Database Info

NEW: Manila E-Book Library Manager

Hi all.
I wrote an application that replaces the Library Manager that comes with the new Manila e-book reader tab (which is not of much use, if you don't have an account for Borders).
After installation, the application will start when you click the "Library" menu of the new reader tab.
You can use the application to access the books in your library, but also to import books you already have on your PDA into the new Manila tab.
It will import e-books in the .epub format, but also in lots of other formats.
The Manila tab will only show the ones in .epub format, but from this new library you can access the e-books in the other formats as well (at least, if the appropriate reader application is installed on your PDA).
This application assumes that each of your e-books is located in its own folder.
If an image file is located in a folder that contains an e-book, the application will automatically assume that the image represents the bookcover.
If an .opf file is located in the folder (which is a standard format for saving metadata with e-books), the application will automatically get the title, the name of the author and the name of the publisher of the e-book from that .opf file.
See the screenshots to get an idea of the look and feel of the application.
To install the application on your PDA, download the .cab file, copy it to your PDA and run it there.
Release history:
In version 0.3 the robustness was enhanced significantly.
In version 0.2 a number of small user-interface enhancements were made.

Thank you. Very useful program.

Thx...
How to add national fonts to Manila HTCReader ??

Thank you very much...

Your application works better,but i need to move to another tab then return to e-reader tab if i want to see the added books.

great little software.
thanks

Thanks,nice one
it works fine

I have an error message, when hit library button, sayng:"an unexpected error ocured...".
I am running Artemis 3.5 ROM. Any ideas?

djurkash said:
I have an error message, when hit library button, sayng:"an unexpected error ocured...".
I am running Artemis 3.5 ROM. Any ideas?
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Djurkash, does your ROM include the Manila e-book reader tab?
My application only works if the reader tab is available (and working).

djurkash said:
I have an error message, when hit library button, sayng:"an unexpected error ocured...".
I am running Artemis 3.5 ROM. Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
SR....install it next.

Hi.
I just posted version 0.2; the flow through the user interface is more Manila-like now.

@OABsoftware, sure it does... like I said, it happens when hitting library button
tried to reinstall, but it's the same...is it possible that problem is caused cause I changed my book.db file through ebookindexer?

I'm really liking this app...I have a request however, is it possible to have this app work with the other native built-in e-book functions as well?
What is happening is even if you click on the 'Menu' > Shop or Account Settings, it is redirecting to your app. I would prefer if the app was launched only when you clicked on the 'Library' link. That way people who have Adobe & Borders accounts can still get books via those means also.
Thanks

youmeus said:
What is happening is even if you click on the 'Menu' > Shop or Account Settings, it is redirecting to your app. I would prefer if the app was launched only when you clicked on the 'Library' link. That way people who have Adobe & Borders accounts can still get books via those means also.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with this idea...

djurkash said:
@OABsoftware, sure it does... like I said, it happens when hitting library button
tried to reinstall, but it's the same...is it possible that problem is caused cause I changed my book.db file through ebookindexer?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
does look to be that.. I had the same error and changed back to be the original and it works fine. import is great, even with all the books in one folder..
It also beats the 20 limit.. just added all the books from my sd card
need to go back to calibre and redo them to fit the new system

@fards,
I confirm this, have restored original book.db, and now is working flawlessly...

Possible to search ebooks into \My documents and \StorageCard\My documents or not ?

MuadDib59 said:
Possible to search ebooks into \My documents and \StorageCard\My documents or not ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it does, press import

Is there a chance to add support for international characters?
Or do you know which font should be used?

miland said:
Is there a chance to add support for international characters?
Or do you know which font should be used?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1, totally want that too. HTC Reader is of almost no use without proper support of national characters.

[Q] Documents

Hi hope this is in the right bit but i need some help have just got a Desire S first android phone and its great but im having problems with word.docs that are attached to my email when i try to open them it is saying that the content is not supported and there is no application to open it and I have a few apps that should open it I have noticed if i go ahead and download it it is coming up as a .bin file can anyone help at all ? thanks

There is no native way for Android to display Word documents, but there are numerous (and free) apps in the Market that will. For instance ThinkFree Office Mobile is an excellent choice, but there are others.

Thanks but I have tried along with several others and they will open doc and docx files but not wps which i need to open.

Have you tried Google Docs?

I haven't how do I do that on my phone.
Thanks

Assuming you have a Google account you could simply save any document attachments to your phone, navigate to Google Docs from your phones browser, upload the document and if GD supports that format you will be able to read/edit the document right there. When finished save a copy back to your phone if you need to.
It may not be as good as having a native app for this on your phone but they can be expensive.

[Q] Add epub books to books library?

Is it possible to add downloaded Republican books to the Play Books (stupid name -.-) library or do I have to buy them com the play store (which some of them aren't in there)? I can open them through root explorer but it would be nice to be able to have hem all in the Play Books app.
Autobots, roll out! Sent from my Transformer Prime!

Or does anyone know how to get the Kindle store books to the books app?

I don't know how to upload to the service you want, but if you have a formatting issue, then I suggest using Calibre to alter your ebooks. With Calibre, you can completely alter your ebooks, which makes them compatible with certain services that they wouldn't otherwise be.

I found on this page a post by what looks to be a google rep saying that you cant put books into the Google Library besides purchasing. (put the http colon slash slash here groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/#!category-topic/books/google-ebooks-reading-and-managing/PReeNnSK0y8)
That post was two years old though so it may have changed, but I couldn't find anything while searching around.
Honestly, I haven't even tried play books until today, but I must say, IMO it isn't very good.
I use Moon Reader+ mostly because it was free and it has the capability of accessing ebook servers. Then I got Calibre (put the http colon slash slash here calibre-ebook.com/) and set up the server at home. Now I can get any ebook in just about any format and when I browse to the server on my phone and download it, Calbire automagically converts it to an epub for me before sending. To me this is the best solution.
If you want some more help on this PM me and I will try to point you in the right place.
Sorry for the mangled URLs, I cant post links yet.

i red somewhere that the play books that you download are stored in /data/data/com.google.android.apps.books/cache/accounts/"your google account"/ (yes you need root!!!). i tried to copy a book and the file is there but its 0.00 B large... i dunno if it has something with my root explorer to do or. there is also a database folder with a .db file. i think that that file need to be changed so it has your book in it( IM NOT SURE ABOUT THIS!!!)
So if anyone can figure out how to copy books pleass reply.

Thanks for the heads up about Moon reader. Tried it and quickly bought the Pro version. Wife's happy too and she normally uses a Kindle 3G.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

[Q] App for RSS reader where each post is a PDF file

Alright, so this use is very specific and I'd be surprised if there is an app that could do what I need but I'm going to try anyway.
I have a RSS feed where each new article has a PDF attachment - in fact, the RSS feed is to get this particular periodical which is released in the PDF format.
I've tried a couple of RSS readers and they sync the new post but not the PDF file. I want to be able to download PDF files from the reader and either read it in the reader or open it using another PDF reader.
Are there any RSS readers which can download attachments?

I don't know about Metro-style apps, but the built in RSS feature of IE can do file download links. It's not the best of interfaces (by a considerable margin), though. Outlook's reader may suit you better except it's not available for RT.

GoodDayToDie said:
I don't know about Metro-style apps, but the built in RSS feature of IE can do file download links. It's not the best of interfaces (by a considerable margin), though. Outlook's reader may suit you better except it's not available for RT.
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Click to collapse
I didn't know that IE had an RSS feature. I'll check that out. Thanks!

GoodDayToDie said:
I don't know about Metro-style apps, but the built in RSS feature of IE can do file download links. It's not the best of interfaces (by a considerable margin), though. Outlook's reader may suit you better except it's not available for RT.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! This worked out fine. I was able to subscribe to the RSS feed and select "Download attached files" in the options. This worked perfectly for me.
The non-touchiness (did I just make up a word?) is an issue but once I had the setup, I don't ever need to look at the feed itself. I can just look at the folder where files are downloaded and other stuff happens in the background.
Thanks again!
One more question though - is there a way to specify the location of the downloaded attachments in IE? By default, it stores attachments in /temp/Internet/ ... blah. I was able to pin this folder to the start menu for easy access but it would be nice to tell IE where to store the attachments.
Any help here would be appreciated.

You're welcome! I'm glad that worked out for you. Yeah, IE has actually had an RSS/ATOM feed reader since version 7, but it's gotten more and more hidden with each release (back in IE7, you could select options like having it play a sound when a feed was discovered, for example). IE10 has improved the reader a bit, but it's still kind of hidden.
I didn't find a way to specify where to deliver the downloaded files, sadly. The best option I know of is to use a directory symbolic link so that when IE thinks it's writing to the temp folder, it's actually writing to a more accessible location that you selected. However, setting up one of these requires using an admin command line, and carries some risk of messing things up. If you would like to do so anyhow, specify the full paths to your temp folder (where the downloads are going now) and the folder you want to put them in instead, and I'll give you a simple script to make it happen if possible, or at least tell you what you would need to do.

Thanks for the offer! Let me dig around a little bit more and if all else fails, I'll come back to you

[Resolved] [Q] ebook manager, Solution found

Dear all,
I am trying to set up a TF101 tablet (with android ICS) to use as ebook reader for my mother and since she is computer illiterate I am trying to make it as simple as possible. Since we do not live in the same country I am trying to make it as simple as possible for her so I am trying to find a way to sync books from afar. So far so good, since there are many apps to do that but here starts my problem. Eventually I realized that I have a lot of books and eventually I will send her more so I need somehow to categorize them so she will access them easier than scrolling to a huge list of books. I found out that Mantano reader supports categories but as far as I can tell only manually. the same goes with most ebook readers that I know. I suppose a work around would be tagging but due to the different formats and many files I would prefer to avoid that (not to mention that tags usually do not show up nicely (like in shelves) on the ebook reader)
Is there a way, an app or something that will allow me to sync books directly to categories on the tablet? or create multiple shelves? For example to have a folder "cooking" and a folder "literature" on the tablet and on dropbox (for example) and sync to the tablet and show up immediately on their respective categories on the ebook reader? or any other application?
Thanks in advance for your help!
EDIT:
I found out that I can create different profiles for the same app with Titanium backup, which could be helpful in my case to use the same book reader and have in one instance some books and in another instance other books, I saw also that there is a widget to change from profile to profile but my question is, can I create a shortcut (not necessarily a widget) that by pressing it will change the profile A and start the app and another shortcut that will change the profile B and start the app? if yes how??
Thanks for all the help!

Since I edited I wanted to bring it to top so people will see it again... I hope someone has an answer... Thank you!

I think I understand what you want to do in general - set everything up on your end, then your mother simply opens the app and finds a neatly organized bookshelf arranged by catagory. And you want to be able to add books as you go.
To be honest, if your mother is really "computer iliterate" I don't think you can do this.
Look maybe at a way to remotley sync two tablets (I have no idea if this is possible). This way you globally manage the whole tablet and your mother does not need to worry about drop box or anything. All she needs to do is open the reader.
Also, on a side note, if you have not already purchased the tablet consider buying her a 7" tablet, I find them MUCH more comfortable for reading.
In fact now that I think about it, look into a Kindle. I've never used one, but I understand they are designed for simplicity of use and I understand that their ereader app is very good at syncing across devices (but maybe only for books purchased through Amazon)

Re: [Q] ebook manager and or Titanium backup
If she just wants it for reading, an e-ink reader is so much better. Battery will last much longer, much easier on the eyes, and you could still manage it on-line.
As it is, I would suggest using something like Google Drive or Drop Box or whatever - organise the books into folders. Easy to find and select to be opened by the reading app.
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda app-developers app

Thanks for your replies but you both are missing the point.
I know that you can create folders in the file system and go through it until you find what you want, but it has nothing to do with what I am trying to do...
I am trying to sync categories directly to the ebook reader. Kindle app has a very good sync option but does not support categories (as far as I know). And the tablet exists already.
As I asked in another thread, could I use tasker to create a shortcut to change titanium data profile and launch ebook reader at the same time? that way I could create 2 profiles for the same reader and have different books.
Thanks again.

You can create the categories by folder is what I'm suggesting - inside the cloud storage (which would sync, which is what you want to do, yes), and being that they would be stored in the cloud they would sync automatically - she would just need to open it on her end and select a book from the folder and open it - no need for different app profiles or anything. You could just have an account for the cloud storage separately called "books for mom" and put in whatever she wants and update whenever.
That's a simple solution that would do everything you want.

Thanks for your reply again. It will not do exactly what I need as it will require to go through the file manager, locate the folder, locate the book. Even if I set the file manager to start on the specific folder the look and feeling will not be of an ebook reader as the files will have a generic icon and not the book cover icon (if you know any file manager that can read book covers form pdf and epub, and mobi if possible, then I will try it immediately).
I am trying to make things as easy as possible as I am not going to be around to help and from the phone helping is a mess. a file manager will not index the books after that by author, title, recently open etc but if you know any that can handle book covers, I am willing to try.
Thanks

I found a solution, still not exactly what I had in mind but it will do. I had decided that the only way was to use tags in order to short the books the way I wanted but while I was playing with Mantano reader I found out that besides tags they also can show up the folders the books are in! So I can sync with dropbox and then set only these two folders in Mantano reader to import books from. and I say it is not exactly what I had in mind because it shows the full path and I cannot set it as the direct view when the reader starts... Still, it is good enough!