My review and comments on M92

paralleluniverse · 01-26-2013, 10:16 AM

I've had my M92 for about 2 weeks now. It's a great device. I use it all the time to read PDFs, annotate PDFs, and write notes. It does mostly what I want it to: a big screen ereader where it's easy to read academic PDFs, write on them, and to take handwritten notes. In this thread I'd like to point out some suggestions to improve the device further, in order of importance:

1. My biggest issue is not being able to merge perfectly horizontal and vertical lines. This is quite annoying. I hope this gets fixed: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...29&postcount=3

2. It would be great if it's possible to split the screen for multitasking. E.g. The top of the screen can be a PDF, the bottom can be another section of the same PDF like the bibliography, or the bottom can be Scribble so that I can take notes, or it can be a different PDF if I want to look something up. This is basically similar to how I work using paper, e.g. when an academic article references another one, I look at them both at the same time, or when it mentions a theorem, I might look that up in a textbook, and I have a notepad where I write my notes on.

3. It would also be nice if it's possible to export Scribbles as PDF. Currently we can only export the last page as a PNG. This is quite useless. The workaround is sketching on a blank PDF file, but one advantage of Scribble is that it doesn't have that bug where perfectly straight lines don't merge.

4. It would be good if there were universal PDF settings. For example, for all PDFs, I want to use glyph embolden level 1, always display hyperlinks, etc, but I have to set this up every time I open a new PDF. There should be a way to set default PDF settings that apply to all PDFs, unless you specifically change some settings within particular PDFs. This also applies to text-to-speech. It's quite annoying that the text-to-speech settings always reset every time the feature is used, instead these settings should be saved.

5. The annotation feature that highlights passages in PDFs ignores spaces. While I don't use this feature, I can see why it would be annoying when all annotations exported are unusable because there's no spaces. In fact, there seems to be a space detection bug. When you highlight a word for the dictionary it sometimes gets half the word or more than 1 word, and there's sometimes no way to highlight just 1 word. The dictionary also seems to have some redundant buttons, e.g. in the PDF viewer dictionary, the left icon (magnifying glass with "?") seems to do nothing. In the dictionary program on the menu, the 3rd and 4th icon from the left (the "?" and the magnifying glass) seem to do the exact same thing, i.e. lookup the definition of the word.

6. A lot of the margins settings seem redundant and repeated. For example: page mode and paper mode seems to do nothing. The following options seem to do exactly the same thing: Scrolling mode = to width, comic mode = to height, selection zoom = zoom by two points. In addition auto crop, asks for a number, but this numbers seems to do nothing. Auto crop always works correctly regardless of the number you enter. Auto-detect margin does nothing. This isn't really a complaint because, all the margin functionality is there, but there seems to be so much functionality that half of it doesn't need to be there. I suggest removing the duplicate features, and removing the need to enter a number for auto-crop (unless it really does do something that I'm not aware of).

7. When reading EPUBs using PDF reader, it would be good if there was an option to change fonts and to use "justified" instead of "left-aligned".

8. In the settings, what is the DRM settings? You choose a user name and password, but it doesn't seem to do anything.

Randy11 · 01-26-2013, 02:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paralleluniverse

6. A lot of the margins settings seem redundant and repeated. For example: page mode and paper mode seems to do nothing. The following options seem to do exactly the same thing: Scrolling mode = to width, comic mode = to height, selection zoom = zoom by two points. In addition auto crop, asks for a number, but this numbers seems to do nothing. Auto crop always works correctly regardless of the number you enter. Auto-detect margin does nothing. This isn't really a complaint because, all the margin functionality is there, but there seems to be so much functionality that half of it doesn't need to be there. I suggest removing the duplicate features, and removing the need to enter a number for auto-crop (unless it really does do something that I'm not aware of).

Oh, no ! There is no duplicate settings. You have all the story about this options in : Firmware updates, dictionaries, fonts and third-party apps for Onyx Boox M92. But, I agree, it's long to read.

In your case, you could have this idea because you have the full page in one screen.

Comic, paper mode : you must have a big zoom. For this options, the viewport is moved.

In Comic mode, it's moved horizontally, to see the box, and a each new 'page' you see an other part of you cartoon. The viewport is moved horizontally and after vertically.
For the paper mode (mainly for 2 columns paper), imagine that you see only 1/4 of the paper. You see the upper-left part. Next page : you see lower-left part. Next page : upper-right. Next page : lower-right. 4 actions to see the paper.
For the scrolling mode, it's the same thing, you must have a particular zoom to see the effect.

Mono · 01-26-2013, 03:00 PM

5. The "space bug" is caused by Adobe library. If Adobe does not correct it there is not much hope.

I do not know in which language the words are parsed wrongly. It seems to work fine in English, it seems to have problems with some letters with accents. My theory is it is sort of "bug" that comes from different alphabet coding in different languages. Binary value that is not letter in English is letter in other languages....

6. Page mode and Paper mode do not do the same unless you see the whole page.

Page mode, Paper mode, Comic mode and Scrolling mode define what happens when you press Next Page. In Paper mode, viewport moves verticaly in columns (if any), in comic mode it moves horizontaly in rows (if any), in Page mode to the same possition in next page, in scrolling mode it goes verticaly.

To width, to height, zoom by 2 points ... is the way to define zoom.

Selection zoom does not do zoom it defines the page size. You may crop the margins using it. So, Selection Zoom should be renamed to something like Manual Crop or Selection Crop. This is wrong.

I had and Universal Manual in mind and not Selecton Zoom.

I guess that number in autocrop is needed in case pdf does not have white margins.

paralleluniverse · 01-26-2013, 11:23 PM

On 5, I don't see how it's an Adobe problem when Adobe handles spaces fine. E.g. copy and paste text from a PDF works on a computer. Although it doesn't affect me since I always use sketch instead of annotate, but I can see why it would annoy others.

On 6, I didn't know that about paper mode, page mode, comic mode and scrolling mode. So now, I would agree with you on this.

However, I still don't see the difference between zoom by 2 points and selection zoom. You say that zoom by 2 points zooms, while selection zoom changes the page size. But how are these different? To me they seem to do the same thing.

As for auto-crop. I'm still not sure what that number does. Regardless of whether it has white margins, auto-crop correctly removes all margins. So it seems to always work, without needing to enter a number. On the other hand, auto-detect margin never works (although that doesn't bother me, because auto-crop works).

Can you explain what the DRM settings do? Thanks.

Mono · 01-27-2013, 05:45 AM

5. The computer code evolves, Adobe might fix the bug in their SW, but not in library used by Onyx. That bug is not for all pdf, but only for some of them.

6. You are right, there is not functional difference between Selection Zoom and 2 points Zoom. The only difference is, how you specify the zoom. I do not use it any more, but when I used it, I used mostly 2 point Zoom, as it is faster.

My opinion is, there is space for Selecton Zoom, if you need make perfect cut, but it should be implemented (in user interface) the same way as Universal Manual (crop page).

I agree, the interface needs some kind of polishing. It is not very intuitive and without manual it makes understanding even harder...

But one has to understand that we are in "transitional state" Features are added/removed and to make manual is often more work than entire programming, so I understand that they want make update of manual when big changes are finished. I hope it will be soon.

I do not use DRM, so I do not know. I guess you insert there username and password and it allows you to read DRM material.

01-26-2013, 10:16 AM	#1
paralleluniverse Enthusiast Posts: 25 Karma: 475214 Join Date: Dec 2012 Device: Onyx M92	My review and comments on M92 I've had my M92 for about 2 weeks now. It's a great device. I use it all the time to read PDFs, annotate PDFs, and write notes. It does mostly what I want it to: a big screen ereader where it's easy to read academic PDFs, write on them, and to take handwritten notes. In this thread I'd like to point out some suggestions to improve the device further, in order of importance: 1. My biggest issue is not being able to merge perfectly horizontal and vertical lines. This is quite annoying. I hope this gets fixed: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...29&postcount=3 2. It would be great if it's possible to split the screen for multitasking. E.g. The top of the screen can be a PDF, the bottom can be another section of the same PDF like the bibliography, or the bottom can be Scribble so that I can take notes, or it can be a different PDF if I want to look something up. This is basically similar to how I work using paper, e.g. when an academic article references another one, I look at them both at the same time, or when it mentions a theorem, I might look that up in a textbook, and I have a notepad where I write my notes on. 3. It would also be nice if it's possible to export Scribbles as PDF. Currently we can only export the last page as a PNG. This is quite useless. The workaround is sketching on a blank PDF file, but one advantage of Scribble is that it doesn't have that bug where perfectly straight lines don't merge. 4. It would be good if there were universal PDF settings. For example, for all PDFs, I want to use glyph embolden level 1, always display hyperlinks, etc, but I have to set this up every time I open a new PDF. There should be a way to set default PDF settings that apply to all PDFs, unless you specifically change some settings within particular PDFs. This also applies to text-to-speech. It's quite annoying that the text-to-speech settings always reset every time the feature is used, instead these settings should be saved. 5. The annotation feature that highlights passages in PDFs ignores spaces. While I don't use this feature, I can see why it would be annoying when all annotations exported are unusable because there's no spaces. In fact, there seems to be a space detection bug. When you highlight a word for the dictionary it sometimes gets half the word or more than 1 word, and there's sometimes no way to highlight just 1 word. The dictionary also seems to have some redundant buttons, e.g. in the PDF viewer dictionary, the left icon (magnifying glass with "?") seems to do nothing. In the dictionary program on the menu, the 3rd and 4th icon from the left (the "?" and the magnifying glass) seem to do the exact same thing, i.e. lookup the definition of the word. 6. A lot of the margins settings seem redundant and repeated. For example: page mode and paper mode seems to do nothing. The following options seem to do exactly the same thing: Scrolling mode = to width, comic mode = to height, selection zoom = zoom by two points. In addition auto crop, asks for a number, but this numbers seems to do nothing. Auto crop always works correctly regardless of the number you enter. Auto-detect margin does nothing. This isn't really a complaint because, all the margin functionality is there, but there seems to be so much functionality that half of it doesn't need to be there. I suggest removing the duplicate features, and removing the need to enter a number for auto-crop (unless it really does do something that I'm not aware of). 7. When reading EPUBs using PDF reader, it would be good if there was an option to change fonts and to use "justified" instead of "left-aligned". 8. In the settings, what is the DRM settings? You choose a user name and password, but it doesn't seem to do anything. Last edited by paralleluniverse; 01-26-2013 at 10:36 AM.

01-26-2013, 03:00 PM	#3
Mono Mono Posts: 699 Karma: 13333 Join Date: Jan 2012 Device: Boox M92	5. The "space bug" is caused by Adobe library. If Adobe does not correct it there is not much hope. I do not know in which language the words are parsed wrongly. It seems to work fine in English, it seems to have problems with some letters with accents. My theory is it is sort of "bug" that comes from different alphabet coding in different languages. Binary value that is not letter in English is letter in other languages.... 6. Page mode and Paper mode do not do the same unless you see the whole page. Page mode, Paper mode, Comic mode and Scrolling mode define what happens when you press Next Page. In Paper mode, viewport moves verticaly in columns (if any), in comic mode it moves horizontaly in rows (if any), in Page mode to the same possition in next page, in scrolling mode it goes verticaly. To width, to height, zoom by 2 points ... is the way to define zoom. Selection zoom does not do zoom it defines the page size. You may crop the margins using it. So, Selection Zoom should be renamed to something like Manual Crop or Selection Crop. This is wrong. I had and Universal Manual in mind and not Selecton Zoom. I guess that number in autocrop is needed in case pdf does not have white margins. Last edited by Mono; 01-27-2013 at 05:20 AM.

01-26-2013, 11:23 PM	#4
paralleluniverse Enthusiast Posts: 25 Karma: 475214 Join Date: Dec 2012 Device: Onyx M92	On 5, I don't see how it's an Adobe problem when Adobe handles spaces fine. E.g. copy and paste text from a PDF works on a computer. Although it doesn't affect me since I always use sketch instead of annotate, but I can see why it would annoy others. On 6, I didn't know that about paper mode, page mode, comic mode and scrolling mode. So now, I would agree with you on this. However, I still don't see the difference between zoom by 2 points and selection zoom. You say that zoom by 2 points zooms, while selection zoom changes the page size. But how are these different? To me they seem to do the same thing. As for auto-crop. I'm still not sure what that number does. Regardless of whether it has white margins, auto-crop correctly removes all margins. So it seems to always work, without needing to enter a number. On the other hand, auto-detect margin never works (although that doesn't bother me, because auto-crop works). Can you explain what the DRM settings do? Thanks. Last edited by paralleluniverse; 01-26-2013 at 11:26 PM.

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01-27-2013, 05:45 AM	#5
Mono Mono Posts: 699 Karma: 13333 Join Date: Jan 2012 Device: Boox M92	5. The computer code evolves, Adobe might fix the bug in their SW, but not in library used by Onyx. That bug is not for all pdf, but only for some of them. 6. You are right, there is not functional difference between Selection Zoom and 2 points Zoom. The only difference is, how you specify the zoom. I do not use it any more, but when I used it, I used mostly 2 point Zoom, as it is faster. My opinion is, there is space for Selecton Zoom, if you need make perfect cut, but it should be implemented (in user interface) the same way as Universal Manual (crop page). I agree, the interface needs some kind of polishing. It is not very intuitive and without manual it makes understanding even harder... But one has to understand that we are in "transitional state" Features are added/removed and to make manual is often more work than entire programming, so I understand that they want make update of manual when big changes are finished. I hope it will be soon. I do not use DRM, so I do not know. I guess you insert there username and password and it allows you to read DRM material.

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