[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Freda 2.0

All,

Freda v2 is now ready for general release. You can find the manual, download links etc. at http://www.turnipsoft.co.uk/freda .

Changes from v1.1:

There is no 'main menu' any more. You access all features via a 'shortcuts' screen. While no book is loaded, a short screen-tap will display shortcuts; while a book is loaded, you may need to use a long-tap.

The 'Library' is no longer a simple folder location. Instead, it is a searchable database of books. To add books to the library, tap the 'Library' shortcut, then use 'Actions->Add Books'. From there, you can select 'Add Folder' to get a similar function to what the old v1.1 library did - i.e. add to the library all the books in a particular folder (and optionally, its subfolders too).

You also have an option to 'Add OPDS Catalog' to the library. Specify the catalog URI (the Feedbooks one is used by default, but you could equally use a Calibre2opds/Dropbox location, or any other OPDS-compliant catalog). Whenever you add books to the library, Freda identifies the place that you got those books from as a 'source'. When you wish to tidy up the library, you can select 'Actions->Remove Books' on the library screen, and it will present a list of sources; you can use this to remove from the library all the books from a given source.

If the library specifies a book location on the internet, then when you open the book for the first time, Freda will download it. Recently downloaded files are held in a local cache, to save time (and indeed data charges).

The library screen offers a (rather minimalist!) search function. Use the drop-down box at the top left to say which fields you want to search, and type text into the text box at the top right.

The 'Settings' screen is now more finger-friendly. 'Text Appearance' settings are managed using a special control at the top of the settings screen; other settings are listed below that - just tap on a setting to display a dialog box to modify the setting.

There are enhancements to the management of 'presets'. When saving presets note: (1) if you have a book loaded, you will have a special saveable preset called 'whenever this book is loaded'; you can use this to define settings that will be applied whenever you're reading this book in the future; (2) when you save a preset, you need to specify which settings are included in it, by ticking the relevant tick-boxes.

When Freda is busy doing something, you will see a blue screen and/or a 'wait' cursor. If Freda is doing background processing (e.g pagination) you will see a small flickering square at the bottom right of the screen. If this square turns into a red-outlined box, it means Freda has run out of memory and is now working in 'low memory mode'. The main effect of this is that 'Find...' will not work reliably when searching in chapters other than the current one.

RSVP/Autoscroll is implemented. To enter RSVP mode select 'Autoscroll on' from the shortcuts screen. The +/- buttons will speed up/slow down the reading speed; to pause reading, tap the screen; from 'paused' mode, you can tap the screen to exit RSVP mode or tap the 'PAUSE' indicator to resume RSVP reading.

The 'Lock Backlight' option will force the backlight to stay on as long as you are reading (though after 10 minutes of inactivity, it will allow the backlight to switch off anyway).

'Rotate' will turn the display one 'stop' clockwise. You can define what 'stops' are available using the 'Permissible Orientations' setting. There is a 'Lock Orientation' setting which, if set, will cause Freda to resist other applications' attempts to change screen orientation.

Logographic (e.g. Chinese) and Right-to-left languages (e.g Hebrew) should work OK. Freda will activate these features based upon the 'language' metadata it finds in the book file, and the character sets used in the book. If Freda gets it wrong, the Settings screen lets you force it to use Logographic ('characters are words') and/or RTL features (and obviously you can use 'save preset' to tell Freda just to use these settings for the individual book concerned).

Languages with combining characters (Arabic, Persian, Thai, various Indian scripts) may or may not work. I'd be interested to get feedback on any problems.

Support questions, feature suggestions and other comments to freda@turnipsoft.co.uk please (or the existing home@jim-chapman.net address will still work).

EDIT: Note for anyone who has been beta-testing earlier versions of Freda v2.0: Temporary files and settings left over from earlier beta versions may cause problems. In this case, before installing the latest build please uninstall Freda then delete the Freda program folder and all its contents (\program files\freda , or elsewhere if you installed to storage card or non-English locale).

Jim