[maemo-developers] GSoC 2010, eBook reader. Looking for feedback and ideas.

[From: Ryan Abel]

On Apr 29, 2010, at 12:24 PM, Juhana Jauhiainen wrote:

> Hello,

Howdy!

I've been using FBReader on Maemo since the earliest days of the 770, and I've read hundreds of books on my Maemo devices over the past 5 years. So book reading is something rather near to my heart. ;)

First and foremost you need two things: good format handling and good formatting options.

Implementing format handling from-scratch is going to be a herculean undertaking, so I wonder if you could've borrow FBReader's handling (as their format support is strong and fairly extensive). As that not only gives you a lot of quality format support, but also a long-term solution to format handling (assuming you don't have to deviate overly far from their code to implement it).

As for formatting, having easily configurable formatting options is important to ensuring that all of your users can get their optimal experience. This is one area where devices like Kindle and iPad fall flat on their faces (setting the default margin to 1" always seemed rather insane to me). Again, this is another area where I would mostly just borrow from FBReader (options, not code ;)), but see if it can't be implemented in a more mobile-friendly manner. Having a number of useful default profiles will help here.

FBReader's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness, so having a native book reader would be a very welcome change!


--
Ryan Abel
Maemo Community Council member