Feature requests etc.

[allovertheglobe]

In this thread we can continue to discuss pros and cons of desired features.

Otherwise iRex has dedicated subforums regarding all feature requests and BUG REPORTS:
General DR1000 forum
Feedback and Bugs only forum
PC Companion Software forum
Pressreader forum

In case this post is not up-to-date, this wiki might prove informative.

Also of interest: iRex' official blog.

Direct link to iRex' firmware repository (manual install, latest.zip always contains the current version)
The PC Companion Software (if the automatic update doesn't work for you)

Current Software Version (Release Notes):

1.7.1 (Bugfix, only a post on the iRex blog)

Older versions:

1.7 / PDF version
1.6 / PDF version
1.5 / PDF version / Updated User Manual
1.03 (no release notes, strictly adds PressReader functionality)
1.02
1.01

General Update Notes:

- Tabbed Task Manager added, Spanish & Italian added, other fixes & improvements in 1.7.
- Improved keyboard and more power management tweaks in 1.6. (Updated NewsReader)
- Improved user interface and better power management in 1.5.
- Improved pen speed, more accurate battery indicator in 1.02.

Not yet implemented as of 1.7:

- Still no Eraser (and extra button) support for the Pro pen, as announced at the DR1000 launch(!). Somewhat alleviated in 1.5 by using corresponding shortcut in toolbar, but of course the pen eraser would even work in fullscreen mode when the toolbar isn't visible.

- Related: For the sketching functionality, using the one pen button as UNDO would improve usability a lot, especially in fullscreen mode.

- Very important: There is no "Clear page" in the Writing menu, right now everything has to be erased stroke by stroke using the eraser... CURRENT WORKAROUND: From a PC: erase the corresponding metadata.db or rename the original PDF, but that also removes any other info stored in the same file.

- Enable Text Input in addition to sketching. The software keyboard is already there... faster to write, easier to read. Should be fairly easy to store in the metadata.db

- Remember the view setting per folder. The Home folder is nice to have as icons for instance, but for picture/PDF folders the list view is more convenient. Somewhat alleviated in 1.5 by using corresponding shortcut in toolbar.

- Remember the last image/document in a folder (i.e. when returning to that folder, it will be highlighted rather than the first item in the folder) Similar to remembering last page viewed in document. Current clunky workaround: Create shortcut instead.

- For large volumes of single pages or images, browse compressed folders & display their content as long as it's in a supported format would be very useful (instead of literally having over 10000 files on my reader because of that)

- Expanded font menu with custom fonts/styles, esp. add at least a SERIF font! 1.5 adds more font sizes at least. CURRENT WORKAROUND: Use the recently released FBReader.

- Improve controls when zooming: (some improvements in 1.5 (zoom levels))
1) Optional key assignment in preferences (i.e. left and bottom for panning, right for flipping pages or similar) when images are LARGER than display.
2) Auto-detect zoom-level/image-size: If the image is SMALLER than display, do NOT enable PAN.
(Currently you can only flip through a series of images when using Full Screen, Fit to Screen or Hide Margins (Not Page Flow) When using ANY Zoom setting, all the keys are switched to panning even when the image is SMALLER than the screen resolution. You have to use the pen (and no full screen) to flip pages in this mode. CURRENT WORKAROUND: Pan can be manually disabled in the Zooming menu!

- The "Go To Page" feature should also be an icon in the menu! Right now I have to disable Full Screen mode every time I want to use that feature (to be able to click on the current page to call up the window)

- "Close -ALL- Documents" icon in the top-level menu, instead of the submenu for each individual document... (I ran out of memory when zooming in a large image, which resulted in instability and reset after the warning, so that would be a quick way to free it up as much as possible.)

- Display Owner's information at boot-up and maybe in the Info panel, in case it gets lost and an honest soul actually wants to return it.

- Adjust contrast/design of software keyboard. Would just involve updating the graphics... (the letters are clearly visible, the rest not so much. In some ways the Iliad one was a better design.)

- Rotate screen 180 degrees in Portrait Mode. Useful to get Menu keys out of the way when scribbling, USB cable connector out of the way when used while recharging. Currently only an option in Landscape Mode (via Buttons on the left or right side option)

Long-term Features:

- Proper (X)HTML + CSS support. Planned in upcoming browser, which will be available to everybody, not just owners of the upcoming DR1000SW. The DR1000SW has been much delayed, so that probably means no support for the foreseeable future. CURRENT WORKAROUND: Use -latest- version of FBReader.

- 2-page display, especially in Landscape mode, when reading mostly text.

- Real Keyboard Support, USB or Bluetooth (very unlikely)

Implemented in some form as of 1.7:

- Switch the margin color between black and white (in Personal Preferences maybe) Right now the default is black, but I would prefer white, if only because when I print on a real piece of paper, the unprinted area remains white too. White is now default as of 1.7!

- Use the icons in the menu bar not just as static status indicators, but also as active shortcuts (ex. click on the padlock to lock/unlock the keys, click on the pen icon to cycle through the different modes: pan, write...) Then add a few more! Added in 1.5, with additional shortcuts.

- Saving the "Zooming" menu preferences for each document/image folder would be very useful, especially with all the current resets/shutdowns... Added in 1.01. Still somewhat buggy. Fixed in 1.5

- Improve sketching performance and accuracy! Much Improved in 1.02. Probably no longer an issue: It would nice to see a separate pixel/bitmap-based sketching application that takes full advantage of the pen and the screen tech, and is more sophisticated and dedicated than the sketch functionality right now. The current one works OK, and inside/on top of documents for annotations (which is certainly useful). The new one could be dedicated and do away with the required compatibility with other doc formats and their metadata.db

- remember the last page read, even across a reset. Added in 1.01.

[pthwaite]

I would like to be able to rotate the image 360degrees and not just 90deg. Largely because I'd prefer to hold the device in landscape mode but with the buttons on the RHS, or even "upside down".

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by pthwaite

I would like to be able to rotate the image 360degrees and not just 90deg. Largely because I'd prefer to hold the device in landscape mode but with the buttons on the RHS, or even "upside down".

If you rotate something 360° then it would look the same as it does now. I assume you want to rotate it 180°?

BOb

[pthwaite]

No & Yes. Since I suspect that they would only keep a single rotate icon, I would wish the icon to rotatet the page 90degrees everytime you touch/operat it so that you would eventually go through a full 360 degrees.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by pthwaite

No & Yes. Since I suspect that they would only keep a single rotate icon, I would wish the icon to rotatet the page 90degrees everytime you touch/operat it so that you would eventually go through a full 360 degrees.

I see what you are saying now.

BOb

[allovertheglobe]

Originally Posted by pthwaite

I would like to be able to rotate the image 360degrees and not just 90deg. Largely because I'd prefer to hold the device in landscape mode but with the buttons on the RHS, or even "upside down".

Do You know there is an option in Device Settings to chose whether Landscape mode is clockwise or anticlockwise (i.e. the "bottom" keys will be either on the lefthand or righthand side)?

I guess they could make it more easily accessible, but then again once I picked a side, I haven't really changed it since then.

[pthwaite]

Doh!
You are quite right, I'd even used it before. Too many menus to get used to.
Thanks for the reminder. I've just been using it most of the day ad thinking I' sure I had the display the other way round...

Howard

[allovertheglobe]

Bumping this thread back up, I apologize if it inconveniences someone here, in which case I won't do it again.

Please keep adding your own suggestions!!

I think it's easier to keep track of things if it's in one thread like this.

[Savonarola]

Love the big screen, but the majority of pdfs I read are still book size, so I'd love a feature to view consecutive pages two at a time in double-page-spreads, and each page turn skipping to the next such spread (one screen, pp1-2, next, pp3-4, etc). Holding it in landscape, it's easily big enough, would give more of a 'natural book-reading experience', and would half the number of page turns, extending battery life.

[BKeeper]

Aside from the usual power management fix,

I think pdf support it's a little buggy for large pdfs: Mainly the buffering algorithm needs to be unproved: my DR seems to take too much time (30s+) rendering some pages (and that's with the CPU at full speed...) and more often than not it will just hang. But this it's just a bug, not really a feature.
...

Feature request:

I usually read pdfs in continuous mode with margin crop, but that's not enough to disple an entire A4, a little it's left out and you have scroll using pan.

But I you don't wanna use the stylus (I have mine turned off for better battery life...), you must use the keys, and I've found that the amount of scroll per key press isn't always right, and there is a lot of wasted screen just displaying the blank page separation graphics.

So I'd like to propose a better key-scroll.

While in continuous mode with margin crop if you click the pan icon, horizontal keys (< 0 >) would scroll only within the limits of the current page, while lateral keys would operate as usual: page forward/backward.

This is not difficult to implement and I think it would make the reading experience much more efficient. And because of the aforementioned blank space problem I don't really think it would increment the screen refreshes per page, since we would need 2 refreshes/ page as usual.

---
2) I need to figure out the exact workings of the margin crop function (I haven't used it with image based pdfs, yet...). But I suspect that it has a white detection trigger.
IMHO for text based pdfs the function could be a little more aggressive and just barely crop to the width of the text layer. Ignoring background elements.

Does anybody know a bit more about how it works?

[Savonarola]

Many PDFs I use, being publishers' proofs, have crop marks at the edges, with a lot of white space inside them, then the text inside that. The 'Hide Margins' feature, therefore, only crops to the edge of the crop marks, which still leaves a lot of margin. I can zoom into the text, of course, which is great. However, if I then press an arrow, because I'm zoomed, it doesn't turn a page, it only pans within that zoomed page. On the iLiad, if you zoomed, then turned a page, it would go to the next page and maintain the same zoom. Which is perfect for me. As it is, the only way I can turn pages while maintaining a zoom on a document at the moment is using the stylus to touch the next-page box at the bottom, which means I can't use full-screen (my preferred view) and isn't a very natural way of turning pages. I would like to be able to set a preference so that pressing an arrow key in a zoomed pdf turns a page, rather than panning within that page.

[BKeeper]

Originally Posted by Savonarola

I would like to be able to set a preference so that pressing an arrow key in a zoomed pdf turns a page, rather than panning within that page.

Great, we want the same, one set of keys to pan and the other for page up/down.

[Savonarola]

Originally Posted by BKeeper

Great, we want the same, one set of keys to pan and the other for page up/down.

To quote another user over at the irex forum...

'The problem is that once you have zoomed, it defaults to pan mode (which is a pain in the ****). You can turn off the pan mode by pressing the menu button and un-highlighting the pan icon (in the other section at the bottom). But it would be much better if the buttons stayed as page flips and let the stylus do pan. There's far too much pressing of the menu button needed to do basic stuff, which makes the whole interface seem really slow.'

Right on both counts.

[Savonarola]

This might sound dumb, and is obviously a small thing, but in a next-gen version, they should put the mini-usb port on the TOP! Not the bottom! It sounds like nothing, but with it located as it is now, it means that if you're reading while the machine is charging, you can't comfortably rest it on your lap and you can't rest it at all on a table, because there's a lead poking out from its bottom edge.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by Savonarola

they should put the mini-usb port on the TOP! Not the bottom!

I suggest looking into right angled adaptors. Most seem to be for Motorola phones, and these are not quite mini-USB spec (but they are reported to work with mini-USB devices for charging). See for example EMU Right Angle Charger Adapter.