Hello, I also think that the previous Library view was better. Now in landscape mode, only five books fit on a page, thus You have to scroll a lot more then in previous versions.
To read a book, you can't tap on the book's icon or title which are quite big, but You have to hit the really small 'Read book' link instead. If You have multiple categories and open one of them than the only way to get to another category is to either scroll through all the books (remember - only five fit on a page, so scrolling is annoying) or scroll back to the category and hide the list there. And there is no search field to filter the list (to achieve less scrolling), so the Library really is merely unusable...
I must say that I prefer the new layout. Yes, there's fewer books shown on a page, but they're clustered nicely by author & series. Yes, opening a book can be quite tricky, but I found it just as difficult with the previous version. And you get 14 books on a page in portrait mode
I'll see how easy it is to offer the old layout as an option though.
So, if You would:
- allow to close a category using a button (there is plenty of space at the bottom)
- make the list of books more condensed to fit more books on a page (I suggest getting rid of the links below title, ie. read, edit and remove book - the screen space is too precious to have them where they are)
- allow to open a book by tapping the book's icon and title
- allow to filter the list of books
Sorry, those are all upstream features (I think - closing a category may be feasible to add, but I'll have to look into that) - log bugs/feature requests via fbreader.org for these. I'm quite happy to enable/disable existing functionality, or add in Maemo-specific features (if they're simple enough and fit into the existing framework) but I'm not interested in forking the project.
What's wrong with the Library window? It works perfectly well here.
Well, the labels are too small now and cannot be easily pressed. The standard scrolling methods that work elsewhere in FBReader no longer work in the Library window. Instead, it has got an ugly and unusable scrollbar. And the whole thing got slower for some reason, probably because it has to render more complicated content now. IMHO, you should at least make labels bigger and restore proper scrolling or, if there is such an option, return the old Library interface.
Originally Posted by
I'll have a look at the notifications - it depends on how they're implemented.
They were implemented with hildon notification ribbons. In fact, I have been fixing them the last time, after PR1.2 changed Gtk+ event handling mechanisms. No idea why FBReader reverted to those corner messages now.
so far my gripe is the little fs button in the bottom right hand corner.
used to be I could get it to leave full screen easily, now it takes about 10 taps till it will work. and I have calibrated several times. it that one feature could be made easier (press anywhere on it and it exits full screen) that would be great. thanks.
Well, the labels are too small now and cannot be easily pressed. The standard scrolling methods that work elsewhere in FBReader no longer work in the Library window. Instead, it has got an ugly and unusable scrollbar. And the whole thing got slower for some reason, probably because it has to render more complicated content now. IMHO, you should at least make labels bigger and restore proper scrolling or, if there is such an option, return the old Library interface.
The volume key scroll works in the library, but the tap scrolling doesn't - I'll try to dig into that one as well.
They were implemented with hildon notification ribbons. In fact, I have been fixing them the last time, after PR1.2 changed Gtk+ event handling mechanisms. No idea why FBReader reverted to those corner messages now.
Yeah, I've found that - it's still supposed to be using the hildon notifications, but the upstream author looks to have tried to abstract out the handling of all the UI-specific code, and has made a complete mess of it (so the UI-specific code doesn't actually get reached). I've been trying to work around it all this evening, but I've not found a clean solution yet - I may have to make a nasty hack for now
Yeah, I've found that - it's still supposed to be using the hildon notifications, but the upstream author looks to have tried to abstract out the handling of all the UI-specific code, and has made a complete mess of it (so the UI-specific code doesn't actually get reached). I've been trying to work around it all this evening, but I've not found a clean solution yet - I may have to make a nasty hack for now
I would say, fix the upstream code. The author is pretty accepting of changes to the code, so as long as you keep the original style and approach, your work will not go in vain.
Version 0.12.10-8 has now been uploaded. This restores the hildon notifications (turned out a lot simpler than I though - just one method that needed changing to virtual) and makes the cover image (or author image) and author/series/book titles clickable links, either opening the book or expanding/collapsing the tree.
I'll have a look at doing a more basic library view next, eliminating the cover art and extra links. I'll also look into enabling the other scroll methods in the library.
Ignore post about fs button, I rebooted and it works great. Its great to see this app getting worked on, a good ereader is much more important then any game I could have on my phone.
FBreader has come a long way, and I'm particularly glad for the improved epub support.
But ... I am at a loss to find any way to add a book to the library from inside the application itself. It doesn't search sub-folders, despite the appropriate box being ticked.
There's also the problem with the preference editor not migrated to Maemo UI, which makes changing options very, very hard indeed.
1) fs button does not exist in library mode, this means if you decide to exit the app in library mode you must either a) select a book first or b) use keyboard ctrl backspace to minimize app then hope your touch closes it (I usually miss and it just reexpand it).
2) option to open app in full screen, since the ability to go to fs already exists, why not have this option?
3) library view that just shows book covers. for whatever reason my oreilly.com books work not so well with the library function in fbreader (but work better in say dorian). In fbreader. for instance I have 17 books but since it by default sorts by author, many of the books repeat in the library (I have 32 choices to be exact because if a book has multiple authors I get multiple entries for the same book). and I have to drill down through authors to get to the books. dorian and meebook on the other hand just show the book covers and titles, which is much easier. to have this functionality and to be able to set default library view would be great.
