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This may be something that an Android programmer can actually build, but I think there is a real need for a fully functional Android eBook reader app that is equivalent to iBooks on the iPad.
As an author doing ePub conversion, I see two things that an Android reader app really should be able to do:
It would correctly use the stylesheet (.css file) inside the ePub file so that fonts, spacing, layout, etc. display the way the author/publisher created the book. (Only Aldiko appears to get this right...though it won't run on my Nook yet).
Images in the book could be displayed full screen simply by tapping on them, or a long press, etc. (Only the FBreader app for Android does this at the moment).
I think I've tested every Android reader app there is on the Market, and so far none of them have both .css stylesheet adherence -and- the ability to tap a picture to pop it out for a full-screen view. It's being done in different apps, so I guess the developers just aren't aware of how important this really is to both authors and readers alike. Imho, the first app that handles all this correctly is going to beat all the others.
There are some other things that can be considered: Moon+ has a great Table Of Contents display, some of the others give you an easy "<- Back" option or icon so you can easily return to where you were reading when you tapped to view a picture...but those can be worked in.
Anyone want to consider building an app with all this built-in? I'll sure be glad to help test it and if it works out I'll recommend it everywhere.
-JT
+1 for this.
I am looking for a PDF viewer that will display Title information scrapped out of the metadata rather than the filename. The filenames of the files I am interested in viewing are the document number (i.e. 52343234245.pdf) and the Title is much more user friendly (i.e. LRU User Guide).
When I import PDFs into iBooks on the iPad, this information in automatically scrapped out. Any apps with similar functionality on Android?
Even a desktop utility that does the renaming would be better than nothing.
Lumiread that comes with the A500 shows the metadata, and it also allows you to fetch the metadata from the Internet, too. On 3.0.1 Lumiread is a tad slow, though, but I hear it's gotten some performance improvements in 3.1.
I've been looking for a good pdf viewer with two simple features; remember the page when closing a book and the ability to create bookmarks. Never thought of Lumiread until you mentioned it
Thanks
ezPDF is another one that's absolutely great, offers bookmarks, allows you to highlight selections, add your own notes etc. to PDF files, and it's really fast. It doesn't sport a bookshelf like the Lumiread though, nor does it show metadata.
EDIT: Just asked them if they have any plans to add similar support for metadata and a virtual "bookshelf" to ezPDF, I'll try to remember to mention here when I get a reply.
WereCatf said:
Just asked them if they have any plans to add similar support for metadata and a virtual "bookshelf" to ezPDF, I'll try to remember to mention here when I get a reply.
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Thanks, I was going to e-mail them, but the firewall blocks their site for being high risk/malicious.
I'm not getting any reply from ezPDF folks, absolutely none. But after having tried a few other ebook readers Mantano Reader and Aldiko Book Reader both seem pretty good and both also support metadata. So far I lean towards Mantano myself, but I can't really find any specific issues with Aldiko either, just that the bookshelf view is slow to scroll.
Apart from showing metadata, which software is the fastest to flip page?
I found ezReader quite slow
When I flip page using Ipad 2, it really fast & smooth
I need such software for my Iconia as well
Thanks
Hello everyone!
I'm about to buy my first eReader. After watching tons of reviews of Kindle, Sony TS1, Pocketbook, Kobo, Nook Simple Touch, I've decided to order that last one (possibilities of Android are just amazing).
What bothers me is the risk of broke NST during root process (I've never done this before) - I wouldn't even have a chance to send it to Nook service (it doesn't support my country - Poland). Also I don't own any Android device (but I know the basics - a lot of my friends has it).
I'm looking for some advice - what modification will be the best choice for me (as much as simple, fast and minimalistic)? Here are my preferences:
- ePUB reader: the Nook's one looks great, it's really fast - don't need anything else (Library is ok - simple catalog/list of books is enough for me)
- PDFs: I'm a student and I have a lot of books in text PDF, but also scanned images combined into PDF; that means zooming/landscape/norefresh features are essential
- highlighting text: don't care
- sync/dropbox/games: don't care
- other: web browser would be nice (wiki, news, gmail, wunderlist etc.), maybe some dictionaries (polish<->english, polish<->german etc.), wiki offline, support Google Play (if it doesn't have negative effect on battery consuption), handwriting notes
What guide should I use? (some links would be nice, as I said, I'm newbie with Android and I'm not really understanding the whole process of rooting).
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1346748 here's the one I used, I've tried a few rooting methods and this one has worked best.
Here’s the gist of a thread I started @ WPCentral that I wanted to bring over to XDA to get an additional perspective.(Let's be honest...XDA is a bit cooler than WP Central good )
How about allowing for users to create 2 custom Hubs? The Custom Hub would have two panes – the default being a notifications list, and the second being a list of all the apps added to that hub.
How about allowing Kids Korner to be a Hub where parents can add in apps and other educational stuff for the kids to look at (then at the bottom of Kid’s corner, put a menu option that allows the parents to put in a password to get into the rest of the phone)?
How about expanding the Lenses idea to give third party apps the option to pick one key feature of their app that gets integrated into a Hub?
How about tighter integration between Hubs? For example taking the option of in the phone dialer to hit the phonebook icon and get sent to the People Hub and using it this way…if I’m in the Calendar Hub and make a reminder note to meet with someone, or to call someone, that note shows up under that person’s name in the People Hub. If I want to edit that, when I am in the people hub I hit that note which sends me back to the Calendar to change it.
These are just some thoughts I had on how MSFT could flesh WP8 out and give it an edge. I think RIM is trying to do that in its BlackBerry 10 Blackberry Hub, but MSFT has more resources in WP8 to make things more seamless and less cluttered.
Here’s the link to the original thread:
http://forums.wpcentral.com/windows-phone-8/220854-hubs-over-folders-lenses-improve-core-apps.html
But I’d love to get feedback here on XDA.
HMm not so sure this is really worth it. Besides, to integrate an app with a specific hub is a specific job the developer needs to do. In order to integrate with the music+video hub, for instance, you need to do specific thing. Same goes for people/photo/whatever hub.
Having a custom hub is very difficult for the apps to integrate properly with it and sloopy developers might actually ruin the entire experience with poor integration.
While i see where you are going with this (notification center), the need is really not that big.
The kids corner is a completely different thing and is not similar to a hub in any way.
EDIT: the news/notification thing in the hub is something the apps do, and not the hub itself. The hub just centralizes them in a ... hub. In order for the hub to know what to centralize and from who, the apps must call specific APIs.
mcosmin222 said:
HMm not so sure this is really worth it. Besides, to integrate an app with a specific hub is a specific job the developer needs to do. In order to integrate with the music+video hub, for instance, you need to do specific thing. Same goes for people/photo/whatever hub.
Having a custom hub is very difficult for the apps to integrate properly with it and sloopy developers might actually ruin the entire experience with poor integration.
While i see where you are going with this (notification center), the need is really not that big.
The kids corner is a completely different thing and is not similar to a hub in any way.
EDIT: the news/notification thing in the hub is something the apps do, and not the hub itself. The hub just centralizes them in a ... hub. In order for the hub to know what to centralize and from who, the apps must call specific APIs.
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Ok. I think I follow along with you comment.
But MSFT does have these some of these elements in play in the OS itself, so why not use them more effectively? I know Apple has a more stringent control of apps that get approved before going in the app store, so could MSFT enforce these add-ons?
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Microsoft regularlly provides the Options and in my experience developers will use them by themselves, simply because it increases the usability of their Apps a lot more than it adds required effort. It's rather a problem how to implement this in a way that does prevent a badly written App from affecting the system's Performance and stability.
That especially gets a Problem when Apps are allowed to surface data somewhere as could be seen by the problems Skype originally caused with the People Hub Integration.
I'm pretty sure Microsoft will add more Integration Points into the System with the next API update - let's just wait and see.
As for making usage of some of those Integration Points mandatory. I don't believe that to be a good idea. I also don't believe that it is necessary. Developers regularly complain that they can't integrate somewhere so I really believe that if they were allowed to do it they would do it by themselves. This is also necessary because the Integration regularly involves the Transfer of data to the invoked App (Images, Files, etc.)
Stevie, I think what you've said is fair. I suppose MSFT could just use their own apps like Photosynth and Skype as a way to sure more seamless integration instead of making that a mandatory process for all devs.
Do people even see the need for such integration in the platform going forward?
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In general I believe that it can make for a more fluid experience if there are well done Integration points. Camera Lenses or the Image editing capabilities are a great example for this. Another is the possibility to have an App specific contact store (like Skype does it now).
What I believe would greatly improve the concept would be Message Integration into the Messaging Hub and the ability to create an app specific calendar store that is also availble inside the Standard calendar App.
Also nice would be the possibility to register Apps for all filetypes. Currently you can only consume files inside your App that are not assigned to System Apps (e.g. MP3 or JPEG Images).
So in short: yes, those integrations can greatly improve the workflow and I'd love to see Microsoft in the end deliver on the promise of Hubs they gave when introducing them. When you want to do something with Images, open the Image Hub. If you want to message someone open the Messaging Hub, etc.
If it were up to me, here’s how I’d organize the Hubs in WP8. I’d love to hear other’s thoughts:
Store: Same. Just better Secondary links from the all the other Hubs. This and People Hub should be the two primary Hubs where all other Hubs have shortcut links to.
Photos: Same. Shortcut Links to Store, People, Search, Content Manager
Music and Videos. Same. Shortcuts to Store, People, Search, Content manager
Games: Same. Better shortcut links to Store. Also links to People, Search, Content manager
Productivity: Office + Calendar + Note Apps + Voice Personal Assistants here (allow Tell Me to be an app where you can add commands to it).
- 3rd party apps list include: any note, calendar, language, Office Assistant Apps.
- Secondary shortcuts to People (especially Rooms), Content Manager, Wallet, Store
Content Manager: Skydrive and a page showing list of downloaded content here...not a full file manager where you can move stuff around on the phone itself, but a general downloads folder.
- 3rd part apps include Box and other upload apps
- Secondary Hub links – Photos, Music + Videos, Office
People: You manage contacts and social media here.
- Me Tile: Notifications...and have the option to reply to an individual tweet or FB post or Skype message from a listed contact here.
- 3rd party apps include: All social media apps
- Secondary shortcuts: all the other hubs.
Messaging: Emails, SMS, Skype IM is here.
- 3rd party apps include all IM apps, FB messenger, shortcut to Skype.
- Shortcuts to People, Store, Phone
Navigation: All Maps and Transit apps here.
- Some of Local Scout functionality here (also accessible in the Search Hub).
- Secondary Shortcuts to Search, People, Store.
Search: Same, except adding one more page to list search related apps.
- Secondary short cuts to Navigation, People, Store, Content Manager
Phone: Skype (calling features, video chat) and Dialer are primary options here. Other apps that tap into this Hub (or get listed here) are 3rd party Video Apps
- Secondary shortcuts to People, Messaging.
Wallet: Holds Credit Cards and Financial Apps
- Secondary shortcuts to Search, Store, Productivity (in particular – calendar), People
Corporate: Same. Allow Corporate IT to do their thing. Better links to the Productivity, Office
Custom Hubs: Users are allowed to create only two. A two pane look – default page with app related notifications and a second page with the app list.
It is still a hybrid mix of hubs and apps – if you don’t want to use a Hub, don’t use it.
Sent from my Lumia 810 using Board Express
My head hurts. It is just too complicated.
This implementation can go wrong in soooooooooooooooo many ways, it will be a wonder if a developer manages to get it right for every scenario.
I believe you're making it more complicated than it needs to be and a lot of what you are talking about is already there. I don't need an explicit link to go from Calendar to people. If I open an appointment and swipe to attendants I can tap on any of them to be taken to their contacts page inside the people Hub (as it should be).
It's a good idea to have those kinds of shortcuts around that are contextually aware but adding a load of Buttons to jump somewhere else is mainly getting the UI cluttered or getting confusing/annoying.
Some of those connections you mention are already there - e.g. Store in Music/Videos.
What actually would be a nice idea is to allow productivity Apps to tie into the Office Hub similarily to how it works with imaging Apps in the Pictures Hub.
Some of the other stuff you mention is also there. Cloud Storage applications can integrate themselves into the system for automated Uploads similarily to SkyDrive but currently limited to Pictures so it can definitely be improved upon.
TellMe is also extensible to allow Apps to tie into it and use voice command functionality. Audible would be one App that takes advantage of this. It doesn't really make sense for all Apps though. E.g. a picture taking App will require the ViewFinder etc. so it would not benefit that much from Voice Control (and it is quite a hazzle to implement this - especially if the App is getting localized in several languages).
As for search - if there would be something like a search charm on Windows 8 it should tie into the Bing App which already has a permanent shortcut in the search button.
I guess your idea would be to allow people to jump easily from Hub to Hub without going to the Homescreen. Having Links for this in every other Hub just isn't the way to go there. A possibility would be to add all the Hubs at the bottom of the Task Switcher Screen. So you would long press on the back button and would get the Thumbnails of running Apps and at the bottom the icons for People, Calendar, Messaging, Pictures, Music/Video and Office. I'm not sure if that would be an improvement over just going via the Home screen though.
So in short: more integration of Apps into the OS: yes, more context aware integration of Apps with each other: yes, adding loads of shortcuts: no
StevieBallz said:
I believe you're making it more complicated than it needs to be and a lot of what you are talking about is already there. I don't need an explicit link to go from Calendar to people. If I open an appointment and swipe to attendants I can tap on any of them to be taken to their contacts page inside the people Hub (as it should be).
It's a good idea to have those kinds of shortcuts around that are contextually aware but adding a load of Buttons to jump somewhere else is mainly getting the UI cluttered or getting confusing/annoying.
Some of those connections you mention are already there - e.g. Store in Music/Videos.
What actually would be a nice idea is to allow productivity Apps to tie into the Office Hub similarily to how it works with imaging Apps in the Pictures Hub.
Some of the other stuff you mention is also there. Cloud Storage applications can integrate themselves into the system for automated Uploads similarily to SkyDrive but currently limited to Pictures so it can definitely be improved upon.
TellMe is also extensible to allow Apps to tie into it and use voice command functionality. Audible would be one App that takes advantage of this. It doesn't really make sense for all Apps though. E.g. a picture taking App will require the ViewFinder etc. so it would not benefit that much from Voice Control (and it is quite a hazzle to implement this - especially if the App is getting localized in several languages).
As for search - if there would be something like a search charm on Windows 8 it should tie into the Bing App which already has a permanent shortcut in the search button.
I guess your idea would be to allow people to jump easily from Hub to Hub without going to the Homescreen. Having Links for this in every other Hub just isn't the way to go there. A possibility would be to add all the Hubs at the bottom of the Task Switcher Screen. So you would long press on the back button and would get the Thumbnails of running Apps and at the bottom the icons for People, Calendar, Messaging, Pictures, Music/Video and Office. I'm not sure if that would be an improvement over just going via the Home screen though.
So in short: more integration of Apps into the OS: yes, more context aware integration of Apps with each other: yes, adding loads of shortcuts: no
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Click to collapse
Stevie, I like much of your suggestions. The goal here isn't to clutter the OS - if it were up to me I would use the contextual menus and a few other existing options in the OS to facilitate moving from Hub to Hub instead of adding extra buttons.
Based on how the OS is, there may not be a need to have list of all the hubs at the bottom. The goal is to jump from certain Hubs to each other based on "common user tasks that would involve multiple Hubs or steps that can be reduced". Now if you want to do things the current way, fine. More I think some would welcome more intuition.
I was just trying to describe a smoother way to leverage the existing strengths of the OS and to see where MSFT could make the quickest improvements. No question, the OS is smooth but if they build out these extensions, you can have an improved user experience. My apologies if my explanation was convoluted.
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Should MSFT eventually push an all Hub version of WP8?
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What do you mean by "All Hub"? The Hubs are a thematic grouping but I guess we will always have certain use cases that don't exactlly lend themselves to being integrated into one of those Hubs so putting everything into the Hubs probably isn't the best idea. Giving developers the integration points to integrate their data into the Hubs if it is suitable should be the priority.
I agree. Apps are mostly isolated programs running on their own. If apps could talk to each other more easily we can have more interesting behaviors and abilities that no other mobile os has. For quality control, just give the user a on off switch for each app just like the background task.
I just purchased and successfully rooted (thank you experts here) my Nook Simple Touch.
I would like to create a streamlined reading experience between my Nook ST (where I will do majority of my reading), and my Galaxy S3 (which I will read while on the bus / in lines / etc). This is in fact why I purchased my own root-able Nook rather than continuing to side-load and use my girlfriend's kindle.
I have searched extensively and not come up with any solutions. The current Moon Reader Pro is not supported by the Nook ST, and reading others' posts it seems it does not work very well anymore even if you can find a place to download the old version apk's (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1687208&highlight=sync+last+read+page)
I have tried PageTurner, which does not allow you to make notes or bookmarks, but at least is supposed to sync last page read, but it's not working for me across devices.
It seems like this really would be a common feature users would desire, has anyone found a good way to accomplish this?
Thanks for the help!
Forgot to say, I have also tried FBreader, but this would require me to root my Galaxy S3, and I have no other reason to want to do that at this point in time, so prefer a different option.
Found some solutions.
1.) Page Turner
This is what I settled on. The sync does in fact work, what I had to do was delete every book off my device first. Then on Calibre, change the settings so it would automatically manage the metadata (on each connect) on my devices. After doing this I re-uploaded the books to my phone and Nook Simple Touch, allowing Calibre to manage these devices. Since doing this, the sync feature has worked well.
Pros:
-best, most crisp display of any of the readers I have found which are capable of syncing
-sync feature works smoothly (after loading as above)
-developer of this software is very active and responsive
-the objective developer states for designing this software is consistent with my purpose - open platform for reading DRM free ebooks smoothly on multiple devices
Cons:
-does not support custom bookmarks or notes (I am told this is planned for the next version, but timeline is not certain)
-control of interface leaves room for improvement (have to navigate through cumbersome menu to adjust font size, can't put in all the cool finger swipe controls that Moon Reader has), however, as my GF put it, the purpose is to read not to have fancy controls, and bottom line is once I get the settings adjusted the way I want, this offers the most crisp, best visual reading experience.
2.) Moon+ Reader Pro (old version, can get the old APK that Nook will accept)
I was able to get this sync feature to work after clearing device content and re-uploading with Calibre managing devices and meta-data, as described above. Not sure what problem the people in the thread I linked to in my original post were having, but I did not have this problem when using the same version on both my phone and nook.
Pros:
-syncs
-amazing control options (adjust font by sliding up and down side, assign swipes across page to various functions - I liked left to right and vice versa for skipping ahead or back by chapters, swipe up to close app, swipe down to return to bookshelf), very feature rich
-allows for notes and bookmarks
Cons:
-display is horrible on Nook! absolutely terrible. This was the deal breaker for me, as even though I loved the ability to customize and control the interface, the fuzziness, lack of contrast and crisp screen was unacceptable for prolonged reading.
-the developer is not currently interested in supporting the Nook, so there will be no updates which will change anything. All the development is going into versions that will not run on the Android 2.1 (which nook uses)
3.) Aldiko using Aldiko sync
I must confess I did not try this very hard. I downloaded the latest version of Aldiko which the Nook would support, and found the control of the interface as well as quality of visual display to be inferior to the other two options.
However, you can make this work I believe. You need the separate app aldiko sync. Unfortunately, in the more recent versions (which are not supported on Nook), you need to have root access to the device (something I was not interested in doing on my phone). I did get it to work by loading the old APK, which did not require root access for aldiko sync, and this did work. But as above, I found this option inferior to both of the others.
Hope that helps anyone else with the same questions I had. I would like it if Page Turner would become more feature rich, the very most important feature needed being support for note taking, and custom book marks.