yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Raudi1:
I agree with you. The sliding is nice to look at, but it's annoying when you read!(That is one of the reasons I will always use Freda and will never use the ebook tab, which also has no changeable colors etc. and whose only advantage is the multitouchzoom, which isn't really important and can even on resistive devices be implemented rather easily) Changing the page by clicking on the edge of the screen (including left for page back) is already implemented in freda and the best way for changing pages! Who wants to Slide with the finger when a single tap does the same? I certainly not!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] MDA_newbie:
I prefer swyping over clicking to turn page. Therefore I will vote for keeping this navigation function in the next version.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] dc41:
+1. I agree. Keep the swipe
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] jjollyroger:
Hi, I'm testing freda on my htc hd2 . I have a problem: the app is not able to show images of html files ( shows only a question mark within a square) . Does exit a way to fix ?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] famewolf:
box.net or dropbox etc support to keep personal library

Apologies if this has been mentioned...I didn't browse the whole thread before posting...I was wondering if you had considered interfacing box.net or one of the other file shares with freda so books could be downloaded from a "personal library"..already in zip form and ready to be read.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] jjollyroger:
yesterday I red the thread and the program features and if I understood ,Freda does not support html images if not in a single file. isn't it?

So I've been looking for a solution because Calibre gives me too many indexing and formatting problems to be used.

I've tons of ebook in .lit format made by myself using the word MSreader patch.

So the converstion from word to html is very fast and easy and gives a perfect format result (saving hypertextual links)... but loses images (fortunately most of books have no images).

For books with images I found a conversion tool http://www.convertlit.com/download.php that starting from a .lit file creates a html file with related images in a single folder named as the .lit ebook, all you have to do is copy tha folder in Freda library.

When you open Freda library you have to allowd the search in subfolders and yuo'll find your new html books.. open one and you'll have it with images and hypertextual links!

So that the above converting program creates folders also with standard MSreader covers , for only text lit files I suggest to open the resulting ebook folder and save only html page in the main Freda library deleting the others files.

After these considerations I congratulate with Sir Jim for good job with Freda, many options and features for a so young software, here my suggestions:

-add a multi word serch mode. Its really difficult to make a search by one word.

-add an option for marking part of the text.

edit: Freda seems to be unable to open massive files (about 4mb) such as "the holy bible", "the lord of the rings", long novels as "the pillars of the earth" .. I've to cut them in 2 or 3 parts before convert to html or it goes on loading for minutes and then gives an error message ...will this thing be fixed?

+1 keep the swipe mode
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Yep, it looks like Freda doesn't work properly with non-touch-screen devices. Version 2.0 (beta release within a couple of weeks, I hope) will fix this issue.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
I doubt I will do any special handling for ZIP files, because every user would want them handled in a slightly different fashion, and pleasing everyone would just be too difficult. I will focus my efforts for v2.0 on making Freda work correctly with the standard ways of managing on-line libraries (as used by Calibre and Stanza). Hopefully that will be a reasonable compromise between software complexity and user satisfaction :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
I will do this in v2.0

I'm really trying to avoid adding a 'select text' mode to the UI, because it will cause horrible UI complexity. You can 'copy' blocks of text into the clipboard (or indeed into annotation text) by using the bookmarks screen.

It will open them if they are EPUB (or TXT) files, because with those two file types, Freda can cut them into parts, and so get round the problem that Windows Mobile 6 only makes a limited amount of memory available for a program. HTML files larger than 300kb will probably cause problems.

The problem will not exist in Windows Phone 7. But that is not much of a consolation for you, I guess. For now, the solution is to use TXT or EPUB format if you want to read large books.

I will
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] jjollyroger:
I noticed that opening large .txt files is not displayed the regular page number , so it's not possible to use the option "go to page" and see the scroll bar of the book pages.

works good until 2,5 - 3 MB file size HTML and about 1500-1600 pages (font size 10 on HD2 screen) :eek: :D
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Yes, that's what I'd expect. That is the behaviour you get if the book it too large to load (so Freda just loads some of the chapters, not all of them). In v2.0 this will work a bit better, but you will still have some limitations when reading large books.

Fair enough. The exact limit will depend on the available program memory on your phone (factors influencing that: (1) what other programs you have already launched since your last reset (2) what ROM you are using).
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] jjollyroger:
I give up on using Calibre..It's a waste of time.. almost 3 minutes to create one epub file but same result as with large txt file.. I just finished converting Ken Follet's "world without end" in epub (1,12 MB size) but still freda isn't able to show pages.. and takes a lot of time to load the book..

Freda loads faster and gives exact pages number with the 2,3 MB html file (I cut the book in 2 parts to not exceed the 3MB size limit ) created in 2 seconds by Convert lit 1.8.

It really seems working better with html files.. maybe cause it has to read just one file (instead of various parts of an epub) or because that files are not compressed..

edit:

-I tried again and again using calibre.. the best I gained is epub with table of content and correctly numbered pages (but hypertext doesn't work ,I think because of the splitting of the file) for little amd middle size book, but for larger books it results a chapter\paragraph (e.g. 1.3/18) division ( visible by "go\go to chapter") instead of pages numbers and the page scroll barr .

-To increase the opening file speed I tried to install (via active sync) freda on device instead of SD but it wasn't able to start, gave me this message "An unexpected error has occurred in Freda.exe." I had to install it back to sd and worked.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] MDA_newbie:
I wonder if it is possible to implement the Sense interface SDK (Link) into Freda. Nevertheless, I like the funtionality of Freda and looking forward to see version 2.0.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] mmp17:
I just tried using the news-feeds in Calibre and noticed that the links don't work, and the TOC Just take you back to the inline TOC. When looking at the epub I see that the html in the file is in separate folders. Is this why they don't work? I thought that links in an epub will always work? Is there any way to change this setting in Calibre?

Thanks,

Mendel
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] sabamimi:
Thank you!

Jim

Thank you for this great application.

It did replace the HTC ereader on my device (Acer S200 std rom).

After looking around this is ,for me, the best currently available reader on WM.

What I like best is your concept of Library & Bookshelf

Sabamimi
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] jjollyroger:
ok Jim, I'm getting skilled in making ebooks in epup format (also if is a painfully slow conversion- I've about 300 books to convert :o )

I think I found a bug of freda: testing new books (open and close one after the other) the bookshelf is no more able to show the book covers of the last opened and some of the images in a book become a question mark.

I tried a soft reset and clearing bookshelf but still no cover images :( (now that I'm writing it doesn't show them at all)

About not shown images in a book , after closing and re-opening it they reappear.

Is not so important till the books works but a little annoying since it's a boring job manage files to have a book with its nice cover.

I also have an issue related to HD2, if I close freda in landscape mode, I find that HD2 manila is in a forced landscape mode (with black screnshots and not responding to device orientation), so I have to open again freda (START is the only page that works ) an set screen to "override 0"

EDIT: solved bookshelf issue deleting files in TEMP freda folder, I think it needs to self clean when closing the application.

thanks in advance

PS- What do you think about a HTC graphic style for menus and an option to view full size book covers? that would be really good looking!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Cypher84:
Fantastic app, hands down the best reader for windows I have tried to date. I really like the way everything can be tweaked to suit individual preference, not just colors etc but even the touch gestures.

I second the idea for a sense/manila skin with larger finger friendly menus, that would really make it perfect. Also a nice graphical bookshelf, maybe not a wooden iphone knock off, something original maybe?

Keep up the good work, most used app on my phone! (I have a boring job)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] jjollyroger:
I noticed that sometimes it happens also if I change back rotation to "override 0" before closing freda.

PS: is it possible to have full screen enabled/disabled on double tap (much easier and faster than navigate in option menu)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Exitao:
No a bug, but a potential problem.

Users should not make Freda temp folder the same as your Freda library. Deleting temp files will wipe out your library.

You need to protect us from ourselves. LOL

I still find that Freda doesn't like to be minimised when in full screen. Hitting the Home button still results in a delay.

Suggestion:

Can a clock be added to the menu? This way we can check time without minimising Freda?

Otherwise, maybe the double-click to full-screen/window modes so we can check the clock in the title bar.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] jjollyroger:
+1 .. sometimes
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] dc41:
ETA on the next version?

Jim, I'm anxiously awaiting the new version of Freda... and just wondering if you have an ETA. Also, do you need any beta testers?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Well, beta-testers are welcome (once I have a beta version!).

As Freda is a 'spare time' project, it's hard to give an ETA. But I do think the new version is quite close. To give you some sense of what I mean by that, here is the list of outstanding development tasks:

Bookmarks form should have column widths set properly.

‘Find’ form should set focus on the txt control, and should retain the ‘last used’ values.

Dictionary lookup should (1) work (2) let you specify other dictionary programs.

"Open last book on startup" should work, with suitable protections in case the book fails to open & crashes the application.

If a filename or URI is passed as a command line argument, Freda should open it.

HTML loading performance could be better.

Look at my 'image loading' logic. Does it work for all possible image file types (JPG, BMP, GIF, TIF, SVF, … )?

Sort out controls for using the app with a keyboard/keypad with no touchscreen.

Over the air download - make the URICache work in background as well as foreground.

OPDS Library Catalog browsing (and add to library)

Add single file / URI to library function (bear in mind the trickiness that the file/URI might already be in the library, with a different bookId). That form should have a checkbox on it (default to 'yes') specifying whether to open the book once you've added it.

Open file / URL function (bear in mind the trickiness that the file/URI might already be in the library)

Settings screen: special ‘Text’ option which replaces font face, size, fg colour, bg colour, link colour and texture. That needs a visual style to show whether the text style has been modified.

Fix program icon to make it less ugly.

Look at how tap-to-change-page is working, because it seems to have the effect of making a tap anywhere on the page always do ‘page forward’.

Optionally show clock and battery level at bottom left of page.

Improve shortcut buttons (‘book’ images should look nicer, ‘rotate’ arrow should point the other way, ‘library’ should be a picture of a library, or a globe).

The Library data should also include the book's language.

Implement a setting that turns off bookshelf thumbnails if desired on low-performance devices.

Look at when/how books are added to the bookshelf; it seems sometimes not to happen correctly.

The app seems to keep processing chapters after 'unloadbook' is called. Look at what is happening, because we could afford just to kill the background thread in this case.

Shortcuts screen & all dialogs should take care, on closing, to set focus (move to top) on the main form, or the preceding dlg.

Fix AppToDate integration for new version

Examine the problem with that 'Razial … .pub' file, which seems to use some unsupported ZIP compression type.

Look into how I might store position & seek within a ZIP archive, so avoiding the need to unzip the whole thing before I start.

Right-to-left languages.

When reading Chinese, I should put each character into a word of its own (and not put spaces between them).

Translation of GUI strings into other languages.

It feels like a couple of weeks, but it might take longer ...

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Raudi1:
Of course I'm in for beta testing or even coding(like the clock I already managed to implement).
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] dc41:
Thanks for the update! I'm willing to beta test. My phone, rom, radio are listed in my sig.

Thanks again for this great program!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] NBASUNS:
Thanks i will try it
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] bluenote73:
Keep up the great work Jim, we're all grateful.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Exitao:
Yes, I'd love in on the beta too.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] MDA_newbie:
Gslide implement for kinetic scroling

Hi,

I had found this (Gslide) on the web. Perhaps it could help you to make the kinetic scroling better.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] TheGoD:
I'd also like to beta test.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] IngoBN:
I am very excited ...
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] jasonsf:
Jim- I tried to send an email to your address about beta testing but it was rejected. I'll PM you the info here.

Jason
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] IngoBN:
Hi, Jim.

Thank you very much for the program. TOP - It is a big step forward. For a beta version of the program works very well and it´s very fingerfriendly now :-)

And the readingscreen is wonderfull.

Loading a book is much faster now!

I tested the program. So far I have noticed this:

There is a problem with the Buttons

- when selecting a folder

- when selecting a color

(please notice the screenshots)

First, there was a problem with the temp-files in main-memory, my device was out of memory.

After the change of the directory to the storage-card it was OK.

My opinion about the style of the program:

The splashscreen looks a bit boring and the icons are not very nice on the shortcut-screen.

The Programmicon isn´t transparent.

My Device is: Samsung Omnia 2, WVGA, WinMob 6.5

Greetings: Ingo

PS: Sorry for my bad english :-)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] ytsejam_:
i hope beta testing goes well and with minimal bug possible. so it could be released fast. i'm soo excited.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Thankyou for the feedback.

Very strange. Can you post (or email at home@jim-chapman.net) details of what things you did, to get these displays. That is to say, did you open up any other menus/screens first? Or do those screens always display like that, whatever you do? They look fine on my test devices, so this seems to be a case where a bug only affects certain devices (I'm sure I will have fun investigating that ... NOT!).

I admit I am not a graphic designer! I'm happy for others to contribute better designs for these things. Part of the problem, though, is that I want them to work on all screen sizes/resolutions. Anyone wanting to contribute alternatives, please email (or post) suitable suitable icon (128x128, 24bit) and/or button bitmaps (48x48, 24 bit) files, and let me know what are your licence terms for using them (GPL, BSD, ... ).

Thanks,

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

I made a soft reset, no other programs running.

The buttons only remain visible in this menus.

When I close the menu the buttons disappear. The error is reproducible.

Bye

PS: Sorry for my bad english :-)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] jasonsf:
Jim, is there a way to capture a debug log in the beta? I have an epub that causes Freda to exit unexpectedly when paginating (blue screen.) No error message.

EDIT: Got your email reply. I deleted the logfile.txt and it was not recreated. Perhaps that's a bug?

Jason
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
My guess is that the logfile is there, but that your file explorer isn't seeing it. Sometimes file explorer doesn't recognise when a new file gets added to a folder that the explorere is looking at. Try navigating to another folder and back again.

In terms of the problem with the epub, it's a problem in the table of contents structure. Build 102 will fix it.

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

tested on a second device (Samsung Omnia 1 i900, WQVGA).

Same Error there...

Bye

PS: Sorry for my bad english :-)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
I suspect it may be a problem with WM6.5 compatibility. Anyhow, I've made some code changes that - I hope - will make the problem go away. I'll distribute another beta build in a day or two (I'm just fixing some problems with Hebrew layout at the moment).

Thanks,

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Raudi1:
Now I finally got some time to test the new beta. So far nearly everything works and the new features (like time) are great!

But there are a few bugs.

1. I tried to read a book from the feedbooks.com catalog, but it crashed Freda and even when I opened Freda again it crashed(I have the load book at start function disabled). But when I disabled all data connections, Freda started again without any errors.

2. I can't disable the animations. I have disabled them in the options, but they are still there.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] MDA_newbie:
Thank you for your beta copy. I had tested freda 2.0 for a couple of days now. I like the new functionalities, especially the Autoscroll feature. However, I find the new menu window containing too much icons. Perhaps you could considered restructure the program a little.

An option might be:

Open bookshelf after the splash screen.

You might then want to change ‘dismiss’ (at the bottom bar) into ‘options’ containing:

-	Latest

-	Bookmarks (the manager)

-	Library

-	Settings

-	Exit

Lock blacklight could be added to settings instead of menu button.

A long press within a book give the following option:

-	Font size

-	Contents

-	Find

-	Open dictionary

-	Bookmark this page

-	Rotate

-	Autoscroll

-	Bookshelf

The seeking bar is also very handy. It would be nice to get this pop up by itself when taping on the page numbers.

Another suggestion is to get an pop-up window when long tapping within the reading mode like on ubook 2010.

The point of graphics was al really mentioned by IngoBN.

Nevertheless, the new version is a big step forward and I really like the new functionalities. Thank you for making such great software and I looking forward to see you final version.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Mic159:
there is one small issue i have found. when in the options page, you have to press the 'ok' soft key for it to save the options. I kept pressing the system ok button, and thought the options wernt working :p because that closes the menu all the same.

once i got it to glitch when scrolling, but cant seem to make it happen again.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] blue00mountain:
when i tried to open the program, an error occurs. in details, it says typeloadexception at freda.program.main()

i'm using 6.5 build 21812. Wvga screen.

yep, installed in a storage card to get this problem. now put in device and problem solved(sort of).
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] nvrMind:
Working great for me, so far... however, I installed th 6 MB cab, because I forgot my cable at home. I'm running WM 6.5, any way you can throw the WM6 cab up for download?

I can't wait to see 1.0... I've been looking for a good epub reader, but the only one I've seen before this was Zulu, it's alright, but not really what I was looking for. This feels better, but maybe you could make the left soft key the menu (include previous page in that, as it won't be used as often as next).

Thanks for the great reader, and thanks for making it open-source.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] blue00mountain:
[bug] another problem i noticed so far, is that when i open unicode character text file, it doesnt properly paginate itself. some of the texts are not wrapped to a new line but simply goes beyond the page.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
Yes there are two problems here (and in v1.0 both will be fixed)

1) Freda doesn't deal properly with words that are longer than one line - they just overflow the edge of the page. A conceptually easy fix (but fiddly to program, which is why I left it out of 0.9)

2) Freda assumes all text files are ANSI text. There is no standard way to work out what encoding is used for text files, and I picked ANSI as being the most reasonable default. Really, I need an option in the settings somewhere to say what encoding to use, and I will do that for v1.0.

[fixed in release 1.0]

Thanks,

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] TheRem:
waiting for v1.0.

thanks Jim Chapman! :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
OK, it's at http://www.turnip.demon.co.uk/jim/freda/installWM6/freda.cab

Cheers,

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jim Chapman:
That system 'ok' button is a pain! For the release 1.0 version, I will fix it so that the system 'ok' does the 'OK' function and saves options, as you would expect. [fixed in release 1.0]

Yes, I have noticed the occasional 'freeze' - where it stops scrolling half way. I think it's actually an operating system problem (what happens is that Freda is waiting for the OS to tell is that you have lifted your finger off the screen, but - though your finger is no longer on the screen - the OS never passes that information to the program). It's nuisance value only I guess, because you can get the app moving again by tapping the screen, but I am looking for a fix.

Cheers,

Jim
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Straubi:
Hello, I have the same problem with my HTC Diamond 2 with WM 6.5.

Install in internal memory.

Error:

Freda.exe

TypeLoadException

bei Freda.Program.Main()

I remove and make a new install.

Don´t work.