yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Which operation exactly is slow? Opening a book is slow (opening epub books has to be slow, because it involves decompressing a ZIP archive), but other operations should be fast, particularly after you have already opened the book once and Freda has made all its DAT files. If it's slow to process a book the second time you open it, that may mean there is a problem with file access permissions on your phone and I would be interested to try debugging it - so please send me your log file (logfile.txt in the Freda program folder) and I will take a look.

If Alreader read EPUB files, it would be slow too.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Hundera:
Hi, IMHO it's fast enough. I don't see anything that needs to speed up.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] hosamn:
Thank You Very Much Jim!! :):):)

Indeed it is SlovoED :D

And Actually The "|res" switch -----DID IT------ (For My Great Joy):D:D

And it launched the resident too, not the main app

for reference, mine was "\Program Files\Slovoed\Oxford.exe|res"

Jim.. YOU ARE THE MAN

Please add this to your help pages to help others..

Thank you very much once more

PS1.how did you get that "res" :rolleyes:

PS2. you didn't explain |lookup='{0}'
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] kamerunka:
It starts slow

It is slow when loads a book and than when you are changing font size, maybe the reason is that you are trying to get the number of the screens on the particular device.

Changing font size in alreader is instanteneous, maybe because it does not count pages depending on the screen size. This approach does not show exact number of the screens, but you are on the same page on different devices with different screen sizes which for me is better because I am using PC, 5" device and 3.2" phone to read the same book.

please find the log file below

p.s. I am changing font sizes frequently depending on how long I am reading, light, if I have glasses or not etc.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] blackwaterstout:
Well I gave freda a try and it's pretty good. Just a little disappointed that it can't read pdf. I'd like to convert to it full time but would like to have one reader that does it all.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] dralex88:
Learn so hard to convert from CHM (All my ebooks in CHM or PDB) to EPUB. :confused: After sucessfully convert and confirm able to read with Calibre, open with Freda and immediately error. Ganong's 23th edition.EPUB (26MB).:(
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] johnvn:
Single line

Dear Jim,

in the new version (FredaCab_2_0_104_WM6) I only get single lines per page. I tried epub and html files. In the older version everything worked smoothly. Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks, John
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Raudi1:
When the problem appears with different files, there has to be a problem with your settings. Have you tried using a standard preset?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] ghynett:
Thanks!!

Hi Jim,

your app is my favourite app!!!!

Freda is really good epub reader, in my HD (with cooked WM6.5) is working perfectly!! I like very much the scrolling on turning page... make me sensation of reading real book!! I added some texture for make the page as a coarse paper!!

Keep up your great work!!! :)

I donate as a thanks and for support your work!!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Raptordin:
I installed it and it worked fine, then suddenly it started giving me the following error "Freda Working files have become inaccessible"
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] obaz:
How about fb2 support?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Exitao:
Out of curiosity, what are you using to convert CHM files?

I think Jim might need more information.

Do you have Freda installed on the device or the storage card?

Did this message just come up while in the middle of reading, when you opened the app or did you minimise it to perform other operations and get the message after you returned to Freda?

----------------------------------------------------------------------

JIM:

I have recently returned to my Kaiser and find that there is occasionally some hesitancy when changing pages. Sometimes it's a delayed response, sometimes it just doesn't recognise the input.

This can occur from any input source, D-pad, keyboard or screen, but occurs less with the screen. And possibly occurs more with books over 1,000 "pages" (I've never opened a book more than 1,400 -pages). But I rarely have books smaller than 800 pages and it does occur on those smaller books too.

This occurs at times when Freda is the only non-system application running.

I have Freda installed on the device and I have more than 65MB free in both storage/program.

I'm using Freda 2_0_104.

Observations/Suggestions:

Going from a WVGA to a QVGA device, I find the icons/buttons to be a bit large for a QVGA device when accessing the menu. There are 2+ rows of buttons that can't fit and require scrolling.

Perhaps if you could find a way for Freda to maintain the full screen when in the menu mode, and/or add a small(er) icon option for smaller screened devices?

I made some suggestion of this before, but I would really like to be able to have Freda access fonts from a folder on the storage card. This would allow users to read with their preferred ClearType font, or even foreign language/symbol fonts.

Thanks again for this wonderful app,

eX
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] kamerunka:
what is the problem to copy your fonts to \windows\fonts directory?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] ghynett:
convert ebooks in epub

Try to use a online converter (http://www.online-convert.com) it works fine for me!!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Exitao:
Because I, like many people, am very jealous of my system memory.

Have you never wondered why so many apps are modified to run from the storage card?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
That message means that Freda's folder (maybe the program folder, maybe the temporary folder) have vanished. That can happen if they are on a storage card and the storage card has been removed. BTW sometimes the storage card will appear to be removed if you plug the phone into a PC (if the sync setting is to treat the storage card as an external drive plugged into the PC, then when you plug the phone into the PC, then the card will disappear from the phone's file system). In that case, the card will reappear when you disconnect the phone from the PC.

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
But any font change operation on Windows Mobile 6.x will involve copying the font files to the \Windows folder. You can't really avoid that because it's how the OS works. Some applications may hide this fact from you, by not telling you that this is what they are doing when you add a custom font, but 'under the hood' they're putting fonts in that folder.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] jjollyroger:
hi Jim, could you please tell me the correct registry keys to enable autorotation for freda?

I found these using a rotation software

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SoftwareHTC\HTCSENSOR\GSensor\W hiteList]

"Freda"=#NETCF_AGL_BASE_

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\HTC\HTCSENSOR\GSensor\M oduleName]

"Freda"=\Scheda di memoria\Programmi\Freda\Freda.exe

but the "white list" key seems to be a generic that enables autorotation on some others softwares too
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
You're right - the 'Whitelist' mechanism is a general feature that will enable auto-rotation for any application. The exact registry settings for it will depend on which WM version and which OEM build you are using. So settings that work for my phone might not work on yours. I'd recommend using G-Sensor (or a similar app) to manage it for you.

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] pox67:
I have used Aldiko for a couple of weeks now and find it inferior to Freda. Aldiko's bookshelf is cumbersome to navigate, importing books is painful, I find it lags (HTC HD2), I don't like the sideways navigation and there is no clock and page number at the bottom of the screen!

So if you did decide to do an Android version of Freda I would buy it :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] 996r:
repeated lines

UPDATE

Sorry - Just ignore this.

I've got a corrupted epub file.

Excellent app by the way....thanks
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] jjollyroger:
no news about this? could any advanced user help?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] .mau.:
which CSS is used?

I am writing an e-book, and I tried to look at it with Freda (on a Samsung SGH-i780); but there is something strange in the rendering of text.

I understand that Freda has no support for super- and subscripts, but the rendering is different from the one I see on Calibre.

My CSS stylesheet is a bit strange, since there is support for screen, handheld and print; but the result I see is still different.

Jim, do you honor display:none? when there are more styles, which one do you choose? (BTW, my stylesheet may be found at (http) xmau.com/mate/liof/ebook.css together with my ebook... but the latter is in Italian, so I don't think you could be interested in it!)

TIA, .mau.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
I don't honour 'display: none', and generally Freda's support for style-sheets is limited. When a style is defined more that once, I would expect Freda to use the later definition (but I haven't checked; I could be mistaken). And I don't think Freda will understand your "@media screen {" and "@media handheld {" constructs.

I do plan, at some point, to enhance Freda's processing of style sheets, but it is a big job, and it is not my first priority at the moment - my available 'coding time' is being devoted to the Windows Phone 7 platform for the next few weeks at least.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] .mau.:
Thanks for your quick answer!

I understand that stylesheet support is not your priority (after all, usually ebooks do not have strange formulas, so it would be pointless to work hard on them); I just found it odd that display:none (which after all means no rendering) was not honoured. No problem at all, of course: if I would ever want to browse my ebook, I would just build a customized version :-)

Thanks again, .mau.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Fif23:
Been doing a lot of reading on the Freda and HD2 lately, just want to thank you Mr Chapman for the wonderful application, the current BEST in it's class.

PLEASE, do continue to provide support and updates to the WM6 Freda.

Keep up this awesome work ! I'm really impressed.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] pupakota:
Could someone make list of currently supported filetypes?

..i hope it is not whole list?

You know, i asked same thing at version 1.1, i wonder, if anything changed since then.

Does it still relying on external converter instead of internal multi-filetype support?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] pmarini0:
dictionary lookup

Anyone used Mobile Systems MSDict from within Freda?

I managed to start the dictionary program, but can't pass the word to lookup as an argument.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] bluenote73:
Hey jim

Congrats on the latest version. Ive just had time today to upgrade, and v2 final2 is very nice.

Just wanted to let you know that it feels like there is a bug related to repagination. While I can paginate, and finish paginating a book, causing multiple repaginations can lose ny place, and the more I interrupt repagination with new repagination the chances of hitting low memory mode become 100%. I cant imagine this wouldnt be reproducible for you, all it seems to take is interrupting fredas 'thinking time'. Anyways thought Id report in for what its worth.

great job as always.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] -Jonny-:
Just paste, the word has already been copied. I don't think there is another way as program doesn't take commands.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Yes, there is no change since v1.1. My reasoning is this:

1) There are good converter programs out there (I recommend Calibre)

2) If I implemented multi-format support on Freda, it would make the program much bigger and more complicated, and buggier. It is already complicated and buggy enough ;)

3) Freda is a spare-time project for me, and adding new file types is a big job; it doesn't feel like the best way of using my limited amount of available Freda development hours.

4) It's open-source, so if anyone really wants .Mobi support, .Lit support or whatever, they can add it.

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] stuntdouble:
Loving the latest revision of Freda, Jim. Very nice work.

I have one small problem lately though. I've converted a few ebooks using Calibre and whenever some of these are viewed in Freda there are hyphens which seem to separate each word into syllables. I've converted files before without this problem so I was wondering if I have accidentally changed some setting inside Freda itself, or perhaps some setting in Calibre. Has anyone else experienced this before, as it makes reading a chore? Any help appreciated.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] feanor91:
Hi

Great Job. It's the best reader I've tried so far.

Meanwhile, I have a little problem:

I use calibre2Odps to create a "web site" to put my Calibre library online. In Freda parameters, I put the link of the xml file that results of calibre2Odps conversion. To note that I use ODPS level of compatibility in Calibre2Odps, whatever it wants to say...If I try to add eBooks from my library to Freda, I see the different links of my libraty bu when I reached a book, I have nothing : no cover, no descrtipion, no link to downlod it...Nothing.

Besides that, if I opent my library into Opera, for examples, I can see all my stuff.

Any Idea?

Best regards.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
No ideas as such - but if you're using the latest version of Calibre, you don't need to do all the Calibre2Opds stuff - you just need to start the Calibre Content Server and then tell Freda to look for its catalog at http://(your_PCs_IP_Address):8080/opds

For details of how to do all this, check out the Calibre forum on MobileRead.

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] feanor91:
Hi

OK thanks

I know for content server from Calibre, but to use it I need to let my computer on, so, it's obvious. I prefer to use a "cloud" solution as calibre2opds can offered me.

Meanwhile, I seek by myself, and I think it's an XML interpretation problem, because in book xml files, there is all infos needed to display datas.

but freda doesn't show it nor IE or Firefox too, they get that xml files as a RSS feed...

I will see with calibre2opds guy.

Edit: it seem no hope in that way too, He say's to me that it can be a bad interpretation of OPDS by freda an use stanza compatibily level to generate my library, but I did it and no amelioration as occured.

So no solution so far.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] bluenote73:
Jim seems that repagination due to rotation is the main culprit to lose place. can you comment?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Yes I can comment: Repagination due to rotation certainly can cause your place to move by a few pages but it should not lose it altogether. So if you have repeatable test cases that I can run through to reproduce the bug, please let me know.

Thanks.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Akcelik:
Feature Request: Browse Externally

To browse books from an external file explorer e.g. small icons = birds eye view + benefit folder trees for better arrangement etc.. Essentially Freda should detect ebooks externally and execute them with one click. This would make the process of managing large libraries easy and smooth.

in summation..

icons and text are too big (no option to minimize).

does not truncate words to fit screen.

does not recognize folders (no tidy arrangement of books - because virtually we are going to the library).

Simply having the option to browse via an external file explorer will overcome many of these limitations, however it is unfortunate to have limited history size maximum 20 only. which should be unlimmited IMO.

In other respects, a very elegant reader, with impeccable coherency in operation. the reading experience in intself is very fractal.

Best Regrads,

HTC HD2 WM6.5
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] ebeam:
Jim, a big thank you for the app I use most on my Leo! I had a Palm for many years, when I was a service engineer, and got in the habit of always using an e-reader.

Freda fills this need perfectly on the Leo, I love it. :)

I can't see a donate button on your posts, do you accept donations for this great software?

Thanks again.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
The Freda version for Windows Phone 7 is now released.

Details here.

I'll continue to follow this thread and use it for updates relating to the Windows 6.x/5/2003/WinCE version of the program.

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] xavierdemon:
Hey Jim, any chance of improving the interface of the older Freda for Win 6.5 to say something like the W7 version? Or has development shifted completely to Win 7?

I do use Freda alot, just have never really liked the interface at all, just seems over clustered.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
I will certainly be doing some more work on the 6.5 version, around such areas as fixing a memory problem and improving the integration with on-line catalogs. I could make some small UI improvements too - but nothing very fundamental (developing a WP7-style UI on a WM6.5 app is a largely impossible job!)

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] xavierdemon:
That sounds good :), I personally would like just a very clean and simple reader. Maybe when it started it would just display the available books and click the book you want and bingo :) and the settings would just be in the options somewhere ;). However I do appreciate all the work you have put into Freda and it is the only ereader on the HD2 worth using, so thanks very much.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] GeekBoy:
Hey Jim - great job with Freda. I'm stuck with wm6.5 and for the most part Freda works great. I do have this issue that when I "lock backlight" & press the power on/off button, the screen remains on. In fact, it stays on for about 5 secs, switches off for 1 & then back on again with the cycle repeating. I’m returned to the sense lock screen each time. I have to press the power on/off again, unlock my screen, go back into Freda & "unlock backlight" before I can turn off my phone completely. Not sure if this has already been reported or it's just happening with me.

It’s such a great app that I leave it in memory 24/7 pretty much.

Also, I respectfully disagree with your comment that a WP7-style UI is largely impossible. The app "SpeedoPhone" that forum member savrix85 recently released does a great job of introducing a WP7 like experience with his very slick & user friendly UI. I realize the 2 apps are quite different but there does look like there's some hope for a WP7 like interface for us 6.5’ers.

If there’s something I can help with re. the above issue, let me know. Hopefully you can recreate. I’m using an international HD2 with stock ROM WWE 1.48.

Nice work,

Mick.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] feanor91:
Agreed withGeekBoy...See UI of comickreade rmobi for example too. Nice interface are possible under ervery OS, but it can be time consuming to do such a thing.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
A particular difficulty is that I am trying to keep the code-base of Freda compatible not just with WM6.x but also 5, 2003 and WinCE. The various third party UI libraries used by those other apps are not compatible with the earlier OS versions (in particular, real 'WP7' effects mean calling the GPU, which is a very platform-dependent operation). The other problem is that I need to cater for a lot of different shapes and sizes of screen - meaning that every screen design has to be done about ten times (or else done in a simple, ugly generic way, and then tested on ten different form-factors). You can see from Freda's UI design that I have stuck with the 'simple, ugly generic way'.

I completely agree with the 'time consuming' comment though; I was maybe exaggerating a bit when I said 'largely impossible'. In computing, nothing is impossible (apart, Goedel tells us, from proving that nothing is impossible). But quite a lot of reasonaly tractable computing problems do take more coding time than I have available for an evenings and weekends project, whose output I am giving away for free.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Yes this is a known issue, but strangely hard to fix. The problem is that I achieve the 'lock backlight' effect by putting the OS into a 'high power' state - which has two effects:

1) it stops the device going into power-save mode

2) it stops the device switching off.

I didn't find any way to get (1) without also getting (2). And obviously if the OS has been told to stop the device switching off, then it will disable the 'off' button.

In Freda v1.1, I tried various mechanisms for detecting and subverting the backlight time-out, and none of them worked satisfactorily on all the different devices out there. I'm sure there is a decent solution, but I don't know what it is...
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] feanor91:
OK.

I love your reader, and as I say before, it's the best I get so far...I'm a software developer to. I never made à soft on winmo, but, I can try to do something with your code as it is freely donwloadable on your site.

Meanwhile, I will make the choice to develop only for 6.5 and HD2 (because it's my configuration). So, I promised nothing to no one, but I will see if something is possible to do.

If you agreed Jim.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Sure - please do feel free to download the code and see what you can do with it. That's why it's open source. Do read the license text though (my part of the code is GPL2 open source, but other bits are contributed on different terms).

As for working with the program itself, I'd recommend you to steer clear of the HTML parsing and EPUB-loading stuff (it's all buried inside the FredaBook class anyway - if you're just making GUI changes you probably don't need to look at it). That code is (a) complex and nasty (b) likely to change fundamentally, to address a memory issue affecting mainly Omnia II devices.

Also the OPDS-parsing code is going to change quite significantly in my next release (I've made a load of fixes for the WP7 build, but not yet back-merged into the WP6 branch). Feel free to PM or email me (home@jim-chapman.net) with any questions.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] feanor91:
OK. I already get the code. The main question is what version of visual studio do you use?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
I'm working on it. Just yesterday, I completed all the coding for handling CSS stylesheets, with margin-setting, external leading and the like.

I should have a release candidate in about a week's time, including the CSS stuff plus all the other feature requests/bug fixes that have been mentioned in this forum (and over on mobileread.com).

So watch this space!

Cheers,

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] McAndrew73:
I was asking for news, and this definetly a GOOD one. :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Stuphologist:
WM6 Freda Links

Just a note that the links to the WM6 version generate a 404 at the host.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Looks like it's OK now. I did have to move the download files a few days back, because my ISP was complaining about the bandwidth usage; they are now on MegaUpload and Rapidshare. The links on http://www.turnip.demon.co.uk/jim/freda/freda.htm should point to the right download locations.

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] parkjam:
Phenomenal job with this program. I have been searching high and low for a decent ebook reader for Windows Mobile, and this one is the best I have used by far!

As a side note, if anyone needs a good utility to convert books to epub format, hit this link: http://calibre.kovidgoyal.net/download
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] SnOeTjE:
Option 2 worked for me on my HTC Touch Pro :)

Thnx
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Stuphologist:
The link worked. The WM6 version is much smaller. Very cool! I'm looking forward to the next release.:)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] bluenote73:
Wow, this is really awesome. Thank you for your great work on this.