iPhone 101: iPhone+Stanza+Calibre (the almost-perfect solution)

[JSWolf]

Actually, given the topic of this thread, the weak link is Stanza. Get rid of it and you'll have a better solution.

[Paco]

Hi guys:
I found this great thread the other day and now I registered to participate in the community.

I have one question though (actually a lot of questions but now I remember this one as essential).

For reading in a iPod Touch 2G 8GB (for the matter any iphone o iPod I guess), is it better for battery consumption white text on black background or the normal "iBooks" black letters and white backgrund?

Or maybe is the same and depends only in the bright?

Thanks

[scottjl]

you're not going to save any significant amount of power with white on black or black on white text. LCD crystals have to flip one way or the other. brightness will affect battery life though.

[toddos]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Actually, given the topic of this thread, the weak link is Stanza. Get rid of it and you'll have a better solution.

And replace it with what? For better or worse, Stanza is the best ebook reader on iDevices.

[scottjl]

Originally Posted by toddos

And replace it with what? For better or worse, Stanza is the best ebook reader on iDevices.

ibooks seems to work very well for me. goodreader is excellent for PDF files.. there are plenty of options besides Stanza.

[toddos]

Originally Posted by scottjl

ibooks seems to work very well for me. goodreader is excellent for PDF files.. there are plenty of options besides Stanza.

iBooks wastes too much space for my tastes, doesn't support a light-on-dark reading scheme, has poor font choices, no hyphenation, etc. Stanza has its problems as well, but at least for me they're less bad than iBooks'.

[Paco]

Originally Posted by scottjl

you're not going to save any significant amount of power with white on black or black on white text. LCD crystals have to flip one way or the other. brightness will affect battery life though.

thanks I read AMOLED screen are affected by this black or white and consumption though, off course is another technology.

[nekokami]

Of all the readers I've tried, I prefer Stanza as well. Being able to read amber text on a black background is very comfortable for me at night.

[kovidgoyal]

Just to note, if you want to use a dark background with other readers, you may be able to achieve it by adding the following to extra css in calibre before converting the file:

body { background-color: black; color: white}

Whether it works or not will depend on whether the file your are converting defines its own colors or not and whether the reader you are using respects the CSS.

[Bremen Cole]

Originally Posted by toddos

iBooks wastes too much space for my tastes, doesn't support a light-on-dark reading scheme, has poor font choices, no hyphenation, etc. Stanza has its problems as well, but at least for me they're less bad than iBooks'.

I agree. Hate the HUGE margins on iBooks... and you can't change them. I still use iBooks some, but my go to reader is Stanza....

[Rique]

Originally Posted by scottjl

ibooks seems to work very well for me. goodreader is excellent for PDF files.. there are plenty of options besides Stanza.

Please forgive me all, this is a little bit OT - but Scott referencing GoodReader made me think of it (yet again). I've searched in the forums for the answer, but can't seem to pull it.

Every time I use GoodReader, I am frustrated by the lack of brightness controls - in app - am I missing something obvious? I just can't find it! There is a "button" on-screen which dims the screen, however it seems to have only two settings.

There has to be a better way... Scott? Anyone?

Thanks,
-- Rique

[Jonimeesermann]

Originally Posted by Rique

Every time I use GoodReader, I am frustrated by the lack of brightness controls - in app - am I missing something obvious? I just can't find it! There is a "button" on-screen which dims the screen, however it seems to have only two settings.

There has to be a better way... Scott? Anyone?

Jailbreak, install sbsetting from Cydia, and you're good to go

[Rique]

Originally Posted by Jonimeesermann

Jailbreak, install sbsetting from Cydia, and you're good to go

Waiting for 4.x before I even consider a jailbreak - thanks for the reply!

[jaybee]

Go to the settings page. That's the icon with gears on it. Tap "general" then "accessibility." You can select "white on black" to invert all colors on the screen, including, of course, the pages in any reader. This is a little cumbersome to do each time you read, but there is a shortcut. Still on the "accessibility" page, go to "triple click home." You can set this to toggle white on black. Then just triple-click the home button to reverse the colors or to cancel and go back to standard colors.

By the way, I'm very happy with iBooks.

(Sorry, I just read the title of this thread and see it refers to the iPhone. My comments refer to the iPad. I'm leaving them in case they may be of use to anyone--the process is a little obscure, but is very useful to me.)

[toddos]

The accessibility "invert all colors" is a hack, not a proper white-on-black reading method and not something that should be promoted. It inverts everything, so I hope you like your iphone/ipad/ipod looking like a film negative.