Xpdf - Fast Pdf Reader For Gp2x Released!

[Squidge]

As for using X, the server is so small I don't see what's so bad about it being on the SD, its smaller than 2 mp3s.

The biggest SD card I have is like 64MB (yeah I know, I should buy a bigger one). So using up 8MB or whatever for X is a big space taker.

You don't use (or haven't even tried!!) Qtopia? Aaaaah!!

Whats Qtopia? A quick google search says its Trolltech's application platform for embedded Linux based PDAs. Sounds like an alternative way of saying "a bloated gui, full of applications you'll never use". Unless of course it means something different...

I don't see you complaining about SDL , even when we had to update it on the earlier firmwares or install it on our SD ourselves. X could be in the firmware too, then no worries.

I've never installed any part of SDL, that's why So it's not on my SD, and never had been. Any application that failed/fails to run without it simply got/gets deleted. Most of the time people just link it statically, so I'm happy.

I don't think you can statically link X however, and if you could, it would probably bloat the app by 7meg or so.

 

[Orkie]

I don't think you can statically link X however, and if you could, it would probably bloat the app by 7meg or so.

You can statically link the X libraries, but not the server itself. If you want, you can actually remove the libraries from the X server package, reducing the size by half. I have no idea why they are there, but I don't think anything will break if you do scrap them.

 

[LineOf7s]

That's strange, I've loaded the Motif user manual which is 776 pages in about 10 seconds if that. It's about 3Mb.

How big is the file you're loading?

How long does it take to load on a PC?

It's a 38MB file (big, yes - I might try reducing that, if only for the card-space) and on the PC it takes just a few seconds (4-5?) to load (Athlon XP 1900+, 512MB ram) - fast enough that I've never thought about it "loading" before.

It wasn't a particularly good example I suppose - just the first one I grabbed - but I wanted to test 'load times' so I deliberately picked a bigger one. I'll test it with some more and see how it compares.

The load time wasn't the deal-breaker though, as much as the relative difficulty in reading. Ideally we could load a PDF in, set a zoom level to be able to fit all the words on the screen (legibly, by using as much of the screen as is humanly possible), and when finished reading one screenful of text, press a key to move to the next. At it's best, we should be able to read one-handed <snigger> and as easily as reading a book, or else it all becomes A Bit Too Much Trouble To Bother With. Which would be a shame, as this is an excellent start - certainly the best GP2X PDF reader I've come across, and I'd much rather install X (and face the prospect of more cool ported X apps) than Qtopia (which I'd only use for the PDF reader).

 

[nubie]

As for using X, the server is so small I don't see what's so bad about it being on the SD, its smaller than 2 mp3s.

The biggest SD card I have is like 64MB (yeah I know, I should buy a bigger one). So using up 8MB or whatever for X is a big space taker.

You don't use (or haven't even tried!!) Qtopia? Aaaaah!!

Whats Qtopia? A quick google search says its Trolltech's application platform for embedded Linux based PDAs. Sounds like an alternative way of saying "a bloated gui, full of applications you'll never use". Unless of course it means something different...

I don't see you complaining about SDL , even when we had to update it on the earlier firmwares or install it on our SD ourselves. X could be in the firmware too, then no worries.

I've never installed any part of SDL, that's why So it's not on my SD, and never had been. Any application that failed/fails to run without it simply got/gets deleted. Most of the time people just link it statically, so I'm happy.

I don't think you can statically link X however, and if you could, it would probably bloat the app by 7meg or so.

Fair enough, maybe we will just wait for X on the firmware (although I suppose you could put it on the Nand yourself, but with only 64mb cards that would probably hurt).

I didn't even think about the size, 1GB cards are around $20 now though. Strangely enough the creation of SDL apps caused the firmware to carry the proper SDL libraries, if the creation of X11 apps causes X11 or even some of the apps to be part of the firmware it becomes chicken vs. the egg.

If you won't run the program because it dependant on a library, then the library won't be in use, then the next firmware won't carry it, then the next application or game won't be written.

(64mb, oh my, it is like the stone ages!!)

 

[PSyMastR]

How do you navigate up a directory? I have all my PDF's in /mnt/sd/E-Books/PDF/ and this app is in /mnt/sd/Programs/GP2Xpdf/

 

[Parkydr]

There are 2 ways:

1) Double click (you have to do it fast) on the '..' directory
2) Select the '..' directory and press filter

 

[Parkydr]

I don't think you can statically link X however, and if you could, it would probably bloat the app by 7meg or so.

You can statically link the X libraries, but not the server itself. If you want, you can actually remove the libraries from the X server package, reducing the size by half. I have no idea why they are there, but I don't think anything will break if you do scrap them.

You don't build the X server on it's own, it's the whole XFree86 distribution so some of the libraries will be redundant.

There is also some data e.g. the fonts these could be removed but if there are going to be several X apps, it makes sense to have a reasonable number as standard rather than each application including them.

GP2Xpdf is statically linked and weighs in at 4.8Mb (stripped).

With the libraries being included with the X server, dynamic linking could be used which would cut the size of the application further.

 

[DanSolo]

[/quote]
It's a 38MB file (big, yes - I might try reducing that, if only for the card-space) and on the PC it takes just a few seconds (4-5?) to load (Athlon XP 1900+, 512MB ram) - fast enough that I've never thought about it "loading" before.
[/quote]

That's hardly a fair example. You should really unbundle that pdf to jpegs and use in firmware picture viewer. The text is always going to be difficult to read unless your pdf viewer is using it's own fonts.

 

[Parkydr]

38MB is going to take some time to read from an SD card compared with the hard disk of a PC. It's hard to tell if it's the SD speed or processor speed (or both) that causes the long load time.

For normal sized fonts on a letter/A4 page it is not possible to show the whole width in readable form (You could try large print editions of books ).

80/90% zoom (which I'm adding) will allow normal size text to be read and the page to be 2 screens wide so it will be possible to pan from size to side.

As I've said I will add a button (probably A) that moves the page left to right, then scrolls one line so you will have one handed viewing.

 

[halo9]

The biggest SD card I have is like 64MB (yeah I know, I should buy a bigger one). So using up 8MB or whatever for X is a big space taker.

Terrible state of affairs. Squidge, if you PM me your postal address I'll donate you a still sealed 1Gb card...

 

[Squidge]

I've not managed to fill up the 64MB card yet (well, I might if I put X on it ), so a 1GB card would just be a waste. Although I play around a lot with emu's, I hardly ever actually play games using them, so my cards are usually just full of bits of things I'm working on.

At the moment, I see the one of the 64MB cards is completely empty, and the other has the latest SquidgeSNES and a donkey kong rom on it, so about 92% empty.

 

[halo9]

I got it free but no problem. I've got about four cards on the go at the moment..!

 

[LineOf7s]

It's a 38MB file (big, yes - I might try reducing that, if only for the card-space) and on the PC it takes just a few seconds (4-5?) to load (Athlon XP 1900+, 512MB ram) - fast enough that I've never thought about it "loading" before.

That's hardly a fair example. You should really unbundle that pdf to jpegs and use in firmware picture viewer. The text is always going to be difficult to read unless your pdf viewer is using it's own fonts.

Whilst I agree it wasn't exactly a 'fair' test (it was, as I said, just the first sizeable PDF I grabbed), I feel a need to clarify that I wasn't doing a "oh it loads this quickly on the PC, why doesn't it load this quickly on the GP2X - this thing is poop" type of post as much as I was explicity answering Parkydr's question of

How long does it take to load on a PC?

And whilst I've tried reading a book-as-jpgs before using the picture viewer, it's fair to say the experience was unsatisfactory.

I have many PDF books I wish to read on-the-go, so I'll be conducting a more thorough test over the weekend. Hopefully my results will be a little more meaningful, rather than a quick first impression.

 

[rooster]

I've not managed to fill up the 64MB card yet (well, I might if I put X on it ), so a 1GB card would just be a waste.

There are many reasons not to install the X server.

Just to recap, I found the most convincing ones so far are:

1) It brings bad luck
2) It may be linked to crop failure
3) It makes babies be born with 7 fingers

 

[DanSolo]

Whilst I agree it wasn't exactly a 'fair' test (it was, as I said, just the first sizeable PDF I grabbed), I feel a need to clarify that I wasn't doing a "oh it loads this quickly on the PC, why doesn't it load this quickly on the GP2X - this thing is poop" type of post as much as I was explicity answering Parkydr's question of

How long does it take to load on a PC?

And whilst I've tried reading a book-as-jpgs before using the picture viewer, it's fair to say the experience was unsatisfactory.

Well I was just thinking a PDF that size probably isn't OCR'd and is really just a series of picture files, so a pdf viewer wouldn't be able to use it's own fonts for the text, which would be much quicker and legible.
Also, I've no objections to having the app. 6MB or whatever in size when you include X, as long as X only runs when I start up the app. and finishes when I exit. I don't really want it running in the background (unless it can be integrated into Enexfi or gpmenu?)

 

[Parkydr]

Version 0.2 is now available featuring:

• Rationalised buttons and menu
• Zoom and scroll buttons
• More zoom levels
• Smaller toolbar
• Open defaults to SD root directory
• Double click interval increased

 

[goob]

I should be off to bed, but I must try this new release first

 

[SiDCrAzY]

Thank you very much Parkydr, I'll try this once I'm home.

 

[reeced]

Parkydr, thanks for a great application - love the improvements in ver 0.2
Is there any possibility of adding bookmarks ?
For those interested here's a site with some nice tagged PDF classics - http://www.planetpdf.com/free_pdf_ebooks.asp?CurrentPage=1

If you set zoom to 100%, continous scroll, horizontal scroll in the middle, then you can get a readable full page on screen. Position the cursor on the bottom of the vertical scroll bar and you can "one-hand" read by pressing the B button

 

[LineOf7s]

Whilst I agree it wasn't exactly a 'fair' test (it was, as I said, just the first sizeable PDF I grabbed), I feel a need to clarify that I wasn't doing a "oh it loads this quickly on the PC, why doesn't it load this quickly on the GP2X - this thing is poop" type of post as much as I was explicity answering Parkydr's question of

How long does it take to load on a PC?

And whilst I've tried reading a book-as-jpgs before using the picture viewer, it's fair to say the experience was unsatisfactory.

Well I was just thinking a PDF that size probably isn't OCR'd and is really just a series of picture files, so a pdf viewer wouldn't be able to use it's own fonts for the text, which would be much quicker and legible.
Also, I've no objections to having the app. 6MB or whatever in size when you include X, as long as X only runs when I start up the app. and finishes when I exit. I don't really want it running in the background (unless it can be integrated into Enexfi or gpmenu?)

Actually, that's an excellent point I hadn't considered. I'll try some about-the-same-size books with much smaller filesizes and see what the difference is.

... time passes ...

Result? Unsurprisingly much faster to load - back to the point of "loaded before one starts thinking about it loading". Sadly, I find myself spending more time moving the cursor around the screen trying to navigate around the PDF than I do actually reading. The 'middle button panning' feature is nice, but it needs to be decoupled from the location of the cursor. The 'next page' button (which would ideally act like a "show me the next screenful of info, even if it's just the next third of a page" button) needs to be assigned to key (I propose the R key). I see the 'reading sequence' as something akin to:

1. Set initial zoom level to make things legible
2. Page/screen down (using R key) to where you wanna start reading. Be nice if it 'remembered' where you last left it, bookmark-style.
3. Start reading, scrolling left and right to read to the edge of each screenful of info. It's unlikely the "zoom until it's legible" step will avoid the need to scroll left and right.
4. At the end of that screenful of info, hit the R key to go to the next screenful of info.
5. Goto step 3.

It's early days yet, and these are only suggestions - do with them as you will. It's still the best PDF reader we have yet, whatever happens.