Related
It seems like I have been working on this for a very long time. This is the most complicated thing I have ever done yet at the same time easy to use.
http://odeean.veritel.com.au/programming_files/gsmbeam.htm
http://odeean.veritel.com.au/downloads_files/GSMbeam.exe
GSMbeam is what it sounds like. Two people can use it to beam stuff over the phone. No gprs, no special lines needed. Most sims from most networks (here in Australia anyway), prepaid or account will do this no problems.
The idea is that you leave it on all the time. Don't worry about wasted cpu time or battery life because most of the time the threads are in wait states doing nothing. When you push off there is no processing by GSMbeam, the hardware "wakes up" the device when a call comes in, and then it does its thing.
This beta release has an expiration date at the end of September. After that time it will do nothing.
It can send very small or large files. I have been using it to send pictures from my camera, about 150KB. I have not tested it with VERY large files. One reason why it's beta is that I have not tested it in critically low memory environments. So if you run out of memory the theory is that it will just stop doing what its doing.
I do not recommend changing most of the settings, but if you do, remember that the gsm phone network is slow so it will not get you a miraculous speed increase.
If your phone plan has no flag fall then to send 22kb (mms size) is cheaper. To send a GSMbeam long text message is not worth it for small messages because the connection time of the two modems outways the savings. For long messages it can be cheaper. If you pay 15 cents a message then 10 messages is a $1.50, the same amount of characters costs me about 50 cents.
This also has the built in shortcut generator.
The object this creates is more versatile than what I have used it for here. In future versions I am considering opening it up to be accessed from other programs. I have done a couple of tests using a file as a buffer for data then some named events to signal read and write times. Because of this there is file in the config folder that is only getting flushed when the program is turned off and restarted. if you were to go a month without doing so and had received a lot of data in that time it could grow too big.
..Enjoy.
<edit>
this is embaressing but...
I found a bug alredy. If a file comes in the phone is not getting restarted until after the accept/reject dialog is dismissed. This means that if you receive a file but do not notice you can't receive another call until the os restarts the phone. This normally is about 3 minutes. I will fix for next version.
wow nice app thanks!
i posted it in my blog.
I added a list of known problems at the bottom of its page. If any other bugs pop up just post them here.
oldsap - Thanks for putting it on your site. I would not describe it as freeware. Freeware would not have an expiration date. That is in the about dialog, but I added it to the GSMbeam page to make sure people know whats going on.
OdeeanRDeathshead said:
I added a list of known problems at the bottom of its page. If any other bugs pop up just post them here.
oldsap - Thanks for putting it on your site. I would not describe it as freeware. Freeware would not have an expiration date. That is in the about dialog, but I added it to the GSMbeam page to make sure people know whats going on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cool software. Now all I need is more people who I can transfer with.
Thats why the core functionality will always be free (ie receiving any size file/message + sending messages and small size file). When it gets a final release you would be able to purchase a copy to send your big stuff ang give all your friends a copy so you have someone to send to. Can I take it that it worked on your device?.
I have fixed the bug where the phone is not restarted for 3 minutes. The phone now gets restarted about 10 seconds after a call ends. Incoming files get qued for acceptence. The user sees a dialog asking to accept/reject. If more than 1 is in the que a series of dialogs pops up, each in turn after the result of the first (not all at once). also I fixed a bug where the minimize was malfunctioning after one of the modal dialogs was displayed. Hopefully now when GSMbeam is minimised it dose so without disrupting the ok button in other programs. version 0.194 is now at the link.
OdeeanRDeathshead said:
I added a list of known problems at the bottom of its page. If any other bugs pop up just post them here.
oldsap - Thanks for putting it on your site. I would not describe it as freeware. Freeware would not have an expiration date. That is in the about dialog, but I added it to the GSMbeam page to make sure people know whats going on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh sorry, ill try to change it to shareware
could you explain a little more on how many sms equivalent is uses per kb of file sent?
I don't know exactly what you mean. It dose not use any sms to send anything. It uses the same kind of call you would talk over, except instead of talking the modems talk. The numbers of characters in an sms could be sent in much less than 1 second. The only problem is that the modems need around 10-15 seconds to connect with each other. On my phone account I pay 20 flag fall and 1 cent per second. So for a page of text in a message it would cost me around 21 cents. For a much longer message, say 5 pages (on the ppc screen) it would cost me 22-25 cents.
If you are sending files that are bigger than the packet size (most would be) then there is some overhead. There are two "layers" working in GSMbeam each with its own small amount of headder information in a packet for that layer. This is really insignificant though. For sending images the cost is higher. Images are normally relitively large in relation to text. You would have to test it with your own account to see what it costs. with many phone accounts there are free times or free minute from phones in the same network. If you have such free periods then GSMbeam costs nothing to use. When I call my wife it costs me nothing if I have "vodafone to vodafone minutes" left that month.
oh now i get it. ( sorry for being so stupid )
so it uses call time. great! i have free unlimited calls to the same network as mine so that means it would be free to send files to the same netowrk?
Correct. Thats beautiful hey! In Australia they make us pay through the nose for anything to do with data, but now there is a way around it. Imagine, here it cost 75c for a 22kb mms. The picture quality is not that good and there is complication in getting the correct sim and configuring it.
this is a very useful app. thanks again. btw, any chance of porting it to smartphones and also nokia phones?
I can't do smartphone because I do not have one. This kind of thing dose not work properly on the mulator. As for nokia, I have no idea how to program one.
Thanks a bunch
Great Shareware
works on MIO A701
NAdavi.
Thank you for the confirmation assasins. The hope of definite works/fails feedback on the functionality is the main reason I post here. If anyone finds it dose not work, thats what the diagnostic logging mode is for in the settings. After veiwing the log it may be possible for me to find any bugs.
I just found a new bug. In 2003 and 2005 devices, if you change the settings it crashes. It looks like it still works but really its kapoot and needs to be turned off then on again. I was testing on an old xda a lot and it did not happen there so I failed to notice it. I will update with a fix soon. I also thought I fixed the problem hiding the main window, but again its popped back up, but it only seems to happen on my mini.
<edit>
I have fixed this. Version 0.195 is on my site now. The problem was I was calling free on a pointer pointing to memory not allocate by malloc or realloc. I wouldn't have expected it to go so badly.
The OK button thing has really beaten me. I have changed the main dialog minimize to the X and it seems to work. The funny thing is, it is still producing an IDOK and I am still responding to it in the same way. Only now when the dialog get hidden so dose the menu.
version 0.196 is now at the link.
This fixes the on/off functionality of the call filtering so now you can set up the black list and turn it off at will. I also streamlined code in various threads to allow a more swift response to incoming calls. This lets the phone be turned off faster on slower devices so there is less chance of the phone giving a ring.
Get GSMbeam for FREE
I think GSMbeam is finished now. I have fixed many bugs including a malfunction in the stop button. I have added functionality like a que for incomming text messages so more than one can be stored. The incoming messages can now be sent to the clipboard or log file after reading. I added the option to have a sound notification. I added a preview window for image files in the file open dialog. I also put in the password registration. Its based on the hardware ID of the device.
I would like more people to use this before I feel happy calling it finished. If anyone would like to download this and post their hardware ID in this thread (the one generated by GSMbeam) I will pm the first 20-30 a registration code - that is if there is anyone interested.
http://odeean.veritel.com.au/programming_files/gsmbeam.htm
Hi
Great work! Ill try this later. Thanks! You are great!
My Hardware ID
3570360001858401680BF3F51730
i really wish you could develop the same app for WM5 smartphones
this is a nice app. great work!
i'll try this.
My Hardware ID is: 0087687800303051380BF3F51730
Thanks for this app.
BTW, i have a BA running on WM5. It's running ok. but i still have to test sending and receiving files. will post feedback soon.
Okay, so recently I made a program as part of a course in Java, using Swing, that gave you a prefix and prompted you to come up with as many words using that prefix as you could. To accomplish this, I had it use the dictionary used by Words With Friends (I might switch to a different dictionary like ENABLE, not sure yet), but that's what I've been using so far. I wanted to turn this idea into an Android application, because it seemed challenging enough to be fun, yet not too challenging.
The problem here is, the amount of time it takes a computer to load in an entire dictionary into an array of Strings of 173,139 words delimited by newlines in a .txt file is very small. The amount of time it takes to do the same in Android is slower, not to mention the fact that it needs to do this every time it starts up if I want to keep using the array.
I still wanted to make the app, so initially my idea was to do the array thing but use AsyncTask to show a loadscreen and use binary search to optimize the searching for the word in the dictionary every time the user hits a "Submit" button. This proved to be overly difficult (this is my first real Android app besides "Hello World" and a button that opened a "Hello World"...) and still quite slow.
After some searching, I decided what I really should do is make a database and have it search the database for the word when the user hits "Submit". I'm still going to use AsyncTask for downloading the database (I'd rather not bundle it with the .APK for fear of bloating it) and possibly for checking for the word in the database, depending on how fast the searching of the database ends up going.
Is this the best possible way I could go about doing this? Is there something that could give me better, faster results? From what I've seen, the database seems to be the easiest way to make sure I don't have to load in the list of words each time, but will searching the database be fast enough to appear responsive when a user wants to submit a word and see whether they got it?
I'm about to begin coding it using the database technique, but I thought I'd put this out there in case there's a better way I can accomplish this.
tl;dr: what's the quickest/best way to load in and constantly search a large (173,139 words) dictionary I have?
Thanks!
import antigravity said:
Okay, so recently I made a program as part of a course in Java, using Swing, that gave you a prefix and prompted you to come up with as many words using that prefix as you could. To accomplish this, I had it use the dictionary used by Words With Friends (I might switch to a different dictionary like ENABLE, not sure yet), but that's what I've been using so far. I wanted to turn this idea into an Android application, because it seemed challenging enough to be fun, yet not too challenging.
The problem here is, the amount of time it takes a computer to load in an entire dictionary into an array of Strings of 173,139 words delimited by newlines in a .txt file is very small. The amount of time it takes to do the same in Android is slower, not to mention the fact that it needs to do this every time it starts up if I want to keep using the array.
I still wanted to make the app, so initially my idea was to do the array thing but use AsyncTask to show a loadscreen and use binary search to optimize the searching for the word in the dictionary every time the user hits a "Submit" button. This proved to be overly difficult (this is my first real Android app besides "Hello World" and a button that opened a "Hello World"...) and still quite slow.
After some searching, I decided what I really should do is make a database and have it search the database for the word when the user hits "Submit". I'm still going to use AsyncTask for downloading the database (I'd rather not bundle it with the .APK for fear of bloating it) and possibly for checking for the word in the database, depending on how fast the searching of the database ends up going.
Is this the best possible way I could go about doing this? Is there something that could give me better, faster results? From what I've seen, the database seems to be the easiest way to make sure I don't have to load in the list of words each time, but will searching the database be fast enough to appear responsive when a user wants to submit a word and see whether they got it?
I'm about to begin coding it using the database technique, but I thought I'd put this out there in case there's a better way I can accomplish this.
tl;dr: what's the quickest/best way to load in and constantly search a large (173,139 words) dictionary I have?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In my opinion, your best option, especially if you plan on using larger dictionaries over time, would be to have the actual computing done on a server which returns the array in a JSON object that you retrieve from your app.
Firstly, hi to all the folks at xda-developers. I have always found this place to be the most useful resource when it comes to figuring out android, but never had an unanswered question till just now.
I just helped my dad migrate from a blackberry to a nexus 4, and while he is quite happy with most of the phone's offerings, he finds it exasperating that the phone does not display the company field from his address book in the people/contacts app. After a week searching online for answers, it appears this is indeed not possible on android yet, and the best advice I found was to manually change the company field to middle name/last name and then "everythings alright with the world again". Hopefully, the people on xda recognize that this is hardly a 'solution'.
I then set out to find an app to replace the phone book, but that was a dead-end. Too many apps out there, not enough documentation on what does what properly and most of the descriptions suggested that they were over-kill for what I was looking to do.
So, my question is this ... Does anybody who knows the internal workings of android 4.3 on the nexus 4 know if this can be a simple tweak on a rooted phone? I do not have any experience at all hacking phones, Im not even a developer, but I imagine the display is controlled by some sort of style-sheet type entity (xml?). My reasoning is that the information is already on the phone... The only thing that needs to change is the way the phone displays the information. Would it be possible, at some level, to edit a file to display an extra line of information?
Of course, if somebody knows of a specific app/mod that already does this, please point me in the right direction.
Thanks,
Karthik
Oh yes --- IF it turns out that there is no way to do what I want without some major hacking of the OS, can somebody suggest the best way to unload the contacts from the phone to a desktop, some app that will automatically remap the company name field to the middle name/suffix, and then upload the contacts back to the phone?
The company is displayed right below the name in the top left corner of the people app.
At least in the paranoid android rom
Swyped from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4
In the stock version, the only way to see it is when the actual contact is opened... Meaning, when viewing contact details. The problem with this is that when you have multiple contacts with the same name, it is impossible to dial the right one directly from the Phone App. Each time, one must click on the person's avatar on the left side, which does some weird 'half opening' of the contact, then click again on the top of that dialog box to open the actual contact, at which point the company name is displayed at the top corner.
In my dad's case, he has many many contacts with the same names, even same first and last (we in India have third initials that finally differentiate the persons!) ... On his blackberry, the company name ALWAYS showed under the contact name, and so it was easy to call the right person. With android, neither the phone app, nor the auto-complete introduced in 4.3 seem to care about the company name. So each time, he has to open the contact fully to figure out whom to call!
I'm using the stock nook reader and renate's Library.apk. How can you make sure the last read icon on the top bar corresponds to the last read file in the library?
I am not sure where this icon gets its link. It doesn't seem to always open the last read file.
I've been thinking about asking this question (although I am using the stock reader AND library apps). My "reading now" button is getting really cranky of late. It often just goes to the first page (cover) or sometimes it goes to the first page AND displays a two-option message about the different current reading positions in two Nook readers (!) and which one do I want (generally neither is correct). Right now the only sure way to get to the correct page is to go to the Library screen and select the book from there. So the Nook does remember, but the Reading Now button is not functioning properly.
For a time I had a number of B&N apps disabled (renamed ".bak") and gradually discovered the imponderable connections that seemed to render little things inoperable. I've had to restore quite a few of the apps to running to keep everything functioning except Nook Community (because the constant "nagifications" drove me crazy) but this button behavior has me baffled (as does the reference to two Nook readers!)
I wonder, are you using any sort of "cleaning" app? I am using Clean Master and find it helpful in freeing up memory but I'm beginning to think that some of the data it is throwing out might just contain the info that the button needs to function properly. It certainly messes with Tasker.
The "Last Read" icon on the status bar sends out the intent com.bn.nook.launch.LAST_BOOK
This would normally be handled by Home.apk
If you deleted Home.apk and are using my Library.apk it has its own receiver for that.
Depending on which version Nook software you have it will query
content://com.bn.nook.reader.providers.lastreadingpointprovider/
content://com.bn.nook.reader.common.providers.lastreadingpointprovider/
The LRP database is maintained by the Reader(RMSDK).apk.
Checking for the latest modification gives you the last book read.
My Library.apk sends an intent out to open that book.
Currently Library.apk does not update the order of books displayed in "Last read" unless the refresh button is hit.
Two things to look for if you are having problems:
If you let the battery die and the WiFi is always off the clock time will be wrong.
If you crash or shutdown improperly Reader(RMSDK).apk will not get a chance to update the LRP.
P.S. I just noticed a possible anomaly if you read PDF's in the reader too.
Oh! It just occurred to me one thing.
I remember opening a book that you have been reading already and it opens at page 1.
This was tied to opening the book in different ways.
There are different ways to open a book:
Through the "Last Read" icon and stock Home.apk
Through the stock Library.apk
Through my Library.apk
Through a file manager application
The LRP database is /data/data/com.bn.nook.reader.activities/databases/lastreadingpoint.db
Code:
CREATE TABLE lastreadingpoint
(_id integer primary key autoincrement,
ean text, // file URI
luid text,
offsetrmsdk text, // subfile path fragment
lastupdated long, // Unix milliseconds last read
bookdna int, // always 1?
sync_status int // always 1?
);
ean (which normally might stand for European Article Number, i.e. "UPC") is a URI, not a path.
Code:
sqlite> select ean from lastreadingpoint;
file:///sdcard/Books/aboveall.epub
...
There may be cases where a single book gets different ean's.
If you could look at LRP and see if this is so?
I actually managed to locate that db file on my own (!) and what seemed to be a companion with related information (readerlocal.db). They seemed to be full of junk info (books that had since been removed, etc.) although there were no duplicate entries, which is what I had suspected.
Anyway, I got a little "brave" (i.e., foolhardy) and decided to clean up both files in a parallel way. Then I pushed them back, reset the permissions and rebooted.
Yikes. My Nook is set to go to the B&N Home screen only on reboot. That screen flickered and flashed, never filling in any of the images. I could still use the "N" button to access other parts of the system and they were working fine, but any return to the Home screen via the Back button showed it was still in distress.
So....restore from backup...again.
It seems OK for now. I have noticed that the little "refresh" button in the Library does sometimes seem to go on and on and on without any accomplishment. I have suspected the issue was how I accessed the book-in-progress as you described. Since I sometimes read more than one book at a time, I'm all over the place with how I do things (including a Library icon in my App home screen). I'm going to try being more disciplined for a while and see how it behaves.
nmyshkin said:
I actually managed to locate that db file on my own (!) and what seemed to be a companion with related information (readerlocal.db). They seemed to be full of junk info (books that had since been removed, etc.) although there were no duplicate entries, which is what I had suspected.
Anyway, I got a little "brave" (i.e., foolhardy) and decided to clean up both files in a parallel way. Then I pushed them back, reset the permissions and rebooted.
Yikes. My Nook is set to go to the B&N Home screen only on reboot. That screen flickered and flashed, never filling in any of the images. I could still use the "N" button to access other parts of the system and they were working fine, but any return to the Home screen via the Back button showed it was still in distress.
So....restore from backup...again.
It seems OK for now. I have noticed that the little "refresh" button in the Library does sometimes seem to go on and on and on without any accomplishment. I have suspected the issue was how I accessed the book-in-progress as you described. Since I sometimes read more than one book at a time, I'm all over the place with how I do things (including a Library icon in my App home screen). I'm going to try being more disciplined for a while and see how it behaves.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Would it be possible to write an app that simulates opening the last read book from only one of the Library apps and then map that to the last read icon to simplify this whole system?
mergen3107 said:
Guys, if you are concerned about why sometimes the last read option goes to the 1st page, then it was already fixed by our forum users somewhere here. (I could hardly remember and trace where it all started but finally it was successfully solved)
Just install a file this package (internal.db deep in the 'data' folder. You could delete 'system' folder - this is hyphenations dictionary for Russian) through cwm or replace it manually (the zip contains detailed path) and here you go.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now that was an interesting trip! Once I had Google do some translating there were a number of really interesting posts that were (mostly) intelligible. I'd want to compare that modified internal.db file with what's already on my Nook before I did any replacing. A lot of the work from that site is "russified" (not surprisingly) and there may be other changes there not really needed/wanted, but it's a good start.
I noticed in another posting there that someone said there is a related issue with in what state the Nook is connected via USB. Apparently the hypothesis is that if you don't connect while in the Library you stand a good chance of scrambling the "reading now" database entry. I've certainly been hooking up with my Nook in all kinds of states, so if that's correct, no wonder my database file was so messed up!
Installation of the internal.db file from the Russian source will not work. I've tried a side-by-side comparison of the file with the one from my Nook (FW 1.21) and there are differences (beyond the region identifier, which is easily changed). It's not at all clear what changes have been made or from what firmware the modified file came. In any case, it causes havoc when exchanged for the native internal.db
The Russian discussion points to this thread on XDA which approaches (and apparently solves) the problem another way. I'm going to give it a try.
nmyshkin said:
Installation of the internal.db file from the Russian source will not work. I've tried a side-by-side comparison of the file with the one from my Nook (FW 1.21) and there are differences (beyond the region identifier, which is easily changed). It's not at all clear what changes have been made or from what firmware the modified file came. In any case, it causes havoc when exchanged for the native internal.db
The Russian discussion points to this thread on XDA which approaches (and apparently solves) the problem another way. I'm going to give it a try.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do I read this correctly, http://bit.ly/Q7MytN from that thread there should be no problem if renates Library.apk is used exclusively and the stock Library.apk has the bug?
I must have a unique way of using my devices because I've never seen this issue reported on the forum.
Firstly, I just want to say that lastreadingpoint.db seems to be something of a garbage bin. I'm working with one of my older devices right now (formerly my principal reader) and the db is filled with books that were deleted long ago. Now, perhaps, cleanup of this file is supposed to happen when books are removed via UMS since that's the only provision B&N made for removing side-loaded content, but I doubt it. Since I just use a file manager, I may be frustrating some grand design that would keep the db file tidy. NOT.
But I digress. My real beef is the unpredictability of the button. When I select a new book from the library and move along a few pages to the first chapter, I often return to the home page to deal with some other things and then set the device aside until I'm ready to start my new book. But when I do return and tap that button, I generally get the last book I just finished (at the last page....). If I have deleted that book already then I'll get some other book, maybe an anthology I frequent, wherever I left off.
Inspection of lastreadingpoint.db shows no indication that I ever selected a new book.
I have struggled with this for a long time and realize that without knowing exactly when and under what circumstances the db would actually be updated, this is really difficult to run down. I just tried another experiment and put the device to sleep manually after starting a new book (book still displayed). Then I woke it up and returned to the home screen (i.e., my launcher, not the B&N Home). The "now reading" button worked correctly! And repeatedly.
BUT...A look at lastreadingpoint.db still did not show that the new book had been opened! This helps explain why my overtures with sqlite were not having much effect.
It's a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, enclosed in a B&N box.
I just want the #$%&*% button to do what you would expect it to do without a lot of nonsense. It's easier to get it to consistently open a current Kindle book then to open an epub in the stock reader.
Why?
Edit: The next day: I accessed the book one more time this morning without any problem and copied out the database again. This time it finally showed an entry for the book with the correct access time.
Edit: 9-12-22 Nothing seems to work consistently except for one change. I have installed on my devices a little app called "NookReader". It's buried deep in the old posts of the forum and its purpose is to allow epubs to be opened via a file manager (which I never do). In effect it creates a "listener" which the stock system lacks.
Well, it seems the stock system doesn't like eavesdropping. When I uninstalled the app from the device I had been experimenting with the effect was immediate and I was able to move from selection to selection, each time returning to the most recent book correctly using the "now reading" button. Another device required an uninstall as well as a reboot in order to start behaving properly.
Moral: if you're not using it, get rid of it!
nmyshkin said:
I have struggled with this for a long time and realize that without knowing exactly when and under what circumstances the db would actually be updated, this is really difficult to run down. I just tried another experiment and put the device to sleep manually after starting a new book (book still displayed). Then I woke it up and returned to the home screen (i.e., my launcher, not the B&N Home). The "now reading" button worked correctly! And repeatedly.
BUT...A look at lastreadingpoint.db still did not show that the new book had been opened! This helps explain why my overtures with sqlite were not having much effect.
It's a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, enclosed in a B&N box.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@nmyshkin ... even i've struggled with something like this ... inconsistencies of the last reading point actions ...
nmyshkin said:
Edit: 9-12-22 Nothing seems to work consistently except for one change. I have installed on my devices a little app called "NookReader". It's buried deep in the old posts of the forum and its purpose is to allow epubs to be opened via a file manager (which I never do). In effect it creates a "listener" which the stock system lacks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
are you referring to the app that goes by 'dev.nookreader.apk' ? ... for now i've just renamed it to 'dev.nookreader.apk.bkp' so its as good as removed ...
some database problems i think i can report, one that i've annoyingly encountered, in this I've sometimes found the order of the books in the default library aren't displayed as they should have ... Iam referring to the 'Most Recent' sorting option where the last opened/accessed book should ideally show up at the top most ... BUT SADLY IT DOESN'T !!! ...
Most annoying is when i search a book open and read it and expect it to show up on the top or at least in the first few pages of the library ... but they don't ... search is the only option to reopen such a book ...
Aren't the books that are opened using the 'Search' option of the library not supposed to show high up the library ?
I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO GET THIS ANNOYANCE RID OF ... i would love to find all the last accessed books in the topmost sorting order as its supposed to work ...
I don't even know what database records the last accessed book information ... any and all help appreciated to identify and fix this annoyance.
PS : Are "New"' books(Lend Me) installed from the B&N store supposed to show up at the topmost ?
Update : strangely the searched book shows up in the B&N Home under 'READING Now' section but its not showing in the Library as the topmost book in it ... another inconsistent DB recording ???
aiamuzz said:
Update : strangely the searched book shows up in the B&N Home under 'READING Now' section but its not showing in the Library as the topmost book in it ... another inconsistent DB recording ???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK, well, I can't say that I know a lot more now than when I started this thread.
What I can say is that the device seems to work with a copy of the database in RAM or else keeps variables in RAM that are not written to the database until much, much later (like during or after a nap).
I began to think about how I use the device vs. how B&N intended it to be used so I made a few tests going from the B&N Home to the Library, to a book. Then, there is really only one way to get out of the book and that is through the QuickNav buttons. I thought that maybe the trigger to the database update was somewhere in there, but I saw the same inconsistent results and delayed updating of the file as with my own sequence.
This is why I eventually abandoned the database as a source of info for my SetCover app and started relying (at least partly) on my own data. All I can say for "sure" at this point is that a good nap on the open book seems to aid in the correct information making its way into the database. Not very technical, I know.
If you are getting really spurious behavior from your lastreadingpoint.db or you find that it is full of deadwood, you can clean out the entire thing as here. Of course you will lose absolutely everything in the database if you do that, so it's a "last gasp" scenario.
For me, things seem to have calmed down if I just leave an epub open in the stock reader for awhile. And after all, what's the rush to get back to the home screen? (in general). That's not how the reader was probably meant to be used.
aiamuzz said:
Update : strangely the searched book shows up in the B&N Home under 'READING Now' section but its not showing in the Library as the topmost book in it ... another inconsistent DB recording ???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you run this test ?
1. Open stock library.
2. Search for some book that is buried in the last pages of the Library.
3. Open that book from the search results.
4. Flip a few pages to emulate that you've read that book.
Ideally that book should be the Last Read (Reading Now) ... WHICH INDEED DOES WORK SO !!!
Having been a recent book that one has read ...
The Library app should also show that book on the very first page as its the most recent one ... BUT IT DOES NOT SHOW SO IN THE LIBRARY !!!
I would really like the searched and opened books to move to the front pages of the Library App and stay there and get moved down as and when other books are opened ... at worst it should be easily locatable in the first few pages of the Library App ... the 'recent' book sorting option in the Library and the place where this info is stored may have to be trouble shot ...
aiamuzz said:
Can you run this test ?
1. Open stock library.
2. Search for some book that is buried in the last pages of the Library.
3. Open that book from the search results.
4. Flip a few pages to emulate that you've read that book.
Ideally that book should be the Last Read (Reading Now) ... WHICH INDEED DOES WORK SO !!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, there you are. I've never used the "search" function on the NST for anything! But I did, just to humor you, and I see that it actually turns up a "hit".
I use the Library almost exclusively in shelf format. What I personally would like is for the @%W$#% Library to remember that. Of course, it will not, because then I would not see all the nifty new books I just purchased (NOT) from B&N as they are delivered.
Any "adjustments" to the Library behavior are beyond my pay grade and you won't get you-know-who interested in that either, as she has her own Library app. I've looked at a lot of Library alternatives. There were many promising looking ones in the early days but all seem to have been abandoned at some incomplete point by their developers (except for the one mentioned above).
I just live with it. I don't have hundreds of books on my device. When I finish a book I actually delete it (gasp!) [except for something like the Bible].
But it would be nice to understand the rules or thinking behind the "reading now" business. However, since the database doesn't seem to accept input (although you can read from it), it doesn't matter much I guess.