Wish List for JetBook Lite

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 02/19/2010 15:48:01

There are a few things I'd like to see on the JetBook Lite.

Add the ability to view the page upside down and with the top on the right, in other words, let us use any of the four directions instead of only two. If we could use it upside down, that'd make for comfortable right handed reading. If we could have the top on the right side, that'd make for more comfortable sideways reading because the weight would be on the bottom.

The dictionary is extremely limited. I'd like to see a better dictionary on the reader, or the ability to add our own dictionary.

I would love to see better support for mobi and epub. Formatting and linked Tables of Contents. As a matter of fact, the ability to use links is also useful for books with linked end notes.

Thanks.

These are all excellent items.

My number-one wishlist item is to have an option to put a little more space in the margins -- left, right, top, and bottom. The text crowds to close to the edges of the screen for my eyes.

The Palm version of eReader has had this feature for many years now; it should be trivial to add it.

My number-two wishlist item is being able to use the standard eReader dictionaries that I've already bought from eReader.com.

I seem to remember Pavel/Green saying that they would/might add the additonal rotate function in a future update, at least a 180° feature.

I think the ereader dictionaries would be a bit harder for them to do.

Keeping the formatting for EPUB and MOBI formats would be my number 1 request. At least one of then anyway. At first I thought I was doing something wrong with Calibre when the jetBook Lite is stripping the formatting out.

Larry

larryh wrote:Keeping the formatting for EPUB and MOBI formats would be my number 1 request. At least one of then anyway. At first I thought I was doing something wrong with Calibre when the jetBook Lite is stripping the formatting out.

Larry

Keeping the formatting or improving it? As it is, the jetbook lite is ignoring/rewriting a lot of the formatting so you're not seeing the formatting that's really in the book file. I'd like to see it display the formatting in the file.

That is what I meant. I would like to see the formatting that is in the book and not have it stripped out.

No Active Table of Contents is the biggest failure of the JBL in my view. If you download a drm Bible and want to go to a specific book, you are going to have fun getting there by simply guessing page numbers and jumping back and forth. Non-DRM Bibles are slightly better in that you can at least do a word search. This same problem applies to books like:
The Complete Plays of Shakespeare, The Complete Works of Plato, etc., we need, like other ereading software, the ability to have an active table of contents to move around within the documents.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 02/22/2010 03:16:41

We have been asking for some very simple fixes for so long and the changes have been so slow and incomplete, that I think we're looking at a re-run of the Jack Nicholson movie "As Good As It Gets". Ectaco does not respond to community requests. I also notice the JBL is no longer featured on any of the B&N websites. They were willing to give it a try, even though their own device,the Nook, was about to be released. I guess they got sick of waiting too. I can't wait till someone in the community breaks Ectaco's firmware code and offers us a few alternatives. If I did not hate blinking Visiplex screens, I'd be buying another book reader right now.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 02/22/2010 07:28:00

ronouel wrote:I also notice the JBL is no longer featured on any of the B&N websites.

The eReader site still is offering the JBL,

http://www.ereader.com/hardware/jetbooklite/landing.htm

It's not on the front page banner - but I think that's more due to their current special of NYT bestsellers @ 100% rewards.

Looks like it's still at Fictionwise too..

http://www.fictionwise.com/hardware/jetbooklite/landing.htm

The jetBook Lite is only $115 right now on New Egg.

-kmrowley- Yea, that's what I meant by "featured". It's not on the front page banner. But I asked one of the B&N vendors about buying a dictionary. They told me that Ectaco would be providing lookup function linking to commercial dictionaries any day now. They claim they have inside info, but I'm not holding my breath. In the meantime, I broke up the big Webster's dictionary on Gutenberg (17k pages) into (34) 500 page text files named by first word and put them on the Jetbook in one folder. Works pretty well and quickly with the search function, but you have to exit the book you are reading to use it. I tought I'd post it (on MobileRead if not too big) if I can finalize the formatting, but the jetbook is not cooperating. See next post.

I know we are all different and for some the dictionary seems to be a deal breaker almost, but I have yet to find any need for one. I am probably reading just for entertainment and others are actually reading something serious. I don't know.

I do know that I have decided that I don't really like any of the e-book managers available. I still feel like if I want to read my books in a strange font I should be able to, but no....

Even if I could get a font into a book jetBook Lite will strip it out. If one of the more expensive readers ever allow me to plug in my own font I may decide to spend more money.

larry

Regarding formatting of the Gutenberg dictionary txt files, I cannot get the jetbook to display the txt files AS THEY ARE, without injecting it's own formatting (unless someone can inform me otherwise). See the post by CMBS above "As it is, the jetbook lite is ignoring/rewriting a lot of the formatting...". We've discussed this on another forum. Continued on next post due to space limitations.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 02/22/2010 22:40:44

-continued--If you copy a dozen pages of the dictionary on Gutenberg to another txt file and view it in several editors, you will see that all the text is justified on the left. And if you show hidden characters, there are no leading tabs or anything else in the file. But when you view this file on the Jetbook, every definition that has a number in front of it is indented. This may seem like a minor issue, but when all else fails, you can usually format a text file with tabs or spaces (using macros for hundreds of replacements) to look any way you want it to. But NOT when the Jetbook has its own ideas about how the text should be formatted. In other words, unless there is something in the file I can't see, the Jetbook is not displaying ASCII or ISO in it's native format, which I think is a MAJOR flaw-unless someone sees something in that file I am missing.

What is the URL to the dictionary you are talking about. I may not be able to make the jetBook Lite do anything special but I know for a fact I can check for any hidden formatting. I don't think I will find anything though. I will still take a look/