New E-book Reader Software

[da-x]

I'm thinking about releasing a new ebook-reader software, one that I've written from scratch for my pdaxrom-based PDA, relying on GTK toolkit.

Here's a link to a photo and a short description on my homepage:

http://www.monatomic.org/scgi-bin/index.cg...der%20interface

It's pretty light-weight - about 1000 lines of C. Currently it gets the input filename from the command line and reads it completely into memory (so if the file is under /mnt/cf and you suspend nothing bad happens). The text being white on black makes this little app use the minimum amount of power when operating in full-screen mode.

Notice the nice 'dict' feature, which have taught me a lot of new English words

I'd like to know what you think about it.

[da-x]

Sorry, it was probably not the right forum for this message, but I was brough to this forum straight from pdaxrom's website...

[gfdsa]

do you really think reading the whole file into memory is a good idea? i read books 1M+ daily...
you'd better make it save the state on each update, like fbreader does

btw, dict is cool, what is on the backend?

[whaq]

What ebook formats does it currently support?

[da-x]

I see no problem with loading the entire file, loading 1mb in a machine that has a total 64mb of ram, is not a problem.

Assuming that you have a working /usr/bin/dict, you'd be able to use it seemlessly. I have debian installed on my SD card (/mnt/card) and I've created a wrapper script as /usr/bin/dict which chroot()'s to /mnt/card and runs dict. See the dict debian package for more details.

The reader currently supports only simple text files (the other ebook formats can usually be convert to text files anyway).

[gromituk]

The text being white on black makes this little app use the minimum amount of power when operating in full-screen mode.

A liquid crystal display consumes the same amount of power whatever it is showing, because the light source is common to the whole display; the pixel structure merely blocks it or lets it pass.  So don't worry about the colour scheme - design it to be as readable as possible.

[da-x]

Interesting... well, I think white on black wins anyway. I feel it's less tiresome to look at. However this can be easily configured from the command line or an rc file.

[gfdsa]

da-x, i dont want to argue about the loading and parsing, and paging of big text/html/xml files, it's just my own expirience, i am a heavy ebook reader, 1-2 books per week
the color scheme, according to researches made, should not be b/w or w/b, it should be something like black on on light brown, this way the eyes are not getting tired, and as a heavy ebook reader i confirm it

[busab]

Hello,

your app seem very nice! Simple and clean, with some usefull feature. I hope you'll release soon
I use my zaurus to read gutenberg ebook and various text only manuals.

For the choice of colors, white on black should be the right one since people who want light grey on black can decrease the backlight and save battery.

[ScottYelich]

ot:  I've used white on black for 15+ years... with small fonts, large fonts, etc.
I've always found it easier on the eyes (especially in low light).

I also want to get to make a ebook reader at some point -- are there general
libraries out there that will do the parsing of the different formats for me -- or
are formats mostly closed?

Scott

[TimW]

ot:  I've used white on black for 15+ years... with small fonts, large fonts, etc.
I've always found it easier on the eyes (especially in low light).

I also want to get to make a ebook reader at some point -- are there general
libraries out there that will do the parsing of the different formats for me -- or
are formats mostly closed?

Scott
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Formats are mostly closed but you can always get the source for opie-reader from the opie-cvs to cover quite a few formats. Since the codecs are loaded as plug-ins you could probably use a common interface and just use your front end with opie-readers plug-ins but the interface should probably be cleaned up a bit first. I don't mind making changes in opie-reader to match changes you might want it we can find a common ground.

[badog]

where download padxromreader?

[gromituk]

I like the chewed pencil.  Do you also chew your Z?  

[Gondola]

How about user-definable color scheme?  With a few options to choose from.  White on black.  Black on white (or grey).  Etc.

[da-x]

where download padxromreader?
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It will be posted on my homepage as an ipk file along with source code in a few days.