[Final] Book Reader 2.7 (3.0 and 3.1 compatible)

[Netrix]

Only plain text files (.txt) work with the Book Reader. Stop trying to use it to read Word documents, and other formats that are not plain text. Also, make sure that the file size of the text file around 800 KB or less. If it is larger than that, split the file up.

The source code for this application is licensed with the GNU General Public License version 3, which means that you can redistribute it (without charging anyone) and use it for your own programs, with a few restrictions. Details can be found in the included License.txt file.

LedZepp started the Book Reader, and I am continuing the work on it to make it as good as possible. If you have a book that doesn't work, give me a link where I can find the exact text file that you are trying to read, and I will try my best to make it read the text file.

From LedZepp's old thread (with updates):

Want to read books on your Zune, but think it's just too much of a hassle to convert all the text to images? Then this is for you.

How To Use:

Normal version:

First you need a plain text version of the book you want to read, if you have a pdf file you can use Adobe Acrobat Reader to load it up, then go to File> Save As Text, or you can search google for an online pdf to text converter(I just find if you use Adobe acrobat reader its cleaner)

Then open up the BookReader project, open up the content folder on the side, find the Books folder under it, and just drag and drop the text file in there.
Now click on the text file you just dropped into the folder, you should see a properties window, on the right bottom side of Visual Studio.

Set the Build Action to none, and set the Copy to Output to Copy if Newer otherwise you will get errors when trying to deploy.

You can have as many books as you want in there, this application will read all of them and let you choose them from the main menu.

Helpful Images:



RIG version:

First you need a plain text version of the book you want to read, if you have a PDF file you can use Adobe Acrobat Reader to load it up, then go to File > Save As Text, or you can search Google for an online PDF to text converter (I just find if you use Adobe Acrobat reader its cleaner).

Do that for all of your books that you want to read with the Book Reader and put them all into an empty folder.

Run the RIG application, then follow the instructions. If you do not follow the instructions, do not post any problems that you may have.

Sub-folders:

You can put the books into folders within the empty folder, and put the books inside those folders.

If you have at least one folder in the main folder with a file in it, any files directly inside the main folder will be ignored.

Any sub-sub-folders (and files within them) will be ignored.

So, to use sub-folders properly: Create folders within the main folder, name the folders according to what book you will put in there, then put the appropriate parts of the books within those folders.

For example:

Books (folder)
- First book (folder)
- First book Part one.txt
- First book Part two.txt
- First book Part three.txt
- Second book (folder)
- Second book Part one.txt
- Second book Part two.txt

Do that for however many books you want.

How to Navigate in the Application:

First screen will ask you to choose a book, move using the up/down (although it's left/right since I rotated the display), then select using the middle button. If it looks like it froze, it didn't, it's just reading the file.

The next screen is the whole book loaded up, in the top left corner theres a percent of where your at in the book. Use the up/down (actually left/right because it is tilted it) to move down a line and use left/right (actually up/down because it is tilted it) to move over a page. You can press back, to go back to the book selection to choose another book.

While reading, you can press the middle button to go to the options screen.
In the options screen you can select your font size, if you want the program to auto scroll the text, if you want to set a bookmark, if you want to choose music, or if you want to quickly change your position in the book.

Use the up/down (left/right) to move between the choices.
While you are on the Font choice use left/right (up/down) to choose a size(it takes a sec to load up the different sizes so just be patient until the size changes)

While on the Auto-Scroll choice use left/right (up/down) to enable and disable it(I have it scrolling down a line every 2.5 seconds, you can still use the original controls to move the lines.

3rd choice is the bookmark.
NOTE: It will not bookmark where you are if you just exit out the program you have to go into the options, select the bookmark choice, and click the middle button. It automatically looks for a bookmark file when it loads up your book.

4th choice is music.
Press the center button to make the volume and music choices appear.

Last choice is percent.
Use left/right (up/down) to change your progress through the book.

Download Normal version (Works with the Zune 3.x firmware):

BookReaderv2.7.zip

Download RIG version (Does not work with the Zune 3.x firmware):

BookReader.exe

RIG allows you to deploy without using Visual C# and XNA. You must already have deployed a game to your Zune in order to use RIG.

Also, according to GPL, since I modified RIG, I have to distribute my version of it. So you can get it (not the Book Reader) here: rig-development-kit-0.5.3.7z

Jones111 Version (Works with the Zune 3.x firmware):

BookReaderv2.8

Jones111 has built upon the Book Reader and added some new features. If you have any problems with it, you can post on this thread but direct the questions to Jones111, not me.

Features:

- Library-style: Every folder is a book, and every file inside is a chapter (books are submenus now for faster scolling trough large collections).
- Saves last read chapter for every book & autoselects next chapter if progress is 100%.
- Saves last read book.
- Faster startup on large collections.
- Skinning (normal skin + night skin).
- Changed the list-style UI.
- Support for multiple languages (should be able to run any language) - Tested with German.
- Minor overall speedup & smaller filesize (larger archive caused by skinning).

These are experimental updates and could behave unexpected sometimes or in worst case may crash. Feedback about the changes and bug reports are welcome.

[LancerRevolution]

oh wow haha,just got 1.6 and now theres a 1.7,woo!haha thanks
what does 1.7 improve on?

[mrgoodnight]

niice this version works with my book now thanks

[LedZepp]

I wrapped the how to in quote tags so it would be easier to find the download link, I also took out 2 unneeded images as they would just be wasting my bandwith

[Netrix]

Originally Posted by LedZepp

I wrapped the how to in quote tags so it would be easier to find the download link, I also took out 2 unneeded images as they would just be wasting my bandwith

Thanks. Great idea.

This version makes another form of line breaks work. Also, whoever had a problem with 'Deathly Hallows', I made the Book Reader read it correctly.

[dan_1986]

For some reason it just restarts my zune everytime I open it.

Finally I got it working. So happy.

[Netrix]

Originally Posted by dan_1986

For some reason it just restarts my zune everytime I open it.

Did you make sure you have a book in the Books folder?


The way I am going to do future versions is if someone has a text file that the Book Reader can not read (correctly or not at all), and the problem isn't related to illegal characters, I will make the Book Reader read that text file. Hopefully after a few times of doing this, practically all text files will be read correctly.

[dan_1986]

About how long does it take to debug ? Also to add more books do we just add the books to book file and F5.

[Netrix]

Originally Posted by dan_1986

About how long does it take to debug ? Also to add more books do we just add the books to book file and F5.

You don't have to debug unless it keeps restarting. Yes, you just add the books to the Books folder and press F5.


It might restart if you try to open several books or open a book then go back to the book list and stay there for a while. I still need to figure out why it does that.

[Impeached]

Could you also add a Changelog.txt in the zip?

I don't know what's new, so I don't know if I should bother downloading it. : p

[Netrix]

Originally Posted by Impeached

Could you also add a Changelog.txt in the zip?

I don't know what's new, so I don't know if I should bother downloading it. : p

I will in the future. The change for this one is that a more line breaks are supported. I made "Deathly Hallows" work for someone that said it wasn't working. That's just about it. If you have a book that isn't read correctly, give me a link to the text file if you can and I'll make it work.

[Rockman87]

Originally Posted by Netrix

Thanks. Great idea.

This version makes another form of line breaks work. Also, whoever had a problem with 'Deathly Hallows', I made the Book Reader read it correctly.

Thanks.... what problem did you find?

[Netrix]

Originally Posted by Rockman87

Thanks.... what problem did you find?

The way that I had it only made one line break instead of two line breaks, because the form of the line breaks was:

This is a sentence.\r
\r
Another sentence.

So I had it correctly read those line breaks.

[LancerRevolution]

you fixed the text reader?or the book?because most of the resident evil books i have,pdf,rip all weird from the new adobe and makes me mad.you read thru then all the sudden u start readin the same paragraph again,makes duplicates of some stuff.then the quotes arent showing up on the zune.can u look into this?i can upload the resident evil novels if u want to work with them,i dunno.

[Netrix]

Originally Posted by LancerRevolution

you fixed the text reader?or the book?because most of the resident evil books i have,pdf,rip all weird from the new adobe and makes me mad.you read thru then all the sudden u start readin the same paragraph again,makes duplicates of some stuff.then the quotes arent showing up on the zune.can u look into this?i can upload the resident evil novels if u want to work with them,i dunno.

Yes, the text reader. Changing individual text files is too inefficient. The quotes need to be standard ASCII characters... Which means ", not “ or ”. If you want the quotes to show up, replace “ and ” with ".

[LedZepp]

I had fixed “ and ” in my release, unless you changed it it should still handle them.

[Soccerfreak24]

Nice Work Netrix! +rep.

[Netrix]

Originally Posted by LedZepp

I had fixed “ and ” in my release, unless you changed it it should still handle them.

Oh... That's what the extra CharacterRegions were for...

I'll put them back.


Also, thanks soccerfreak24.

[wiisrock]

where do you get these books? i've never used them before

[Netrix]

Originally Posted by wiisrock

where do you get these books? i've never used them before

The Internet.