yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Raudi1:
I don't know if it really is the best, because I haven't used anything else, but I recommend you Calibre. It was mentioned several times in this thread, but I think it should be mentioned in the first post after the formats Freda can read.

Something like:

For most other formats use Calibre and convert your books to epub with it.

That would also result in less people asking for a specific format to be supported.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] bluenote73:
Ive used several converters, although not comprehensive, Caliber outshines all. It should be listed if it isnt I agree.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] tcc13:
Hello All,

I just installed this reader along with Calibre to convert a pdf file but I can't seem to get it to display the full size of the screen (HD2). Anyone have some info as to how to do this (if possible)?

TIA
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] pox67:
I wonder if this has to do with max margins...in Freda go to Options then Book Properties and set Max Margin to No Margin. Might help.

I have seen some text book PDFs put a large white area margin around the text. Pretty annoying and I didn't find out how to fix it.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] tcc13:
I've tried all the different settings :(
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] fortunz:
Some pdfs don't really contain text, just pictures. If you go into the original pdf before conversion and try to select text (as if to copy and paste), and can't, then it's just photographs of text.

What the implications of that would be, I'm not sure. Might there be a setting in calibre that would allow you to enlarge those photos so they fill more of your screen? I don't know, but that's what I'd be looking for.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] tcc13:
Yah, I think all of my pdf's are pictures because it is a scan of a magazine :(
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Raudi1:
Then you better look for a good picture viewer.

Or you can try to let your pc convert it to pure text.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] tcc13:
Can a picture viewer read pdf files?

I've tried converting it to a rtf and other forms and viewing it on even alreader2 but still no luck. I guess I'll have to try and get a good pdf reader.

Side note.....When I convert the pdf to epub and view it via freda and tap on the screen, it enlarges the "picture" to full size. But it seems like the HTC picture viewer kicks in then because when I tap the screen it bring up the options for slide show and saving it as a contact pic. *sigh*
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Tap-and-hold the image (to bring up the menu) and then select 'view image' from the menu. That will open the image, using whatever is the default JPG-viewer on your phone.

There isn't a way to make Freda display images such that they fill the whole of the reading area (I always scale them down a bit, to make sure that there is space for some text and other elements on the screen).

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Looks like a problem with the 'Table of Contents' within the EPUB archive. I will fix this (at least to the extent of making sure that a duff TOC doesn't crash the program).

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] jasonsf:
Jim, I sent you an email this morning with the epub attached.

Jason
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] :
i have to say thank you very much for this app. It is so much more appealing to read a book with this than adobe.

Thanks again!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] damaph:
This is by far the best ebook reader I have tried for windows mobile. Thanks a lot.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] blueann_22:
I have already installed Freda but i have an older version of NET CF. I have already downloaded the file but when I run it, this error message shows: There is no application associated with "NETCFSetupv35". Run the application first, then open this file from within the application.

How do I run NETCFSetupv35? Please help. Thank you. I'm using O2 xda atom WM 5.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
It depends what type of file you've downnloaded. The cases are:

1) .EXE or .MSI : install the file

on your Desktop PC

and run it (i.e. find the file using Windows Explorer and double-click it). Follow the instructions. Connect your mobile device via ActiveSync and ActiveSync will then install NetCF onto the mobile device; or:

2) CAB : copy the file onto your mobile device and run it. If you use the standard windows mobile file explorer, that should consist of just tapping the file name. With other explorer programs (e.g. Resco) you'll have to refer to their documentation, but probably what you need to do is "Open using WCELOAD".

Hope that helps.

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] bbz_Ghost:
Found this recently and I have to concur, it's simple, efficient, and it gets the job done exceedingly well, so congrats, Jim.

Honestly I can't think of anything I'd add or hope to have added, but the idea of having an optional clock next to the page could prove very useful. I have an HP hx4700 (just sold off my Axim X51v recently) and now with the 4" VGA screen (X51v had a 3.5" VGA) and using full screen mode - in VGA of course - with Tahoma 7 I find it's got nearly a full page of text as a real paperback book would, as shown:

Works great, but I was wanting to ask: when it comes to the repaginating, since I won't be altering the font settings on a regular basis, is it possible to store the repaginate data for each book opened so when you go back to it there's no reason to redo that process (on some books, even when I have the hx4700 running full bore at 624 MHz it can still take a while) each time a book is re-opened?

Just curious, was never a coder or developer so, I thought I'd ask the question and find out.

Aside from that, so far so good. Big difference in performance from v1 to v1.1, and I was going to test that "fixed" build for the fullscreen issue but that link at Dropbox seems to be dead so I guess I missed out. Perhaps that fix was integrated into the latest 1.1 build I just installed moments ago from the website direct.

Regardless, it's my eBook reader of choice now, and I recommend it to anyone whenever I see someone asking for suggestions or recommendations for such a tool on Windows Mobile.

Thanks, and have fun, always...
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] MoonBeam HD2:
Great application Jim!

Many thanks m8 :)

You have now introduced me to the world of ebooks!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Actually Freda is already storing the pagination data, to speed up performance when a book is opened for the second time. But it still takes a while (it has to save that data into files, and reading those files takes time - particularly if they're on a storage card, since reading from a storage card is a slow operation).

Indeed, as you suspected, that fix has now been included in the version you can download via the main website link.

Thanks for using Freda,

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] jandre:
Congratulations for your reader. It's great. Until now I always used Microsoft Reader and lit files. But in the future I always will use your program.

Only one suggestion:

I'm spanish, and I like translated programs. In your next version you can support multilanguage interfaces with external traslation files. I can translate to spanish if you want.

Regards, and thanks for your great work.

edit: Another last suggestions. I like to read books in full screen mode. But if I close your program, the next time I open it, it doesn't remember full screen mode, and the book is repaged.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Thanks for the offer. Multi-lingual UI is on the list; I expect I will develop it at some stage.

Try downloading again from my dropbox (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3478831/Freda6.msi or http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3478831/Freda6.cab) to get the most up to date build. I think the problem is fixed in the latest build.

Thanks for using Freda,

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Raudi1:
I can do a German translation.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] ZiChius:
Czech translation

And I can do the translation into Czech language :cool:
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] drgrabez:
Great software!!

Best reader for my Leo!

How to make Freda to recognize .epub books on microSD?:confused:
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
It depends on what the microSD card is called on your phone.

On my phone, it's called "\Storage Card". To make my phone recognise the card, this is what I do:

1) start Freda

2) tap-and-hold to bring up the main menu

3) select Options>Application Settings

4) tap the Folders tab

5) Under the heading 'Library Folder', tap the 'Change' button

6) In the tree view that is displayed, select the 'Storage Card' item (it appears as a node underneath the top level icon representing the device)

7) The grey label at the top of the screen should now display 'Storage Card'

8) If your books are in a sub-folder on the storage card, you can select that folder using the tree view.

9) When done, tap the 'OK' button to close the tree view.

10) Tap the 'OK' button to close the 'Settings/Folders' screen.

11) To open a book,tap and hold the screen, and select Open>Library

The book list should now show the books on your storage card.

Please let me know if this does not work for you.

Thanks,

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Raudi1:
It would also be good to be able to make Freda the standard app to open epub files. I tried doing this with total commander, but the app crashes, when I try to open an epub file associated with freda.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Yes, that should work - but I can confirm that it does not. There looks to be some problem with escaping/quoting characters in command-line arguments.

I will fix it ...

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] blueann_22:
Hi Jim,

Thank you very much for your help. I have searched the net and found a NETCF3.5 cab from modaco website. Since then, I've been enjoying using Freda. Finally, I have already finsihed 3 books. This is a great application and free too! More power!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] ajac:
guessing this program has issues with large files grr back to looking
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
It doesn't really. For example, it will satisfactorily read:

War and Peace

The Bible

The Collected Works of Shakespeare

What large file is giving you trouble? If you email me a problematic EPUB (at home@jim-chapman.net) I will check it out and resolve any problems.

There are two 'size-related' problems that could be affecting you:

- if the individual chapters are too long, it may cause problems (the recommendation for EPUB books is that no one chapter should be longer than 300k, and chapters larger than 1MB may cause difficulties for Freda, if you don't have much free memory on your phone).

- if the book has more than 2,000 chapters, Freda won't load it correctly (I have yet to encounter a book with more than 2,000 chapters).

Please let me know if I can help further,

Thanks,

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] filar:
Support for zipped txt files

Hi Jim,

I have been using version 1.1 for a while with no problems. Really great.

But very many of my books are in txt format, inside a zip file. This is great for a portable device as text files are very small when compressed. And I have a lot of them.

I see the zip files listed in the Freda library, but when I open one, it starts loading it but gets a problem and aborts. From the log file I see:

"in Majestic12.HTMLparser.LoadFromFile(String sFileName)

in Freda.Form1.LoadBookFromEpubFile(String epubPathName)"

This probably means that Freda loads the zipped text file using the ePub reader function. (I suppose that will work with zipped html but I have not tested.)

I would really love it if Freda could see that the contents of the zip file is a txt file and not an html file, and load it as text.

This would not really be to add support for a new format, I suppose it can be solved by adding a little logic before calling the existing parsers.

I hope you think this is a good idea.

Fred
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] mino_gb:
Great software, thanks :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Albondigas:
Thank you very much for this great ePub-reader app!

I’ve tested this for some time now and came upon some (slight) things:

- Upon X-closing the application (while in Menu Options) the upper taskbar is not showing it’s icons anymore but a remnant of the upper line of the text of the eBook just read. Tapping on the upper taskbar brings back the eBook, tapping elsewhere restores the upper taskbar to it’s normal state.

- I’ve some problems with the TOC of this (Gutenberg) ePub:

http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11208/pg11208-images.epub

It looks awkward. But the main problem is that it’s not directing me to the chapters clicked on (far away from them). In HTC’s Reader (Tab) the TOC of this book has no problems, so I wonder what possible syntax errors in the TOC are causing this.

- Is there any way to alter the layout of theApplication Settings screen so that it’s more finger-friendly? I have a HD2 and can’t get to all the settings with my fingers alone. So I really need the capacitative stylus I bought recently (but that’s not ideal).

BTW If you come around to making a multi-language version, I’d love to make the Dutch translation.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Thanks for the feedback, and the problem reports.

Here is what I can tell you:

For the next version, I will reorganise this. But to be honest, the settings screens in WinMo6.x are always going to be ugly, because I rely on the .Net Compact Framework for those screens, and .NetCF screens just are not that pretty. Expect something nicer for WinPhone7 ;)

Thanks for the offer. Duly noted.

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Yes, I can see how this might be useful. I'll take a look at it, for the next version.

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Albondigas:
Alas, I do use the 804-build. The problem, however, is not very significant. I just wanted you to know.

Yes, the TOC shows on my HD2 too, despite the äwkward screen. But it doesn't function properly. For instance, if I tap on Chapter 50 (L) it brings me to Chapter 21. I presume this is due to the (resources) problems you mentioned, because the same TOC in another reader-program behaves correctly.

So I hope that changing the TOC to tree-view control will resolve this.

Thank you for your response. I take it I have to live with the Application Settings screen :). Don't know if I will be a fan of WinPhone7, though :p
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Well, I will be doing some work on the settings screens for WM6.x to make them more finger-friendly. But it will mainly consist of making the controls larger, rather than making them fundamentally better-designed (because the .NetCF WinForms controls are just not very well-designed for stylus-free use).

Thanks for using Freda,

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] fortunz:
I probably won't be a WinPho7 fan. I'm not worried about it since I plan on owning my TP2 for a lot of years, but I hope Android will have some readers with a very similar feature set. A little googling tells me something called mono can compile .net for android, so maybe I can keep using it after I switch.

Out of curiosity Jim, will winmo6 freda be developed alongside series 7 for a while? I gather the new OS likes .net stuff, so would you be able to reuse most all of the code except the GUI?

I'd understand if you stopped supporting winmo6 for future upgrades at some point down the road, especially since it's open source and someone else could pick it up and tweak it for 6, just curious what your plans might be.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Although both Android/Mono and WP7S do use .NetCF, neither of them are compatible with Windows.Forms (which is the GUI framework for WM6). So yes, you are right, the non-GUI code from Freda can be ported to build new Freda variants for Android/Mono or WP7S. But the GUI has to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Right now, I am working on restructuring Freda's code, so that the GUI part is cleanly separated from the rest. It is turning out to be rather a significant amount of work, unfortunately. But once that's done, I will certainly work on building a version for WP7S. WM6 development will also continue for a while too.

I have not really looked at doing an Android port - in the long run, who knows ...

Cheers,

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] godsellerhk:
Hi Jim,

Just a little update for u, I am using build 804. And now all the epub files has no Asian characters overlapping problem anymore.

PS. the last build (795 I remembered) has still the characters overlapping problem. Hope it might help for your development.

Thanks for your effort!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] lath07:
this is a nice app.can even read chinese txt/htm using it.but loading is a bit long when i tested using a 760kb html file.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] rottttman:
chm reader

may be you can add chm format on your app?

thanks
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] fortunz:
If it helps, you can probably use Calibre to convert those books to a more mainstream format.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] TheGoD:
Hi Jim, really nice appliciation you develope there. How ever, it seems that the search option isn't working on my build (805). Everytime I search for something it gives me the message that it needs to shutdown because an error occured.

Other than that, I'd like to voice a small request: Could u add the possibility to directly go to a certain page by entering the number of it? At least for me the slider u got right now isn't the ideal solution.

Plus, add the version's number to the download selection of your webpage, please;)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Exitao:
I like this app very much. I'm using a Blackstone which made me finally abandon Mobipocket and your reader app seems to be the best replacement I've found.

My only suggestions are:

1. Can it be prevented from going back in the text when my screen rotates? It usually goes back about a page's worth of text. I'm not sure if it's relevant, but I have external leading set to 0.

2. Constant pagination is annoying. Unless I've changed parameters like text or screen size, it shouldn't need to repaginate every time the screen rotates.

3. Occasionally, screen rotation causes all the text to justify, with big spaces between words. Re-opening the book resets it, but it's bizarre... and well forces me to stop reading so I can reload the book.

4. It needs a WVGA resolution icon. I'm cool with the KISS style, but the pixelation makes my quick links look ghetto.

Thanks for this great app!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Could you, next time you get that error, find the log file (it'll be in a file called 'logfile.txt', in the same folder as the Freda.exe program file) - and email it to me at home@jim-chapman.net. The search function is working OK on my phone, so clearly there's some problem that is device-specific, and the logfile might help me track it down.

OK I'll see what I can do for the next version.

Will do. But it will be some time before I release the next version. You can, anyway, install AppToDate, and it will make sure you always have the most up to date version of Freda installed.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
It's doing that because its logic says "when I change page geometry, I want to ensure that whatever word appeared first on the page before the geometry change will still appear somewhere on the page after the geometry change". Typically that means you move backwards a bit. I'm working to improve that logic for the next version.

I'm working to make repagination go faster, but it is necessary when you rotate the screen (because the line-length changes when you rotate the screen).

Yep, it's a bug in the multi-threading model. I will fix it for the next version.

Fair point. I think the icon needs a fundamental re-design ... and it will get one soon.

Thanks for using Freda,

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] fortunz:
Could Freda paginate for both landscape and portrait at the same time (or perhaps consecutively)? And for that matter, full screen and not consecutively.

It seems like Freda does a lot more work than other readers in the pagination category (though I admit I don't know what every reader I've ever used does under the surface, maybe Freda is just more honest about what it does). I seem to recall that you do cache something, but it still paginates every time I open it, and every time the screen rotates. Wouldn't it be more efficient (for battery life) to paginate each book once, save a pagination file, and just have freda go open that file each time it opens that book? Surely it wouldn't take as much juice to open a premade pagination file as it does to reconstruct the same information each time.

Hopefully that doesn't sound too much like complaining, and hopefully my assumptions aren't too far out in left field. Freda's tops and a very impressive program. Thanks :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] bluenote73:
I love freda, but frequency and length of repagination is the main blemish in my eyes at the moment. I know Jim has put a lot of work into that area already, but Im confident he will find a way to improve existing processes.

thanks again for your work Jim!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
It could ... there is a trade-off though, since the pagination data files are quite large. I'm giving this whole area of the design some more thought at the moment.

I have just become aware of one potential problem - When you open a book for the first time, Freda saves its pagination data in temporary files (with names ending ".DAT"). When you open the same book for the second time, Freda will use the data from the DAT file(s), so it does not need to reload the book file(s). But, before doing this, Freda checks "is the book file more recent than the DAT file?" - in case you downloaded a new version of the book file (in which case, the DAT file would not be valid). And it seems that, on some devices, that date-stamp check is producing the wrong result. That would certainly result in excessive amounts of repaginating; I am investigating.

If you suspect this is happening to you, you can check Freda's log (the logfile.txt file in the program folder). In this case it will contain messages like "EPUB file ... is more recent than temp folder ... ; erasing temp folder".

Not at all; as I am busily working on the next version, all suggestions for improvements are entirely welcome!

Thanks,

Jim