Suggestions for e-ink device support
zynexiz opened this issue · comments
I just found this app and tried it out on my phone. Works very well. I also have a Supernote E-ink tablet that I really wanna use this app on. It works, but not very good because how the e-ink devices works. The tablet itself just have a basic "file manager", so not very good at handling book collections. This is where this app comes in.
I think just some minor adjustments would make it perfect. In a normal Android, scrolling is no issue. But infinite scrolling is really bad on e-ink devices due to update latency. So having an option to use pagination instead of infinite scrolling would actually make it work pretty good I think.
Also I noticed that the grid seems to be fixed to 2x wide, witch make it look pretty bad in the device (looks great on my phone). The squares with the books are huge. There should be an option or something to be able to customize the grid size. Also, in the reader itself the text is pretty small, so font adjustment is needed here.
I'm not sure about the option "Reading direction", because it doesn't do anything when reading a book. The entire book is one big continuous page with vertical scrolling. It feels like "Left to right" should display pages, or maybe I'm missing something?
Another suggestion is an option to use the app as a book launcher, and opening a book with an external reader. The reader in the Supernote itself is really good and would fix the reading issues for me. Then I could just use the app as a book shelf more or less to access my library.
Otherwise, really good app!
hey,
unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a virtual way to test e-ink based android devices and I don't have the financial means currently to get myself a physical e-ink device for testing for it. I can however look into a option for pagination instead of infinite scrolling.
I am currently looking into a way to make it dynamically size the amount of grid options.
Font options are coming soon
I will look into the orientation changes not working.
Finally, as per the bookshelf idea, I cant really do that due to the permission systems of devices and you can't exactly have a book be downloaded in 1 app and opened in another as far as I'm aware (without having both developers support the ability for linking and such potentially but unsure)
Hey,
I just wanted to confirm with the company that they didn't have any available emulators to provide a proper way to test on their devices. As I suspected, they don't but they are gonna bring it up with the development team to see if anything can be made. Just wanted to provide a minor update
Good they considering a emulator for it, easier to test the things there. The device is basically just a striped down Android, with e-ink screen. It doesn't have a back button though like normal Android roms have, so the app must handle that.
For the bookshelf idea it could just basically act as a file manager, like Material Files. If I open I file from the file manager I get asked what app to use for the file (PDF, ODS etc). So it shouldn't be any issue as far as I know? That way the app itself could act as a file manager, handling the structure of the bookshelf and just launch an external app for the reading part. Unfortunately, the Supernote really sucks when I comes to e-books. It just have a basic file manager, and don't manage and metadata about the books at all.
Hi,
I understand you want for this project to shift into more so a file manager and let other apps allowing you to read your books. The major part as to why I don't want to do so is that ultimately I want 1 app and for it to be a good experience, regardless of the device. By having it be an app launcher for a bunch of other apps it kinda takes away from that idea.
That being said, I do see the appeal of that app to some. If you would like something like that? I'd perhaps suggest forking this repo for a version primarily focused on using the file manager. I'd gladly help guide you to the parts of the codebase relevant and if needed to learn the language and other things required but that does seem out of scope for my intent for this existing app.
Also, I love those e-ink devices. They are really cool and I wish I could get my hands on one that just runs Android like yours. Would be amazing for reading