me to choose one. So my vote goes to MStarDict, unless you improve auto-focus and auto-start option for QStarDict.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

How about a wiki entry for fbreader?
btw is it just me that the app got stuck at loading some thing forever without opening any file?

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

Hello, Rob1n

Your last update added a rather useless online library toolbar option, at the cost of removing the full-screen switch option. Could you please bring the full-screen switch back? Thanks.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

Calibre is open source and the author open to suggestions. If you want/need specific support ask him - you may find he's very willing to help.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

My final request ... would there be a way to have an option for a custom application keep backlight on time? As it is I keep it set to on because I dont want my n900 locking every 2 minutes. But I would love it to say lock after 10 or 15 minutes because that means I am probably done reading but neglected to either lock the screen manually or close fbreader. It would help preserve battery. Again thanks for the great app.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

Most of the changes are not Maemo-specific, so are on the appropriate tabs for the functionality they control.

Sorry, I strongly disagree with you here. Having the app start with a setup where there's no obvious way to control, configure, or interact with it is not a user-friendly way to go about things. It's currently starting up with all visual controls enabled, and it's left to the user to disable those things they don't want.

That's the one extra one I'm thinking of adding, yes.

Yes, it's a tree structure so that's the way it works. Otherwise you couldn't tell where the nestings start/stop. A better option for a deeply-nested system would be something similar to the standard N900 file browser - this would mean a complete rewrite of the tree browser though.

Yes - I plan on looking into whether there's a way to auto-select the entry. The second issue sounds like a bug in MStarDict - I'll look into that as well though.

Are you sure you're using the patched version? Both of these issues are what the patch is supposed to sort out.

Are you on Diablo? I've had several reports of this on Diablo and need to look into why it might be happening. I've not heard of any issues on Fremantle though.

Yes - I hadn't realised there was such a limit on the number of icons displayed. I'll look to reorganise this on the next release (you can edit the /usr/share/FBReader/default/toolbar.xml file to remove the network library link in the meantime). Oh, and while the network library may be useless for you, plenty of others find that feature useful.

This wouldn't be a trivial piece of work, so it's not going to be high on my priority list. There's no way to do this via the system auto-lock (it can only be enabled or disabled), so I'd need to disable it and then handle the timeout and locking within the app.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

Thanks, I'll never argue with you Rob1n as my biggest disappointment on this device was (imop) lack of a good ereader for my purposes, and you came through in spades. It's so cool to have total control over these books (navigation and screen controls) and be able to just slide out the keyboard and actually practise some commands in real time.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

Well, not exactly useless, but its usage frequency (even by people who like it) is so much lower than that of the full-screen switch, that it does not grant it a spot on the main toolbar. I would suggest moving it to the Library toolbar instead, as it logically fits there and there is free space.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

That depends on your usage of the other new functionality. You can have a fullscreen button in the indicator bar instead, for example. Personally, I no longer use the toolbar at all, which is probably why I missed the space limitation.

Unfortunately that's not where it's designed to go (and I'm not sure it makes more sense to go there either - depends on whether it opens the book you select or just imports it into the library), and moving it there currently causes odd loops - closing it down returns to the normal library view, and closing that returns to the network library view again (you need to close it a second time to get back to the book view). There's also no way to have it appear on the popup menu in the book view, but only on the toolbar in the library view.

Anyway, I'll have a look into the alternatives and see whether I can figure out something which suits everyone.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

I don't like to just add a "me too" but I agree with everyone wanting the full screen switch back. Aside from the volume button to change pages, the full screen toggle has to be second in terms of importance.

Thanks.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

I've just uploaded 0.12.10-20 now. There's only minor changes - the network library is now accessible from both the book view and network view, and the button for accessing it has moved from the toolbar to the main menu (and is still accessible via the popup menu as well). This means the fullscreen button now appears on the toolbar again. I've also reordered the popup menu - the view-specific actions now appear at the top, followed by the actions to switch views, followed by the global actions at the bottom. The preferences dialog can now be accessed via the popup menu as well.

Again, this update is for Fremantle only at the moment - I've been away all weekend and haven't had a chance to check things out on Diablo.

The source code changes can be downloaded from here.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

I've uploaded a new version of MStarDict here which now displays the result if there's an exact match, or the results list otherwise. It also now deals with closing the previous result window before trying to lookup the new word.

It's split into two patches now, the first pulls the code to display a single result into a new method, and the second adds the DBus RPC handler.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

mstardict is not available on Diablo, but stardict is. I don't know the functional differences between the two. stardict is functional as a standalone on diablo. Although it does not look completely hildonized it is hildonized well enough.

qstardict is also available but is functionally worthless. Although the skin is diablo the UI is Fremantle-ish. There are no ok and cancel buttons, presumably because you're expected to swipe to accept and while the "escape/go back/undo" hardkey works as a cancel button, the center key in the dpad does not work as an ok button. What this means is you can never enable your dictionary even if you put it in one of the default locations, none of which is convenient for Diablo.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

how about autorotate of app on keyboard open/close. I ask because I have the app by default in portrait mode but when I am say reading stuff to learn commands and have the keyboard opened I want it in landscape. same would apply when using keyboard shortcuts to use the search function. Thanks I'mlike the inspector columbo of fbreader..."just one more thing" :)

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

Thank you, devs, for bringing full screen switch back to app. And thank you for my favorite application! I really hope you are going to port it to MeeGo when it is released.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

Rob1n,

I re-installed the patched QStarDict and it works as expected. These dictionary updates make my book reading life much better, now I can progress through in complicated texts with very less distraction, due to your super-easy dictionary look-up connections.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

I've just uploaded 0.12.10-21 now.

The main new feature is the ability to save/load color schemes - currently this is only available by mapping shortcut key(s) though.

The other changes are all around custom menus & toolbar - it'll now read the config files from ~/.FBReader (if found) before falling back to the default ones (from /usr/share/FBReader/default); and I've made changes to the resource files (for internationalisation) to allow any of the actions to appear in the menus (I still need to make these changes for the toolbar though). The plan is to write a customisation program for the menus and toolbar, so you can have whatever you find handy on there.

I've noticed that there's a minor issue with the key mapping - the popup box with the action list is a bit tricky to use. You need to keep your finger/stylus held down, and scroll by moving off the top/bottom of the list.

I've pushed this update for both Diablo and Fremantle.

I still haven't been able to reproduce the hangs people have reported when loading the library though - I've tried with zipped sets of files, but it works fine here. All I can suggest is trying with subsets of your books until you narrow down which one(s) cause the issue. If you can pinpoint a specific file then I'll be happy to look into it further, but otherwise I really don't know what else to try.

There's also still no dictionary support for Diablo (it'll detect QStarDict, but won't work with it). The stardict app works fine in popup mode though - you just need to launch it first, then selecting any word should popup a box with the definition.

The source code changes can be downloaded from here.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

Thanks Rob1n the ability to put whatever you want in the menu will be a great feature, from what I gather I could actually do it now from config files (I think) but I'd probably hose fbreader. You have done wonders with this app...

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

Just a quick status update.

I'm currently looking at getting a network library config file for use with Calibre servers (or template config - you'll need to create a copy with the correct server details filled in). This is requiring a few changes to the network library code (it was making some assumptions which aren't valid for the Calibre XML), but shouldn't be too much work.

I've also done a fix to stop the popup menu showing when opening/closing trees in the library/network library view (I need to do a bit more testing on this, but it looks to do the trick).

That's about all I've currently got on my agenda (there's auto-rotation, but that's a pretty low priority), so please shout if there's anything you don't like, or would like to see added.

Otherwise, once those are done, I'll look to push the new version to extras-testing, then spend some time working on the menu customisation, and in getting the patches reorganised and pushed upstream.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

If there was autorotate (negating nees to have opening keyboard switch to landscape) the only other thing for me is a custom time out for locking the screen. forever on is too long but the maemo 2 minutes is way too short.I do appreciate that you say it is a lot of work so if it ever happens I will just consider it a cherry on the cake. The only little issues I have experienced are "figures" (don't know what they are officially called) seem to not always wrap text and just disappear to the right (are these called tables in epub talk?) but I assume that is an oreilly formatting issue....and having quit on the bottom of the popup menu does not negate hitting it by mistake as if you tap the bottom half of the screen to bring up the menu you will find you are hovering directly over quit (but I use the menu button anyway). anyways, thanks for my fav n900 app...

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

Okay, 0.12.10-22 is uploaded now, for both Diablo and Fremantle.

This adds support for calibre as a network library - you'll need to edit the /usr/share/FBReader/network/calibre.xml file to remove the comment lines (<!-- and -->) and change the server address.

It also stops the popup window from appearing while expanding a collection in the tree browser.

The source code changes can be downloaded from here.

Let me know if there's any issues, otherwise I'll push it to extras-testing next week.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

Having an odd problem here. As mentioned, FBreader has a problem with the CSS involved in epubs. I can't seem to get it to add a margin between paragraphs.

However: I just tried adding the same in the PREFERENCES - and that didn't work either. Am I right in suspecting this to be a bug?

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

I had lots of trouble with paragraph spacing and epub. I fixed it in the end manually I recall with a search and replace, or one of the conversion tools had an option to add in a <br>.

Even now, even though I have "always use my CSS" enabled, it still seems to use the epub font size rather than my specified base. This setting does have some effect though, as without it, it uses the epub font type as well as size.

Weird that it isn't "all or nothing" when it comes to css.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

The CSS handling (and particularly the user over-rides) is definitely broken, yes. There looks to have been some changes made to this in the current development version, so I'll see whether I can find what these are and get them backported.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

I'm not sure that's a bug - I think that's all it's intended to do.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

I've looked through the current development source code for FBReader and have backported all the changes which are described as bug fixes. I've uploaded a new version incorporating these fixes as 0.12.10-23 (for Diablo and Fremantle).

The descriptions given for the included changesets are:

• #330 has been fixed
• fixed ePub cover extracting
• LitResDataParser code fix
• Mobipocket image processing has been fixed
• text drawing optimization (actual for Chinese texts)
• ZLCharSequence bug has been fixed
• LZXDecompressor fix
• RtfReaderStream fixes

The first one is the one that seems to fix CSS handling - this looks to fix all the issues I've seen with CSS and user-overrides anyway.

The source code changes can be downloaded from here.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

I've just tested this with a Calibre-produced ePub, which sports a CSS with text-indent and margin-top on paragraphs. The text-indent still works; the margin top ... not so much. Alas :(

Can't say preferences work either, to be honest. Will fiddle a little more to see if its something I've done wrong, but the book looks fine in other epub readers.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

Thought. Rob1n, can you tell me - I can read source, but you know it better - what level of support FBReader have for CSS in terms of its inclusion?

i.e. does it support STYLE elements? Or just LINK elements with external CSS?

It ought not be THAT simple, but right now the Calibre-produced e-books I've tested use embedded (ie. the STYLE element) CSS, while the Black Library (free) books that works as expected use linked (LINK element) CSS ...

I'll re-write my convert pipeline and test with external CSS later.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

From a quick look at the source, it should support CSS via LINK or STYLE elements, or via STYLE attributes.

Can you provide an example of a book, and I'll try to trace what it's doing while parsing? You can email it to me (maemo at robinhill.me.uk).

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

Done. Verified rendering in Calibre's ebook-viewer and the Mozilla 'epubreader' extension'.

Re: New FBReader build in Extras-Devel
 

I've tracked down the issue. FBReader uses the margin & padding settings for the same variable, so your zero padding values are overriding the margin values. Removing the padding values from the CSS fixes this issue. I'll have a dig into this further - adding the values would probably be a better solution, but means dealing with unit conversion.