Excellent job. I just have a few ideas for future versions:
1. Let the cursor move faster through the menus
2. Have the background/text change color as you scroll through the "change color" menu (so you can see the colors without choosing them)
3. If you could get the picture from the other book reader and have it as an option that would be stellar.
4. If there is any way to not have all the pictures show up as books, that would be cool. Im not really sure if/how that can be done though.
5. The "Compress books" tool could use a browse button, but this is the least problematic.
As i said before, this is an excellent job. I especially think the books saved as pictures is a stroke of genius. Keep up the great work.
@theFRANCHESCO:
Thanks, and thanks for the suggestions. @1: I don't know if you know that pressing left/right moves a page at a time in the menus as well, is that fast enough? @2: Yes, I originally thought of this myself, but decided against it since it would make the text unreadable halfway through if you were swapping the background and foreground colours. But you gave me another idea, how about if there was a circular colour swatch to the left of the menu to preview the colour? @3: I personally find background images distracting when I'm reading, but I could add some options for that in a future version. I don't know if Netrix would want me to use that particular image, but I could make a few different ones myself. @4: Not quite sure what you mean here, on my Zune, only pictures which have a title that starts with "zenBook-" show up in the menu, the "zenBook-" prefix is removed from the title when they are shown in the menu though. @5: Yes, this is the second request I've had for this, it will definitely be coming in the next version.
@1: yes it is fast enough. i didnt know you could do that.
@2: The color swatch is a good idea. In fact I think that the text part has a bit too many colors, Maybe its just me but i have no need for fluorescent green for my text. Im not sure if anyone else uses any bright colors for the text, so maybe you could make the list smaller. Its up to you though, having more colors doesnt hurt anyone.
@3:The "picture" wasn't really a picture of something, it looked like a piece of parchment.... And that made it really easy to read, thats all.
@4: Well im not sure if its how i set up the zune software or not. On my zune software the pictures are in folders, which are in folders etc. In the open book menu it has 15 folders i can open, and only one contains my books. the others just have regular pictures so they are empty. Then when i open the one that has my books i have to go through many folders to get to it. So is that how its supposed to be? and if it is, then is there a way to just make the books appear on the open book menu?
@5: Right on.
@2: I basically just took all the predefined colours from Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics.Color, so if more people think the list should be shortened, I could try that next time. Although if someone has that colour selected now and it disappears from the list they might be disappointed. @3: Yeah I found the parchment distracting, but I'll see what I can do about adding something like that in future. @4: Ah, I see what you mean. I have all my books saved to the default zenBooks folder, and if that folder exists on your Zune then it will be opened by default. So for people who save them to a different folder, I could either have the program figure out if there is any books in a folder before adding it to the list, or remember what folder you were in last and open that one first.
Edit: @Netrix: Thanks, I wasn't sure if it was under the GPL, if so I couldn't use it in a closed source program.
To the mods: I tried to change the title of the thread to "[v1.1] zenReader" by changing the title of the first post, but it doesn't seem to have worked. Could you change it for me or should I start a new thread for the new version?
Version 1.1 is now available, including the progress bar and smaller font size requests. Also, an Autoscroll feature which can be activated with the play button.
See the first post for the download link.
To the mods: I tried to change the title of the thread to "[v1.1] zenReader" by changing the title of the first post, but it doesn't seem to have worked. Could you change it for me or should I start a new thread for the new version?
It's a bit late for this, but I just renamed it.
Also, I hope you see the irony in naming a program that is, for all intents and purposes, a bible reader, "zenReader". Mixing up our philosophies here, are we?
Thanks, so I guess next time I should just start a new thread?
Quote:
Originally Posted by itsnotabigtruck
Also, I hope you see the irony in naming a program that is, for all intents and purposes, a bible reader, "zenReader". Mixing up our philosophies here, are we?
LOL, actually it's a multi-purpose book reader which comes preloaded with a copy of the best-selling book of all time. And I was thinking more of the other meaning of zen, what could be more relaxed and collected than reading a good book?
Thanks, so I guess next time I should just start a new thread?
No - I was referring to the fact that it's been around 2 weeks since you asked for the rename.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Is Mise
LOL, actually it's a multi-purpose book reader which comes preloaded with a copy of the best-selling book of all time. And I was thinking more of the other meaning of zen, what could be more relaxed and collected than reading a good book?
Don't kid yourself. If this was a bona fide book reader then the Bible would be available as an optional download, not an integral part of the app.
Don't kid yourself. If this was a bona fide book reader then the Bible would be available as an optional download, not an integral part of the app.
This is a free application right? So, as far as I am concerned the included Bible is kind of an advertisement. Why is everybody so much on the guy's case? It betrays a lot of insecurity and the religion discussion is really a subject for another forum.
I just finished installing and playing around with the reader. I really like the fluid motion of the reader and how it works well with the 80gig Zunes touch pad. I have been enjoying re-reading some of Arther C. Clarke classics. I did notice one issue with the music playing portion. I selected a play list and after playing the third song it paused the music play. Not sure if it was something I did or if this was just a glitch. Over all this program is awesome. I look forward to catching back up on my reading!!!
zenReader - A user-friendly book reader (and Bible) for your Zune
Mixing up our philosophies here, are we?
