Greader2x Public Beta

[Coder]

Well, I've pretty much sorted all the bugs I can find, so I guess it's time to let someone else have a look.

I've uploaded the latest version of GReader2x to Here, feel free to download and test it. Please post any problems you have to this thread.

Just extract the zip file and copy everything to any directory on your SD card.

Some things you'll need to know, both DocBase & AudioBase are set to "." and are not changeable through the config routines. if you want them pointing to anywhere else (probably not a good idea for a beta test) you'll need to edit the greader2x.cfg file by hand.

The Audio player can be brought up by pressing Vol Up/Down together, within the player you can use up/down to go to previous/next song. Left/right highlights the various buttons and select (or whatever button you've configured as Select in the config) clicks the button.

Vol up and Vol down alter the volume both in the player and in the main reading screen.

There are also keys to go to the Top/Bottom of the document, by default they are A+Y and A+X respectively.

Also note that this version word wraps page by page as needed, It sems to work fine, but it was tricky to write and I'm not convinced I've got all the bugs out.

The config routines are done, and while not very pretty, seem to work OK. Let me know if your bookmark is lost when changing settings, it's something that I've had problems with in the past, though it does seem to be fixed now.

Thanks,

Coder.

 

[fusion_power]

I was waiting for a new version of this program. Thanx. .) Will test it.

EDIT: sorry, your programm didn't work for me. Black screen and then return to the "desktop".

 

[sething]

same here, i try starting the program and it kicks me back to the main screen
im using fw 3.0.0

 

[evol]

same here

 

[Coder]

Aargh!

Ever get that urge to just change one more thing before uploading?

It should work OK now, Sorry about that.

 

[fusion_power]

New .gpe still not working - and somehow it corrupts my SD card!
Do you really test your programm live on GP2X before uploading? Please report, when the file really works, because with my 56K Modem downloads are not much fun.

 

[evol]

New .gpe still not working - and somehow it corrupts my SD card!
Do you really test your programm live on GP2X before uploading? Please report, when the file really works, because with my 56K Modem downloads are not much fun.

that was kinda rude.... of you

we are all beta testers u know

 

[Coder]

New .gpe still not working - and somehow it corrupts my SD card!

I doubt that it was GReader2x that corrupted your SD card, but if it did you have my appologies. Having said that, the program seg faults trying to initialise the joystick, long before it attempts to write anything to the card.

Do you really test your programm live on GP2X before uploading?

To answer your question, Yes I do test live on my GP2X. At least once a day I copy it to my GP2X for testing and I've followed the same procedure for the two files I've uploaded:

1. compile for windows
2. copy the EXE to a test directory on my windows box and run it
3 if it works OK, then I compile for GP2X
4 copy the gpe file over to a test directory on the GP2X and run it again
5 If it looks OK, I copy the gpe in to my main reader directory so I can actually use it as my main reader.

I did exactly this for my two uploads.

True, last night I'd assumed a small cosmetic change I'd made between steps three and four had somehow caused the problem, so I rolled it back and tested it before making the second upload.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the problem, the problem was that before uploading the files, I'd edited the config file on windows to remove the CurrentFile setting so it'd be blank. That saved the file with windows line endings (CR+LF), GReader2X being a linux programme expects Unix line endings (CR only). the extra linefeed character causes the problem.

This did not used to be the case when I used SDL_INIFile to read and write the config, but I changed that when I moved from the official SDK (with dynamic linking) to the hardware accelerated libs. Now, to make the programme more robust, and to stop this kind of thing in the future, I'll strip off any linefeed character it finds when it loads the cfg file.

In the meantime, ayone who wants to continue testing can do so by converting the greader2x.cfg file to unix line endings.

There are lots of utilities available on the net to do the conversion, or you can download a version with unix line endings from Here. At only 1.2k it should be a reasonaly fast dwnoad at any modem speed.

Please report, when the file really works, because with my 56K Modem downloads are not much fun.

I don't think you should waste any more time on this, you don't seem cut out to be a beta tester.

Please wait for the release version, which will not have these problems.

 

[Coder]

OK, another version is up Here

This fixes the crash when using a windows formatted cfg file, there's also a fix for a problem with the GoTo EOF key.

Enjoy.

 

[evol]

greader2x hangs when i navigate to [..] and press select and then start

1. navigate to [..]
2. press select
3. press start

other than that swedish special characters dont show, "åöä" (hmm maybe the input txt file must be unix CR also ?)

keep up the good work

 

[Coder]

greader2x hangs when i navigate to [..] and press select and then start

1. navigate to [..]
2. press select
3. press start

Thanks, I'll take a look at it.

other than that swedish special characters dont show, "åöä" (hmm maybe the input txt file must be unix CR also ?)

keep up the good work

Is that in the menu's or in the text you loaded?

If in the text, check first that the file is encoded for utf-8, and that the font you're using has the characters included.

I know that using the default font (Vera) I can see swedish characters in this Ebook

if it's in the menu's, forget all that. You'll need to select the swedish.lng file for your language in the config routine. That file does need to have Unix Line endings (I'll put in a fix for that too).

Thanks for the report.

Coder.

 

[fusion_power]

New .gpe still not working - and somehow it corrupts my SD card!
Do you really test your programm live on GP2X before uploading? Please report, when the file really works, because with my 56K Modem downloads are not much fun.

that was kinda rude.... of you

we are all beta testers u know


Rude? sorry, maybe my english is not the best so I really have trouble to describe things. I don't want do diss someone, all I wanted to ask him was only, if he just testet his last compiled executable on his gp2x before he was uploading it. Sorry if there was something wrong in understanding. I only wanted to know if this file was running on his GP2X because then I would investigate more on my own Handheld for bugs. When he hadn't tested this file then It would be sure, that the file itself has a bug. But like he sayed, he always tests his files before releasing.

@Coder: sorry again. When I understood your post, (really, I know I shouldn't post in english forums when I'm an english-noob, I have talents, but english is not one of them. ^^ ) the problem was only the wrong text format of the cfg file. Hm, then it was my fault to because I should have seen this when I edited the config with Notepad++ which normaly easily can detect and change any text format. (its really a great little tool! )

And this with my SD card I have to investigate. Its just never happend before in this way. I want to copying and overwriting the readers .gpe file but it was not working after I tested the program. It leaves me a 0-byte file which was not deletable and this only with this file (had tested other files to) Luckily chkdsk was doing his magical work and everything was ok then. So of course this can only have been a random event. Maybe I have to take a closer look to my SD card from now on.

EDIT: ok, everything is working fine now. But I have this problem with special letters to. There are no german "umlauts" displayed like ÄÖÜ... and the missing caracters "eating" their neighbour characters :lol:
I just wonder because I tested exactly the same text-files like the older greader and there were all Umlauts displayed correctly. Now I start to play with the text-format and the GP2X character-Settings, maybe its working somehow.

 

[Coder]

@Coder: sorry again. When I understood your post, (really, I know I shouldn't post in english forums when I'm an english-noob, I have talents, but english is not one of them. ^^ ) the problem was only the wrong text format of the cfg file. Hm, then it was my fault to because I should have seen this when I edited the config with Notepad++ which normaly easily can detect and change any text format. (its really a great little tool! )

Oh, it was my fault, I just wasn't thinking when I edited it in notepad, and you had no way of knowing what format it should have been in.

It was unfortunate that I didn't have time to properly investigate the problem last night, so I just rolled back a change I had made and retested on my GP2X. It worked so I updated the zip file with the new .gpe. Of course, that left the misformatted .cfg file in there

To be honest, I didn't realise the formatting would be a problem, I've been changing settings through the config routines within the program for weeks and can't remember editing the cfg manually since I stopped using SDL_Inifile.

Still, it was a bug, and it's now fixed.

And this with my SD card I have to investigate. Its just never happend before in this way. I want to copying and overwriting the readers .gpe file but it was not working after I tested the program. It leaves me a 0-byte file which was not deletable and this only with this file (had tested other files to) Luckily chkdsk was doing his magical work and everything was ok then. So of course this can only have been a random event. Maybe I have to take a closer look to my SD card from now on.

I really don't know what could have done that, I've never experienced any problems with the SD card even after GReader2X has crashed, and believe me it's been through plenty of crashes since I started it.

EDIT: ok, everything is working fine now. But I have this problem with special letters to. There are no german "umlauts" displayed like ÄÖÜ... and the missing caracters "eating" their neighbour characters :lol:
I just wonder because I tested exactly the same text-files like the older greader and there were all Umlauts displayed correctly. Now I start to play with the text-format and the GP2X character-Settings, maybe its working somehow.

That's usually an effect of using ANSI encoded texts, they use high bytes similar to UTF-8 documents, but only have a single byte per character. The routine I'm using for the UTF-8 stuff can't tell the difference, and so messes it up.

If you convert the text to UTF-8 encoding, it should work.

 

[fusion_power]

That's usually an effect of using ANSI encoded texts, they use high bytes similar to UTF-8 documents, but only have a single byte per character. The routine I'm using for the UTF-8 stuff can't tell the difference, and so messes it up.

If you convert the text to UTF-8 encoding, it should work.

Hm, ok, I try. But would be cool if the texts could be working like in the older greader, without changing everything. And I have the problem, when I change the texts to UTF-8 even in windows or every reader there are no umlauts displayed anymore, only ugly squares. Is there a solution that UTF-8 is working correctly everywhere?

EDIT: it's like I thought: converting in UTF-8 makes everything even worse. Now the text is completely garbaged and is not correctly displayed even in any windows Text-viewer. Greader still displays this wrong squares and missing letters.

Another suggestion: the buttons react a little bit to good. when pressing "select" a little bit to long, the popup window disappears again. ^^
Oh, and dou you want to add this feature for rotating screen(s), where the background also "rotates" (using vertical version of the bg pic ) ?

 

[Coder]

That's usually an effect of using ANSI encoded texts, they use high bytes similar to UTF-8 documents, but only have a single byte per character. The routine I'm using for the UTF-8 stuff can't tell the difference, and so messes it up.

If you convert the text to UTF-8 encoding, it should work.

Hm, ok, I try. But would be cool if the texts could be working like in the older greader, without changing everything.

The problem with ANSI encoding is that it is language specific, character codes that are used for umlauts in one language can be used for something completely different in another. Switching to UTF-8 allows me to support many more languages with little performance penalties. (I'm still working on Arabic and Japanese as these have additional problems).

And I have the problem, when I change the texts to UTF-8 even in windows or every reader there are no umlauts displayed anymore, only ugly squares. Is there a solution that UTF-8 is working correctly everywhere?

Fonts.

The fonts you use need to support utf-8 characters as well as the applications. The Windows Arial font renders Umlauts (as well as most utf-8 characters) fine and should be the default font for most windows applications.

I can't speak for other text readers, their authors would have had their own reasons for not moving to utf-8 or one of the other unicode standards. The only benefit I can see of Ansi is that it works by default for a handfull of western european languages.

 

[Coder]

EDIT: it's like I thought: converting in UTF-8 makes everything even worse. Now the text is completely garbaged and is not correctly displayed even in any windows Text-viewer. Greader still displays this wrong squares and missing letters.

What font are you using in GReader2x as MainFont?

Another suggestion: the buttons react a little bit to good. when pressing "select" a little bit to long, the popup window disappears again. ^^

OK, I'll take a look at making the key delay configurable, the current speed is comfortable for me, but everyone is different.

Oh, and dou you want to add this feature for rotating screen(s), where the background also "rotates" (using vertical version of the bg pic ) ?

Background pics would have to be named in a certain way for this to work, some way for the program to know that one picture is a rotation of another.

Are you likely to be switching rotation on a regular basis? I'd assumed that people would set things up in whatever way they're comfortable using it and then not change much of anything after that.

What do you think of using _0, _90, _180 & _270 on the file names? So you'd have bg_0.jpg for normal, bg_90.jpg for rotated 90 degrees etc. that way it could always find the relevant background for a given rotation.

 

[fusion_power]

I really have tried everything, nothing displays the special letters correctly on Greader. The only correct file is your language file, which I copied and renamed it in a .txt file. Its correctly as language file in the menus and correctly displayed on greader as txt-file. But not on my PC. ^^""
I had analyzed this file. Notepad++ displays it as ANSI file with a additional aktivated "UTF-without BOM" option, whatever this is. I am not able to activate or save this option in other text files, so I'm not able to copy this Text status to another Text and I had tried it in linux and windows coded text.
Really complicated to just display a little bit of (german)text on GP2X I think . Please, can you add some kind of optional Greader 0.3-compatible mode so everyone who don't want to convert something can read his (german) texts correctly like in the older greader?
Oh, and I have tested everything with your standard-fonts, booth don't display anything correctly when special letters come into play.

Rotating-thing: I think 2 pix would be enough. One for 0° and 180° and one for 90° and 270°. (Your program should be able to turn the images for 180° and 270° correctly "in hardware" or so because there is no change from the 0° and 90° images instead of rotating.

 

[Coder]

I really have tried everything, nothing displays the special letters correctly on Greader. The only correct file is your language file, which I copied and renamed it in a .txt file. Its correctly as language file in the menus and correctly displayed on greader as txt-file. But not on my PC. ^^""
I had analyzed this file. Notepad++ displays it as ANSI file with a additional aktivated "UTF-without BOM" option, whatever this is.

BOM is the Beginning of file marker that tells some programs that a file is UTF-8 encoded, since I knew that already, I stripped it out.

What program are you using to view the language file on your PC? notepad or wordpad or even MS-Word will display it correctly. I'm not sure how Notepad++ will display it, though it seems to recognise it as the correct format, so I'd expect it to work. Again, what font are you using to view it on windows?

I am not able to activate or save this option in other text files, so I'm not able to copy this Text status to another Text and I had tried it in linux and windows coded text.

To create a UTF-8 encoded file, just open any text file in windows notepad and "Save As" there's an option on the save dialog to select UTF-8, it couldn't be simpler.

Really complicated to just display a little bit of (german)text on GP2X I think .

It's really not difficult at all, just use the right tools for the job.

Please, can you add some kind of optional Greader 0.3-compatible mode so everyone who don't want to convert something can read his (german) texts correctly like in the older greader?

I really don't think that's a good idea, what would I do when someone else came along and wanted french but didn't want to convert texts to UTF-8, or Italian or any of the other languages GReader now supports, should I put in special modes for them as well? Even though it handles their languages perfectly well as it is?

Oh, and I have tested everything with your standard-fonts, booth don't display anything correctly when special letters come into play.

The situation requires two simple things, a file encoded as UTF-8 and a font that supports it. The standard fonts do support UTF-8, you've seen that yourself with the language file. All you need to do is convert a text to UTF-8 and it'll display correctly.

I'll repeat the instructions, load the text into plain old windows notepad, select "save as" from the menu and where it says "Encoding" choose utf-8. Your best bet would be to save it to a new file, so thta you can still see the original on windows.

Rotating-thing: I think 2 pix would be enough. One for 0° and 180° and one for 90° and 270°. (Your program should be able to turn the images for 180° and 270° correctly "in hardware" or so because there is no change from the 0° and 90° images instead of rotating.

OK, if the current background has a _0 or a _90 in it it'll look for the relevant file when rotating the screen.

I'll take a look at it.

 

[fusion_power]

The situation requires two simple things, a file encoded as UTF-8 and a font that supports it. The standard fonts do support UTF-8, you've seen that yourself with the language file. All you need to do is convert a text to UTF-8 and it'll display correctly.

I'll repeat the instructions, load the text into plain old windows notepad, select "save as" from the menu and where it says "Encoding" choose utf-8. Your best bet would be to save it to a new file, so thta you can still see the original on windows.

Exactly what I had done again and again. I encoded with notepad++ every textfile in "UTF-8" which instantly killed all special letters. Only your language file was shown correctly but Notepad++ says itz is encoded in ANSI without UTF-8 BOM option. And this language File only shown on Greader correctly (and notepad++) Its everywhere displayed wrong in my Windows System. Editor, Wordpad, Total Commander lister...
Ok, MS WORD is working.... strange because it uses the same UTF-8 value like in Notepad++

...EEK! Converting Working to! But completely weird because my testfile (a longer german text) shows in Notepad++ really exactly the same activated option "encode in UTF-8" like the non-working one which I converted in Notepad itself. No difference in this. Seems like Word converts in the "right" UTF-8 format and Notepad++ in the "wrong one" really strange.
Seems like I have to use Word for converting. Word-converted files are shown correcty in all windows text-viewers to. Here, I upload my longer Text-files, one with the correct UTF-8 done in Word and one in the "Wrong" UTF-8 done in Notepad++
But booth Files still differs from your language file in format because the lang. file is not shown correctly in windows wordpad, Editor, Lister...

http://rapidshare.com/files/30386002/UTF8test.rar.html

...phewwww.... now I take a break :lol:

 

[Yod4z]

your txt file are in "signed UTF8" not in "UTF8" maybe it that the problem