Here is a better multipage text display class

I took the one that KB pointed out on the sprint site (done by someone I don't recall) and fixed some bugs in in (like not working for less than 1 page, other bugs too).  It does still have one bug - there is an echo of the text from "page2" after page 3 (its a 3 block shell game with memory) sometimes.  So have at it if you want.  Its a multipage text displayer.  This is my test app for the text displayer.

Remember this project requires JSR75 be turned on. 

Well I finished my 'proof of concept' for a instinct ebook app, but unless they open up JSR75 [file io] for http  "free and clear" I won't finish it. I am not gambling $5000 when I am not sure I got a job.

I proved I could scrape the gutenberg.org site and cull all of the free epub files [a simple visualBasic web crawler], parse some(and flag others with difficult formats your vb app can't figure out) and move them to my drive.  I parsed their epub files way down for speed and rezipped them.  I stripped any css, <h#>, \n's, or fancy html bs, extra files and recombined them w/o images.  Most ebook apps make stuff too bloated for phones and not simply enough to hop to the chapter in a flash and rezipped them.  This could be automated but I did most by hand for 5 books.  It would take a pretty complicated VB app with regular expressions to walk alot of those epub files and break them down into "chapters and text" for quick display.  I then uploaded these 5 files to another site for access by an Instinct app that walks the xml files down to a particular list of books [ I did a simple xml file with a 5 books in the directory].  PHP returning a page of xml would work great here for a GET where the instinct user wanted a particular list of authors or books.  Not as bad as its sounds.  Tie it into the Instinct keyboard and you got a great search engine...with PHP on the server.

The VB app that would need to parse the ebooks into "chapters and text" is the real killer.  Most ebook formats are really complex and way over the top for phones at this state of technology.  THat and you need a server that can withstand the abuse of mega downloads.  Those 3 issues hold back the books, well that and $5000.

It can work but I won't do it unless there is some money to be made.  I just can't see it when its $5000 just to sit at the table.

I tried to parse out the ebook formats as-is on the phone but it was just too slow and painful.  So I moved to my own format, a very simple xml.  KISS.  I suspect Stanza does that as well, regardless of what they might say.  It would work for comics and choose your own adventure books as well.  Comics you probably need to download on the page/chapter isntead of the entire book at once.

I think it was mugwump's code I used.  I fixed some stuff and here its back. 

The concept is doable, but it requires time and money.  Time, well I can spend if the return is right....but money is short around here now.

Here is another topic:
http://www.bitolithic.com/ComicZeal/comiczealcreator/comiczealcreator.htm

comics for the iPhone....this doesn't sound too tough!  I see they deploy by the page with multiple small images.  That is how I would do it.

Well maybe I will get back to it and make the app work for the 5 books I got deployed to my test website....I got them working for as resource files already.

I think, and I say think, if they open it up, I should be good to go end of next month.

So I have redoubled my efforts to get the phone software working properly and displaying it as intended.  I want to get it working for 5 books "over the air" and post it here.  You will need to have developer's permissions enabled to test it.  I will leave the 5 open as a trial thing, a freebie. 

If you want to have access to the other 25000 ebooks or so its going to cost for that app.  Not much tho, $10?.

I can post a book app that just reads one book that is fixed to the app, but that is totally lame for where I think this should go.  Its the appoach we might have to go with comics or properity books (I was talking with some of them this week).

What is Digital Lounge?
 

digital louge...yeah I never shop.  Wife that does that!  Actually you are right, I just had no idea what it was.

You are probably right about $10.  However with this is OTA book collection, you don't have to do anything but browse until you find the book you want, and presto...its readable.  I will make it savable to the local drive later, for speed and do some serialization so the app remembers that book.  I figure I can get 10000 books ready.  Or I can charge $2-3 for a book.....

I did a FileExplorer appllication with folders and what not for the Instinct already.  It runs really slick.  This was my first project on the phone.  I thought this was the way to do it...but making the customer download a book and then go find it is probably beyond the range of most users.  I could cache them into a folder and just browse there, but, OTA [over the air] really opens the world up.

If the app requires dev permission for the final not much point in doing it.  I hope the MR6 software release will fix that.  But for now it does you have to have permissions.

I won't polish it up at first.  I'd rather pawn that work off on someone else and get busy with book formatting once I get a prototype phone reader that doesn't have bugs.  The book formatting issue is really the 800# guerilla in the room.  The app is not too difficult, but getting those books prepp'd and ready for use is going to be a killer.