eReader for Zune HD (uses LDS reader from rewind22x)

[FMTForever]

There's this great app that's basically a text reader in disguise of a Bible. Found here, it was created by rewind22x who created it for reading religious text but also knew it could make other books with a little tweaking. The source for his original app with LDS text is provided in his post.

I was getting frustrated of the official Zune HD eReader app that had a limit on books, annoying scrolling bar thing, and no real outside epub support. I'd tried the other Zune HD readers that other people created but they still weren't that great. Best one I found up til now was here by kirarulzz but it was difficult with not making the title too long or getting an error.

I think that this is the best eReader yet. It lacks bookmarks, it needs improved scrolling, and it restarts the Zune after you exit. However, it does have chapters, a nice layout, and subfolders. The chapters are enough of a bookmark, I think but it would be nice for it to start off right in the book when opened.

I created a sort of base template for the eReader. It has two (half completed - I got lazy) Jane Austen books and an HG Wells book on it with background pictures. You can download it here.

It's a little confusing at first but mostly you just deal with correcting the .xmls and adding plain text to the .txt files.




These are the most important files to get your eReader to work. Fonts are obvious, textures are the background pictures in .png, titles are the chapters of the book, and .xml where it all happens. GameThumbnail.png is the icon for the app. I think the hardest part to remember is what all the .xmls do. It's important to keep the root.xml and authors.xml. The hgwells.xml lead to the sub folder of xml>hgwells>ttm.xml (table of contents) which directs to titles>hgwells>ttm>all the .txts in that folder (ch1.txt...)






-Make sure to remember to put the fonts, titles, and xml files in "copy if newer" and the book .txt files build action needs to be "none".
-Remember to delete .txts that do not exist and remove the links in the .xml that lead to it. (in photo above it would be tmm.xml)

I hope this was helpful and gives the person that created this app more credit. If there are any problems I'll try to answer them the best I can. Thanks for reading!

[boohbah11]

That seems overly confusing, compared to kirarulz ereader that you just plop the text file in and your done. I think that if someone could make an ereader that has a seperate file deployer instead of having to insert each book into the source code.

[FMTForever]

That seems overly confusing, compared to kirarulz ereader that you just plop the text file in and your done. I think that if someone could make an ereader that has a seperate file deployer instead of having to insert each book into the source code.

I think it depends on your point of view. I like having chapters to find my place and not a long ebook that I don't know where I'll end. Like if I chose page 259.

It would be cool if he'd made a separate deployer to load the books onto but he didn't so... that's that. Also, I like to hold and swipe vertically, instead of left to right when you have to press a button each time. Thanks for your comment.

[rewind22x]

nice tutorial, FMTForever.

I do agree that it is time consuming to put in a book. When I first started writing the app, I basically set out to make a one off app. after I finished it, i saw the potential for a good general ereader app. so i released the source.

there are a lot of things I would like to add (bookmarks, font sizes, etc) but time is an issue for me at the moment. I do think I will get around to them, but if someone else wanted to take a shot at it they are more than welcome.

[FMTForever]

Thanks for reading this! I also read your other reply to what I said in your thread. I would try to help but I have no experience with XNA and that stuff. The source was easy to understand because it only needed simple changes in text.

[R3dempt1on]

It looks really good. Maybe a bit confusing (and no book mark kinda annoys me) but it's a really sick eReader. I was hoping something like this was made after looking at the original version. I'll probably use it since it already has Pride and Prejudice, perfect for one of my classes.