I seem to have missed my self-imposed deadline. I was supposed to get test versions of and online tonight, but haven’t quite made it. They are both much improved over the last few days, with several niggling issues finally solved (although there is still much to improve about Reader)

Reader is now storing its settings properly, so I can find my place in a book I’ve been reading (as well as making persistent bookmarks). It has a nice full screen mode now, with black background. Sane template handling is being added right now (so that books can be linked to a template for their look and feel, including font-sizes etc). Before, each book remembered it’s own settings once it had been opened, which meant that every time I adjusted or improved my "Novel" template, I would have to manually re-apply the settings to each novel I’d opened. It’s these kinds of details which can really slow you down as a programmer… but they’re the sort of details that need to be done right. Every clever solution has a few little drawbacks though, like if I create a template system I have to take extra measures to prevent dependency loops (where template-A is based on template-B, which is based on template-A again).

I could bung Reader online right now of course, but it would make me cringe because of the numerous small issues (they’re not bugs, they’re issues!) which could be easily solved with just another few days of bashing. I’ve accepted that I’m not going to finish the damn thing this week, but at least I want to plug the holes (and seal off functionality that is broken or unfinished).

Elibrary is pretty much ready to go, with the ability to choose which files types to view (can be used to run MS *lit files exclusively if you so desire), but it seems like a bit of a fizzer to put it up without Reader to complement it.

So to date, JujuTool is the only product available, a poorly defined piece of freeware, which has some great functionality (I use it in several forms constantly, to run programs, adjust screen gamma, and send things to the clipboard)

A version of Reader and eLibrary will be posted late Friday night (AEST time)… I virtually guarantee it!

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 3rd, 2002 at 12:50 am and is filed under Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.