yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
I used no external libraries. Actually, the hyphenation algorithm is primitive (it just consists of a rule like "if a word is longer than 7 characters, then allow a hyphenation break any place where a consonant follows a vowel, unless it's too near the start or end of the word"). All the complexity comes from the need to handle these 'hyphenation break' points correctly (when it comes to rendering glyphs, aligning text, searching for words, labelling bookmarks, doing dictionary lookup, etc.) .

Using a more sophisticated hyphenation algorithm would be a reasonable next step in the development, but I need something quick. That is because Freda's layout algorithm will invoke the code for finding hyphenation points on *every word* in the book, not just on words that potentially overlap the edge of the screen (it does this so that it can pre-cache as much layout information as possible).
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] deedee:
As someone who is returning to eBooks I revisited this software on my HD Mini but I have one major problem. Whenever I click on the "Add folder" to browse my SD Card, Freda crashes.

Logfile attached.

I did try an earlier version and then the dialog opens but with no folder shown.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] sebasbabel:
What is the name of your SD card? there are some problems with some card names such as the name of the memory cards in Spanish, which carries a point
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] deedee:
All in English so it's "Storage Card"

Not sure if it's relevant but when I go to "My Device" in File Explorer the very top is "\"
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Not entirely clear what is going on here. Could you contact me by email (jim@turnipsoft.co.uk) and I will send you a test build of the program, that will produce some more diagnostic info in the log file.

Thanks,

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] chemsucks2:
First i would like to thank you for this awesome program :) got me addicted to books again :P ..but lately i can't use the program anymore ..whenever i open it and choose the book that i want to read the program always crashes saying that Freda has encountered an error and has to close it self ..i have attached my log file of the program hoping it would help..i been googling everywhere looking for an answer but can't find any.please help !
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] altae:
I also want to thank you for the great program. What bothers me is the fact that Freda has been crashing frequently. At the moment I am reading a book that is approximately 5.4 MB in size (the file). Whenever Freda crashes it says something like "out of memory exception".

I use an Xperia X1 with WM 6.1 stock rom, German language. Freda and the book are both located on my storage card which is called "Speicherkarte" in German.

Any ideas how to solve this problem? It's not a game changer but it is quit annoying having to restart Freda after approximately 5 pages of reading.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
It could be that one of Freda's temporary files is damaged (or perhaps Freda has just run out of space for temporary files). You can try deleting Freda's temporary files:

Using file explorer, find the folder \program files\freda\temp and delete everything in it (but don't delete the folder itself).

Let me know if that works.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
There is an earlier version of the program that seems to give better memory performance (though it does have some other issues). You can try downloading it at:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3478831/FredaCab_2_0_101.CAB

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] altae:
Thanks for the advice. I will take a look and report back.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] nspect:
Freda and AppToDate

I am a new user of Freda. My AppToDate fails with Freda every time. Does Freda still work with AppToDate?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] altae:
I realised something concerning the crashes I described. It's kind of wierd but they do not occur when I read a book in landscape mode. So maybe that's the solution for everyone who has been encountering such crashes.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] kabannister:
Any idea if it is possible to add Project Gutenberg to the catalogue?

I tried their OPDS site (m.gutenberg.org) but got nothing.

Okay so the Lucidor site is back up and that works but still the same issue of only seeing the first page.

I have V2.0
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
I will take a look - it should be a simple enough fix (I only didn't look at it sooner because of deadline pressure on other projects!)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] jpijper:
Thank you very much. Your Freda is invaluable to me on my brand new Omnia 7! Your work is much appreciated. As a developer myself, I have a picture of how much you have to be putting into this project.

Respect!

Jan Roelof
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] kabannister:
Thanks bro take you time :), this will just be the icing on the cake for a great up for us who still use Wm6.5
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Unit ZER0:
Older E-book Compatibility?

I'm currently using msreader for my ebooks, which cannot read the "epub" format, and I have a question: can your program read ".lit" files? If so, I can lose the old program, and switch to this one, which obviously has more features.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] jjollyroger:
.lit format is property of microsoft, I'm not sure that is possinle to made a .lit reader without MS permission.. anyway it's something completely different from .epub, so it would require a totally new reader..

If you still like to use or have many books in .lit format take a look here - I explain an installation workaround to avoid MS Reader graphic issues on latest WM, and in post #3 there is a conversion tool (easiest than calibre) from .lit to .html ,to quickly port your books to a Freda compatible format.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Unit ZER0:
I'm pretty sure if you develop a plugin to read .lit files that does not involve reverse engineering Ms-Reader, you should be OK. I do not have an HD2, I own an Axim X51v, running a custom 6.1 ROM, and my copy of Ms-Reader works just fine. The other reason that I suspect there would be no issues is that I can create .lit files for free, using a .lit creator from OverDrive.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Thanks to those who already commented on the technicalities; I agree with what you say.

But in addition, there is the software engineering angle: if I develop Freda code for reading lots of different book formats, I make the program larger and more complex, meaning more debugging and testing effort and slowing (even more!) the speed of development.

I opted for EPUB because it is the emerging open standard for ebooks, and added HTML because it's trivial once you've implemented EPUB. Then I added TXT because I personally have a large collection of books in that format.

I've been asked to add MOBI, LIT, FB2 and even PDF capabilities to Freda, and in principle this is do-able (though in the case of PDF it would cost). But I have always considered that it's not worth doing so, because of that software engineering complexity point. If you think differently (and can find a C# programmer who agrees with you) you can download Freda's source code (there is a link in the manual) and develop a new version of the program; it is open source (GPL2). [of course that applies only to the WM version; right now, the Windows Phone 7 program is not open source, though it is free]
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Unit ZER0:
I understand where you're coming from, in terms of programming complexity, and program "weight". The reason I even asked is that there really is no true "multi-format" e-reader, sort of the literary equivalent of TCPMP (A multi-format media player that can play almost anything). If such a program exists, please point me in the right direction. (On a side note, the TCPMP core program is actually quite small, what makes it bigger are the "codecs" or plugins for different file types. If Freda was designed the same way, you could keep the program small, and users could install "codecs" for only the formats they needed, or wanted to read...)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] dreamH6:
Build 101 works correclty on my Samsung Omnia II. Thanks a lot!!!

Please put this build on the official download page for Omnia II owners, I passed some months bofore finding this tread and have again your wanderful reader after changing my phone.

By the way, the latest build works fine on Omnia I
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Sabardeyn:
A while back I changed my phone's OS - uninstalling Freda in the process. Now I would like to re-install the software. Except I had a problem downloading it.

If you follow the updated info link on the first message in this thread, you go to Turnipsoft for "manual" and "download links". On the Turnipsoft site, their is a download link to Windows Marketplace.

Except that you end up at Zune. But I don't want Zune. I don't want their software. I don't want to download it. I don't want to install it. I don't want to have to use it. all I want is Freda.

Searching with Google, I was able to find an alternate download site. But I thought you should know that this... "follow the links" system... is not user friendly currently.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Since Freda is available now for both Windows Phone 7 and Windows Mobile 6.x, 5, etc., I needed to make a decision about which user group I wanted to confuse less, WP7 or WinMo.

In the end I decided that the main site for Freda should be the Windows Phone one, and I just included a note on that site "Note: there is an earlier version of Freda for Windows Mobile 6.x (and 5, 2003 and WinCE). See here.", with a link to the old WinMo software. I'd recommend the download links there as your best bet for getting the WM6 version of Freda. Google might lead you to earlier versions of the CAB file.

Sorry for the confusion.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] NanaSarah:
One workaround for this might be to get a copy of Calibre on your PC/Mac/Linux device and convert the .lit files to epub. Calibre, which is free, will read and can convert nearly any format so long as the file does not have DRM protection. You can find it here http://calibre-ebook.com/. I've used it for a year or so now and have been very happy with it.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] kabannister:
Hey there,

Just wondering if you've done any update to the software, I've been away for a while,

All the best,

K.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] als01:
Just got my first Windows phone (Samsing Omnia I8700). Downloaded Freda from the Windows market, everything seems fine except for one very annoying thing. If a book is under 1 mb (roughly) is size, after a while the reader finally processes it and displays the page numbers. But I have a couple of books just under 1,5 mb and Freda seems to be constantly processing them never getting to the page numbers. I can still read, of course, but the constantly running dots at the screen bottom are rather annoying.

Any advice?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] NanaSarah:
Puzzled: 2 books that won't show em dash

:confused:I have a puzzle. I downloaded Gutenberg's only 2 Agatha Christie books in epub. Both have a number of em dashes (Alt 0151) in the text. In both books, the em dashes are replaced by this combination: â€” (0226 0128 0148).

I have tried all 5 encoding options, with and without "override encoding" set. I've tried several different fonts with various encodings. I've deleted the files and installed freshly downloaded files.

I checked the files in Calibre and in Barnes & Noble reader for PC, and the display is correct in them. I've even opened the files in Sigil to see if I could find something in the style sheet that might be causing this, but I'm new to CSS and don't see anything.

I found another book from Baen's free books that happens to use em dashes, and that one displays just fine.

Clearly I am missing something. ... Probably something obvious. Can someone tell me where to look or point me in a new direction?

Freda 2, build 104

************

Turns out there are a number of Gutenberg books with em dashes that don't display properly, and the Baen free book is here: http://www.webscription.net/p-469-with-the-lightnings.aspx. I can't figure out if there is something basic in all these books that is messing with the display, or if the problem is Freda's interpretation of the code.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Since you mention 'running dots', my guess is that you are running Freda on Windows Phone 7. In that case, can you send me Freda's log file (tap the 'email for support' button on the support screen), and I will see if it offers any clues. Alternatively (or as well) you could email me one of the epub files that is causing the problem (email to jim@turnipsoft.co.uk), since it sounds like this could be a problem with Freda failing to find one of the files within the epub archive).

Thanks,

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Sorry, no progress yet (it turned out to be more complex than I expected - and my available spare time is currently taken up with preparing a build for Windows Phone 7.1 Mango). I will get to it ...
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
I will take a look (sorry for the slow answer - I have been away on vacation, and away from internet access).
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] bummler:
which freda version has the autoscroll?is it the best ebook rerader for windows mobile?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] KUR0I:
Just take the latest version on his Homepage:

http://www.turnipsoft.co.uk/freda/freda6.htm

It's definitely the best epub-Reader for Windows Mobile.:D
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] iheartpurple:
Hi, i would really love to try v2 too:D:D:D:D
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] :
lol me to, nearly every free ap is good :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
The version that's on the website is v2. Freda (for Windows Mobile 6/5/2003) has been v2 for quite a while now.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] febry.ap:
hi, thank you for creating this amazing app. how can I use the dictionary option? can you suggest a dictionary app that is compatible with freda's dictionary function?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
I know that it works with SlovoEd. Does anyone have any other suggestions?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] febry.ap:
Well, looks like LingvoSoft Dictionary works flawlessly with Freda..perfect! :cool:
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] burnlea:
I can only find Lingvosoft translation dictionaries. Have you found an English reference dictionary?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] febry.ap:
I use English_Indonesian dictionary, actually..but I wish to find some english reference (*.dic file) though, to add it to the Lingvosoft's dictionary library. Anyone?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] x2h:
I downloaded from the official website and installed it to my storage card. It cannot open my ebooks though, whenever I tried to. It just gives me a blue screen and a waiting cursor. I have to remove it from my system. Thanks for the effort though.

BTW I am currently using Alreader for most formats, and Mobipocket to read .mobi formats.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Freda version 2.4 Beta Test

The next version of Freda for WP7 is now available for beta testing. There are a bunch of new features in the beta, including:

BOOK SOURCES SHOWN AS LIVE 'HUB' TILES

The 'sources' page now shows the list of sources using a scrollable

table of live tiles (with the latest book and the bookshelf appearing as

the first two tiles). Flick this to the left to see the bookshelf, and

flick left again to get to the book source you most recently looked at.

If you want to go back to the old 'expandable list' style of book source

display, use the 'advanced settings' tab, and adjust the setting 'use

hub tiles for sources list'.

HIGH PERFORMANCE GRAPHICS FOR BOOK DISPLAY

Freda now uses 'XNA' style graphics for displaying book text, so the

display is much faster (flick the the book text to the side, and you

will see the pages flicker past rapidly). The display of text is

marginally less clear, and could go wrong for some special characters;

if you're having problems with it, you can switch back to the old style

of page rendering by adjusting the 'use XNA graphics' setting.

CUSTOMISABLE PAGING BEHAVIOUR FOR DROPBOX AND OPDS BOOK SOURCES

When a book source contains many entries, Freda will split the list of

entries over multiple pages, with a 'next' button at the bottom of each

page. The previous version of Freda always put 20 items on each page,

which was sometimes cumbersome. This version puts 100 items on each

page, and the '100' value is customisable using the 'folder items per

page' setting.

BOOKS CAN BE PINNED TO THE START SCREEN

To pin a book to the Windows Phone start screen, long-tap on the book's

entry in the bookshelf and select 'pin to start'.

OTHER FIXES

If you've just followed a link in a book, the 'back' button will take

you back where you came from. The bookmarks list has been improved.

GIF images in a book are now displayed correctly. Books with faulty

'container.xml' files will now be opened. Deleting a book from the bookshelf now deletes it completely (so you can download it again). Various layout issues have been fixed.

If you're interested in helping beta test the app, please email me at beta@turnipsoft.co.uk. I'll need you to send me the email address that is associated with the Live ID that you used when you registered your phone, so I can add you to Microsoft's list of 'authorised beta testers' for Freda.

Thanks,

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] :
Link to Freda's WinCE version to be found here

http://www.turnipsoft.co.uk/freda/manual/download.htm

is dead.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Can you check again please - it seems to be working for me.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] :
Could download FredaCAB_2_0_104_WinCE.CAB und install it. Resume: This compilation doesn't work under CE 6.0 Professional, neither using .NET CF 2.0 nor using .NET CF 3.5.

Using .NET CF 3.5 got error:

Freda.exe NullReferenceException at Feda2.Program.Main(String[]args)

Using .NET CF 2.0 got a lot of errors:

will not explicitely report them all here.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Could you send me the program log file please, and I will see if I can figure out what is going wrong (my guess is that will be the traditional WinCE issues with memory allocation and the order of loading DLLS, but looking at the logfile might help me confirm or refute that guess).

The log file is in the freda program file directory, called logfile.txt

You can email me at jim@turnipsoft.co.uk

Thanks,
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] :
Such a logfile doesn't exist, means will not be created - for what reasons ever.

If it's of any interest:

a) OpenNETCF 2.3.0.21 is installed on my device. The 3 OpenNETCF libraries that come by default with Freda 1) rely on .NET CF 2.0 and 2) expect a file machine.config to be present in \Windows, which since OpenNETCF 2.x no longer is required to be present. Btw, it doesn't matter whether these 3 DLLs are deleted in Freda's folder, or not, the error that arises when Freda gets started - and already reported to you - is the same.

b) That's contents of file Freda.exe.config

<configuration><startup><supportedRuntime version="v3.5.7283"/></startup></configuration>
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Freda update v2.4

An update for Windows Phone 7 Freda has just been released. New in this update (v 2.4):

Book sources are shown as hub tiles

Book display uses high performance XNA graphics

Books can be pinned to the start screen

Paging behaviour for book sources is customisable

Numerous additional features and fixes for formatting, performance and stability issues.

Freda features:

Reads ePub (DRM-free), HTML and TXT format books

Customisable controls, fonts and colours

Bookmarks and annotations

Integrates with on-line catalogs - Feedbooks, Smashwords, Gutenberg ...

Connects to your DropBox account for downloading book files

Links to your Calibre book library

Can download books from any website (including the SkyDrive web interface) using an in-application browser

Share comments, likes and dislikes using twitter, facebook or email

I'd like to offer a big vote of thanks to all the Freda beta-testing team; thanks to your feedback and suggestions, this is the best Freda version yet. There are still some slots available for additional beta-testers, so anyone interested in joining the beta-test team and helping with future updates, please contact beta@turnipsoft.co.uk.

The next update, 2.5, is expected in early 2012, and will include full integration with SkyDrive, and a new 'download manager' system, so you can leave books to download 'in the background' while you do something else.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] burnlea:
Freda update 2.4

Are you considering upgrading the Windows 6/6.5 version of Freda to incorporate any of the new features introduced into the Windows 7 version?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Well, I will certainly back-port some of the easier features (various fixes to book formatting and layout, and improvements to the reading of OPDS catalogs). But most features (memory management, book display, DropBox/SkyDrive, user interface, internet access generally) are not at all easy to port, because WP7 is so very different from WM6 (and earlier).
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] thunder15:
Can chm be read?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
For CHM, I suggest you install Calibre on your PC (Mac, Linux, whatever) (http://www.calibre-ebook.com/) and then tell it to convert your CHM books into EPUB format.

Freda only reads EPUB, TXT and HTML formats.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] raiter75:
Thanks, but I prefer to read book in e-reader. Good job/
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] vuphuonganh:
Great program. Would be even better if we can turn page using Vol Up/Down like Kindle on Android. Kindle Windows phone is missing that feature too.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
It's not a feature that Microsoft let us implement - there is no API for intercepting volume up/down actions and re-purposing them. Besides, I can see that it could be confusing for users who wanted to read a book and listen to music simultaneously :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] kabannister:
This is good news for those of us on WM6.5.

Just wondering if the OPDS problem with Project Gutenberg (First Page Error) has been fixed, I checked the Binary but looks like the same version that I have already.

Thanks :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Sorry, no, there has been no update yet. Windows Phone 7 continues to take up my available development effort.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] bummler:
something new?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] the-wrangler:
Hey, any chance you're thinking of making a Windows 8 app? I've had to buy a kindle book so far to tide me over lol. Was just curious. Thanks again, its a great app!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Yes, I am planning to do that. Not yet sure when it will be released, though (right now, I am working on releasing the latest version of the Windows Phone 7 app).
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Freda launched on Android

Just in case anyone is still following this thread: Freda is now available on Android. See: https://xdaforums.com/android/apps-games/app-freda-ebook-reader-available-android-t3711102