Librerator - multi-format e-reader, fork of KPV

[Kai771]

@Iñigo

Hi,
and thanks again for your effort. Set BBox is meant for pdf and djvu only, but as Librerator is still unfinished, I didn't bother with turning it off in crereader yet. As for selecting font, the reason is similar - still didn't add it for crereader (component responsible for epub and fb2 files). I focused mostly on pdf for start - I hear that Cool Reader 3 is superior for handling epub/fb2 anyway (I don't have much need for fb2/epub atm, so I didn't use Cool Reader 3). I will try to fix it eventually, though.

I'm glad that it finally works, but I can't even look at the code until I get home. I do hope that you'll still find it useful even with the above mentioned problems.

[Iñigo]

Originally Posted by Kai771

Set BBox is meant for pdf and djvu only, but as Librerator is still unfinished, I didn't bother with turning it off in crereader yet. As for selecting font, the reason is similar - still didn't add it for crereader (component responsible for epub and fb2 files). I focused mostly on pdf for start - I hear that Cool Reader 3 is superior for handling epub/fb2 anyway (I don't have much need for fb2/epub atm, so I didn't use Cool Reader 3). I will try to fix it eventually, though.

I'm glad that it finally works, but I can't even look at the code until I get home. I do hope that you'll still find it useful even with the above mentioned problems.

CR3 is still the best option for reading fb2/epub files in Kindle for now, but anyway, I'll wait for next releases of librerator (btw, it has a very nice name!), it has a lot of potential, and it's quite beautiful (f.e. the calc).

Thanks for your work,
Iñigo

[twobob]

6) Edit file commands.txt in /mnt/us/cr3 folder on your Kindle. Add this line at the end:

/mnt/us/librerator/;librerator.sh;/mnt/us/documents;Librerator

should definitely be

/mnt/us/librerator;librerator.sh;/mnt/us/documents;Librerator

(no trailing slash)

Though it will make no difference. Should launch regardless

[Kai771]

@twobob

Yeah, you're quite right. I made a mistake. I'll correct it in the first post immediately. I'm home now, and will try to fix the issues that prevented it from starting on K4NT out-of-the-box (as well as those crashes). I do get constantly interrupted, so it might take a while . It will be really helpful if someone with K4NT could try it out later.

Btw, how do you like Librerator?

[twobob]

If I am honest? so far all I did was look over your startup script via CR3runner...

Since I was working in the area. : )

When I have a play I will say

[Kai771]

Ok, I fixed the problems that Iñigo reported, and now it should run on K4NT out-of-the-box (hopefully - I did it in a different way, so until someone tests it... nothing is certain). In InfoMessage:getSoundVolume() there is a check for device model now, and if it’s not Kindle2, KindleDXG or Kindle3 it will return 0. That part I think is fine.

The other part, with Screen:updateRotatateMode(), I also tried to solve by checking the device model first, and executing it if it’s Kindle2, KindleDXG and Kindle3, and skipping it if it’s not. If I didn’t mess something up, this should allow it to start. However, this code is used to check and save device’s orientation on starting Librerator, so it can be restored on exit. The fact that it crashes with it enabled means that K4NT handles rotation differently. I didn’t have much time to try and find how it’s done on K4NT, so this is a workaround for now. It should all be fine if you start Librerator from a normal portrait orientation. If you try to start it from landscape, things might get funky when you try to exit Librerator. All should be fine if you start and exit it in portrait mode, but I’d still like someone to test what happens if you don’t, too. Also, someone please check if normal rotation within Librerator works on K4NT. (Assuming, of course, that I didn’t mess something up and that you’re able to start it).

I also made a lot of other changes. Crereader (epub/fb2 files) should be fully supported now (to the extent KPV supports it - of course, that too if I didn’t mess something up and missed something). You should be able to change font, font size and line spacing, goto now works properly, bookmarks too, and it shouldn’t crash when you try to set bbox now.

You can download the prerelease.2 here:
https://github.com/kai771/kindlepdfviewer/downloads

[hawhill]

"KPV" on the K4NT - that's a huge success. Librerator is a great project! Ah, open source software at work again, that's what I love about it :-)

[Kai771]

@hawhill
Thanks a lot hwhw. I'm really glad you like it.

[dave2008]

Oh, for eink in K4, there is no "/sys/module/eink_fb_hal_broads/parameters/bs_orientation" anymore, so you we cannot read from it.

I added a new method "getOrientation" for einkfb.c to handle this for all models:
https://github.com/houqp/kindlepdfvi.../einkfb.c#L424

Use that for screen.lua should work

[Iñigo]

Hi Kai771,

Tested .2 in my K4NT.

It starts perfectly now.

Some comments:

- I can change font familiy, font size and spacing. But all this information is stored per file not globally. I would prefer global settings

- Compared with cr3, I miss the small topbar with info about time, battery level and, specially, the progress bar with marks per chapter (see screenshot in [1]). And the fullscreen mode. Going to menu -> Info is not as fast, and I like seeing this info on screen

- As in cr3, it would be nice to make cursor up/down mapped to prev/next section/chapter

- Lines at bottom or/and top are cut

Regarding screen rotation: starting app in landscape shows app in portrait mode, but after quitting program, screen got scrambled and I needed a hard reset.

Thanks,
Iñigo

[1] http://www.pictureshack.ru/view_4560screenshot7.jpg

[Kai771]

@dave2008
Thank you very much for giving me pointers. Before I decided to use a workaround that ended up in prerelease.2, I did take a look at the code of KPV new_ui_code branch. I then tried to replace screen.lua, and use the version from new_ui_code in LBR. That was probably too naive of me. It did start and worked fine on my K3 - until I tried to use rotation. Using rotation left me with a garbled up screen and I had to do a hard reset . I then decided to use the above mentioned workaround for the time being, especially with my history of missing stuff . Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction. I will try to sort it out when I have some more time.

@Iñigo
Hi, and thank you very much for taking the time to test LBR again. I really appreciate your comments.

Tested .2 in my K4NT.
It starts perfectly now.

I'm really glad to hear that. If I could trouble you some more, I'd like to ask you to check if my instructions for starting it up using cr3runner are valid. I have no idea if it would work. I think it's very important for people who are not as savvy as you are to have a simple way to make it run.

- I can change font familiy, font size and spacing. But all this information is stored per file not globally. I would prefer global settings

You can make font choice global. When you choose "Set document font as default", the current font will be saved as default font and used for new documents that you open (the ones that were not opened with LBR before). However, only the font is saved. Font size and line spacing are not. This is how KPV handles it. I'm not really familiar with it, there might be some reason why it is this way (like, idk, maybe it uses values specified in epub/fb2 files?). But I'll look into it eventually, and try to make it configurable.

- Compared with cr3, I miss the small topbar with info about time, battery level and, specially, the progress bar with marks per chapter (see screenshot in [1]). And the fullscreen mode. Going to menu -> Info is not as fast, and I like seeing this info on screen

I'm not a big fan of having info always on, but I do agree with you that going to menu -> Info is pretty slow. I did actually want to implement a shortcut for it, something like keyboard key, then up - but since I don't have K4NT, I couldn't test that and don't know if it will work, so I decided to stick to keys that I can test for the initial release. If you don't mind testing some more things, there are other things I'd like to put on K4NT specific shortcuts. (There are a lot of key shortcuts for K3, since it has a lot of keys . I'm saying this because I think you're unfamiliar with KPV, since you don't have K3, judging by the Device field under your name.)

- As in cr3, it would be nice to make cursor up/down mapped to prev/next section/chapter

Up/down are used for panning. Maybe some other combination would also work (keyboard - left/right? keyboard - pg_fwd/pg_bck?). Can someone tell me if keyboard key on K4NT can be used as modifier key (like alt)? Probably not, but I thought I'd ask anyway. Is it just like any other normal key, that returns code 29?

- Lines at bottom or/and top are cut

Yeah, I see what you mean. It doesn't look nice, but still, nothing is missing. You don't really need to read the last line on the screen, that isn't fully visible. When you press pg_fwd, that line will be fully visible on top of the screen. It may be helpful to also turn on overlap to help you find the line boundary easier (it's off by default in LBR). This is how KPV handles rendering of the page. As stated earlier, LBR is a fork of KPV. Meaning that it practically is KPV with a different user interface. I'm not really a developer, I'm just a noob. Really. Some changes to the user interface is the best I can do. Handling of page rendering, caching and all that serious stuff is out of my league. I do agree with you that it would be better to have only fully visible lines, but I'm afraid I can't do anything about it.

Regarding screen rotation: starting app in landscape shows app in portrait mode, but after quitting program, screen got scrambled and I needed a hard reset.

It behaves just as I expected. LBR (as well as the newest version of KPV) forces portrait mode in FileChooser and on document close, since we believed that landscape mode in FileChooser is pretty much useless on K3. In LBR, this can be disabled setting DFORCE_PORTRAIT to false in defaults.lua. But, in that case, on K4NT, you would need to be careful to exit LBR using the same orientation you used to start it, since Kindle framework won't be happy if you don't, as you already experienced . Let's file this as "Known bug" until I fix it using dave2008's suggestion .

Looking at your picture of CoolReader 3, it does look really nice. Top bar aside, LBR/KPV can't display footnotes like this. LBR/KPV's forte is pdf/djvu (especially since chrox added reflowing). And if I may say, there's nothing better for reading manga on Kindle (but that's my personal opinion )

[dave2008]

Any K4 user here can do a "eips -i" on their kindle for me? I want to modify part of the eink control module and need the output of the command. Many thanks

[eureka]

Originally Posted by dave2008

Any K4 user here can do a "eips -i" on their kindle for me? I want to modify part of the eink control module and need the output of the command. Many thanks

Most of eips -i output (i.e. framebuffer info) for K4 is available here (in appropriate spoiler).

I guess, K4 should be recognized by framebuffer id (K4 -- eink_fb, KT/PW -- mxc_epdc_fb).

[Iñigo]

Hi,

Originally Posted by Kai771

If I could trouble you some more, I'd like to ask you to check if my instructions for starting it up using cr3runner are valid. I have no idea if it would work. I think it's very important for people who are not as savvy as you are to have a simple way to make it run.

Sorry, I don't use cr3runner. I only use kite.

Originally Posted by Kai771

You can make font choice global. When you choose "Set document font as default", the current font will be saved as default font and used for new documents that you open (the ones that were not opened with LBR before). However, only the font is saved. Font size and line spacing are not. This is how KPV handles it. I'm not really familiar with it, there might be some reason why it is this way (like, idk, maybe it uses values specified in epub/fb2 files?). But I'll look into it eventually, and try to make it configurable.

Thanks a lot.

Originally Posted by Kai771

I'm not a big fan of having info always on, but I do agree with you that going to menu -> Info is pretty slow. I did actually want to implement a shortcut for it, something like keyboard key, then up - but since I don't have K4NT, I couldn't test that and don't know if it will work, so I decided to stick to keys that I can test for the initial release. If you don't mind testing some more things, there are other things I'd like to put on K4NT specific shortcuts. (There are a lot of key shortcuts for K3, since it has a lot of keys . I'm saying this because I think you're unfamiliar with KPV, since you don't have K3, judging by the Device field under your name.)

Up/down are used for panning. Maybe some other combination would also work (keyboard - left/right? keyboard - pg_fwd/pg_bck?). Can someone tell me if keyboard key on K4NT can be used as modifier key (like alt)? Probably not, but I thought I'd ask anyway. Is it just like any other normal key, that returns code 29?

I haven't used KPV before.
I think libreratot does not use next keys on K4NT: "keyboard", "left", right", "enter", "home".

I miss these actions & keybindings: next/prev chapter, toggle_fullscreen (= toggle_infobar)

Originally Posted by Kai771

Yeah, I see what you mean. It doesn't look nice, but still, nothing is missing. You don't really need to read the last line on the screen, that isn't fully visible. When you press pg_fwd, that line will be fully visible on top of the screen. It may be helpful to also turn on overlap to help you find the line boundary easier (it's off by default in LBR). This is how KPV handles rendering of the page. As stated earlier, LBR is a fork of KPV. Meaning that it practically is KPV with a different user interface. I'm not really a developer, I'm just a noob. Really. Some changes to the user interface is the best I can do. Handling of page rendering, caching and all that serious stuff is out of my league. I do agree with you that it would be better to have only fully visible lines, but I'm afraid I can't do anything about it.

No problems, it's really impressive what you (and original developers, of course) have already achieved.


Thanks again for your work,
Iñigo

[Iñigo]

[root@kindle us]# eips -i

Fixed framebuffer info
    id:                  eink_fb    smem_start:       0xD0B8E000
    smem_len:             966656    type:          PACKED_PIXELS
    type_aux:                  0    visual:   STATIC_PSEUDOCOLOR
    xpanstep:                  0    ypanstep:                  0
    ywrapstep:                 0    line_length:             600
    mmio_start:       0x00000000    mmio_len:                  0
    accel:                     0

Variable framebuffer info
    xres:                    600    yres:                    800
    xres_virtual:            600    yres_virtual:            800
    xoffset:                   0    yoffset:                   0
    bits_per_pixel:            8    grayscale:                 1
    red.offset:                0    green.offset:              0
    red.length:                0    green.length:              0
    red.msb_right:             0    green.msb_right:           0
    blue.offset:               0    transp.offset:             0
    blue.length:               0    transp.length:             0
    blue.msb_right:            0    transp.msb_right:          0
    nonstd:                    0    activate:                  2
    width:                    91    height:                  121
    accel_flags:               0    pixclock:                  0
    left_margin:               0    right_margin:              0
    upper_margin:              0    lower_margin:              0
    hsync_len:                 0    vsync_len:                 0
    sync:                      0    vmode:                     0
    rotate:                    0

Hope it helps,
Iñigo