I have a Velocity Micro Cruz Tablet running Android 2.0
One thing which is very frustrating at times, is that attempts to scroll, or even flip pages in an ereader app, are often confused with something else or ignored completely.
I really wish the device had hardware arrow keys to avoid this problem, but since it doesn't, the next best thing would be a small application to provide arrow keys without a full keyboard.
This would, ideally, be a small arrow key app that would 'float over' any other open application (like the web browser, or an ereader app). I don't even know if this is possible, but if so, it would be VERY beneficial.
Thanks for any consideration.
The Desire HD Keyboard has arrow keys but I have yet to find a port for the tablet. Thats the only thing I know that is close to what you want. Assuming it has bluetooth and can be used as the usb host you can get something like the Logitech DiNova mini. Sorry, don't know much about the tablet, relatively unknown.
Related
Hello, I would like some recommendations on ebook readers for the diamond...
Also is there any way to convert your PDF files to be able to read them in an ebook reader ?
Mobipocket is the best one I've come across, you can convert from pretty much any format under the sun (including PDF) using the Creator application that can be downloaded as a companion to the Reader app; both are completely free. The cool thing is that you just install the desktop version of the Reader app then connect your phone to the PC and it'll automatically install the app on your phone for you.
The only annoying thing is that the cross pad on the Diamond is nearly impossible to use without accidentally clicking the 'hang up' button so turning pages is difficult without accidentally minimising the app, but that's an issue that would happen with any book reader app so I can't really lay the blame for that at the door of Mobipocket. Anyway, you can set up Mobipocket such that tapping the right and left hand sides of the screen moves you back and forward through the book instead which isn't too bad a workaround.
It would be nice to remap, for instance, the hardware volume buttons to back/forward but the Diamond seems determined not to allow anything like that, no matter what application you're running the sodding hardware buttons always just override the application and perform their original function (e.g. changing the system volume). I'm pretty appalled in general at how badly designed the buttons at the bottom of the Diamond are (yes, I'm sure they look very nice and it's a victory for the internal HTC design team, but actual usability of the sodding thing should never be secondary to the look of a device) but that's a different subject entirely.
Thanks am now using Mobipocket, very nice reader...like the tip with right left screen press for page turns...cheers
Medulla said:
Mobipocket is the best one I've come across, you can convert from pretty much any format under the sun (including PDF) using the Creator application that can be downloaded as a companion to the Reader app; both are completely free. The cool thing is that you just install the desktop version of the Reader app then connect your phone to the PC and it'll automatically install the app on your phone for you.
The only annoying thing is that the cross pad on the Diamond is nearly impossible to use without accidentally clicking the 'hang up' button so turning pages is difficult without accidentally minimising the app, but that's an issue that would happen with any book reader app so I can't really lay the blame for that at the door of Mobipocket. Anyway, you can set up Mobipocket such that tapping the right and left hand sides of the screen moves you back and forward through the book instead which isn't too bad a workaround.
It would be nice to remap, for instance, the hardware volume buttons to back/forward but the Diamond seems determined not to allow anything like that, no matter what application you're running the sodding hardware buttons always just override the application and perform their original function (e.g. changing the system volume). I'm pretty appalled in general at how badly designed the buttons at the bottom of the Diamond are (yes, I'm sure they look very nice and it's a victory for the internal HTC design team, but actual usability of the sodding thing should never be secondary to the look of a device) but that's a different subject entirely.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you can set it to turn pages with a screen tap can't you? I haven't used it for a while but I seem to remember having it set up that way.
*edit* Oops... my bad you already said that.
you can also use down on the Dpad instead of left to turn the pages.
Been using HD2 for a month already. Haven't actually used any smartphones before, my overall impression is pretty good and I haven't run into many severe problems. The worst incidence was the handset wouldn't boot and kept vibrating all the time. I got a replacement, fortunately, although I never knew what happened.
Enough of irrelevant stuff. I would like to ask a few questions and see if anyone may shed any light on that. I use the stock ROM as shipped.
While browsing with Opera (the builtin one) or Skyfire, double tap will activate the pinch-to-zoom. Therefore, when browsing "conventional" non-mobile oriented sites like Google Maps (yes I know there is one builtin but there are other sites which may require double click but not available as a WM application) you are unable to emulate a mouse double click, but got zooming activated. So, is there any way to workaround this?
Similar question: Some non-mobile oriented sites use frame or iframe in layout, and with desktop browsers you may drag on the divider to resize the frame. By trial and error I managed to do so on HD2 (Opera?) a few times in the past but most of the time it would simply not work. Anyone with similar experience?
Last one - anyone has tried Google Maps 4 on HD2? Is it worth the risk to upgrade (still using the stock version that I believe is 3.x)? I found the street view images is somewhat blurred when compared with those I saw from behind the shoulder of some friend of mine who was accessing a similar area using an iphone. Or is that an illusion only?
I searched here and did not find anything directly useful. My apologies if I missed something here amidst the sea of threads here.
When/Why would you ever need to double click on a webpage?
As I cited, Google Maps is already one. I know of other mapping sites that rely on similar means to zoom in. Some of these sites do not have the +/- buttons for zoom so you must stick with double click on desktop PC.
cbkihong said:
As I cited, Google Maps is already one. I know of other mapping sites that rely on similar means to zoom in. Some of these sites do not have the +/- buttons for zoom so you must stick with double click on desktop PC.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
just use the latest google maps for windows mobile..
http://www.google.com/mobile/maps/
its 4.xx or whatever, and you can just install it over the other one.
it won't cause any problems or anything like that.
any else tried it? the touch pad/keyboard works flawlessly and its faster than any vnc client I've tried however I can't find an option to disconnect or go fullscreen. I setup my vm to use atrix's native 960x540 res so essentially with fixed fullscreen support this would be the perfect setup
edit: back will disconnect. it wasn't working initially (it would cause a right click) but either they fixed it or my phone fixed itself. this vnc client has support for external mouse/keyboard on android, so with the lapdock, the touchpad/keyboard works. yes, even right click works. once they at very least offer basic fullscreen/no status bar support this easily replaces webtop for me as long as you have a decent internet connection.
tl;dr spend 99c on jump desktop vnc now before the price goes up =D
Except using a vnc app on the phone wont work well translated on the touchpad. I used teamviewer and i had to drag the touchpad to move the mouse, it was kind of annoying.
teeth_03 said:
Except using a vnc app on the phone wont work well translated on the touchpad. I used teamviewer and i had to drag the touchpad to move the mouse, it was kind of annoying.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that's the beauty of jump desktop. it has support for external mouse/keyboard.. so the touch pad acts like a real touch pad. the mouse on the remote machine follows below your blue android mouse
theres a free app called pocket cloud which has the same functionality, but the keyboard is iffy, and overall it's just not as fast as jump. there is a little lag as the virtual machine follows your mouse especially on 3G but it's the most amazing client i've found so far. just need to push them for fullscreen support
Hi,
I'm one of the developers on the Jump Desktop app. Glad you're finding Jump useful.
1. Re: back button not working: We actually fixed this in our 4.0.4 update - let us know if you have any issues with this.
2. Fullscreen / status bar: Jump should already be going fullscreen for you. Which OS are you running on your Atrix?
3. Also, did you know that pressing the 'menu' button shows / hides Jump's functional keyboard at the bottom?
4. And yes - the price is going to up - our iOS version costs much more
Please do let us know what you guys want to see with with Jump - we really want it to become the best remote desktop app on the Android market.
I, for one, am using an alpha build of CM9 and find that your program works very well.
One thing that I would like to see is full-screen without any panning, which I believe is what the OP meant. Is there a way that the android notification bar could be hidden so that we could make complete use of the phone's display for the VNC?
jumpdesktop said:
Hi,
I'm one of the developers on the Jump Desktop app. Glad you're finding Jump useful.
1. Re: back button not working: We actually fixed this in our 4.0.4 update - let us know if you have any issues with this.
2. Fullscreen / status bar: Jump should already be going fullscreen for you. Which OS are you running on your Atrix?
3. Also, did you know that pressing the 'menu' button shows / hides Jump's functional keyboard at the bottom?
4. And yes - the price is going to up - our iOS version costs much more
Please do let us know what you guys want to see with with Jump - we really want it to become the best remote desktop app on the Android market.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice that you care enough to participate in the forum here. Thanks!
Great app, by the way. I justify paying for very few apps, but yours is worth many times the .99 I paid yesterday. (Now that I have mine ) I would say you could reasonably raise the price to about the level of PocketCloud. although I find your app to be superior so far.
As to future features, the only thing I can think of is file transfer.
Soooo, I've been trying to map some controls to touchscreen and it seemed to be going pretty good, until.....MINECRAFT!
I don't like the built in Minecraft mapping mode at all, having to hold then release a button at just the right moment to move the camera without picking away blocks is like trying to grab flies in mid-air.
I just would like the gesture mapping button to do what tincore does, while you're holding the gesture mapped button, it continually replays the same gesture over and over. I feel I could have made it work really well if this was possible. Although, I haven't done a whole lot with switching pages if that would help, not sure though.
I just thought maybe some people would like to share some sweet button layout tricks with everyone?
Personally, I've found it's almost easier to map right analog directions to short burst gesture directions and just hit the stick repeatedly. It wasn't ideal, but I like it more than the regular layout.
I like that the mapping is built in so that we don't have to run an additional app before running a game.
However, I will probably stick with Tincore for the time being due to the way the dpad is implemented. I don't like how each direction on the dpad can only be set up as a single touch. I want the dpad to emulate a joystick (north, south, east and west only) so that I can use it to move my character in a game like Final Fantasy 3. The way nVidia has done it you assign the dpad just like you assign the ABXY buttons which doesn't work for movement control in touch games that use a virtual slider type joystick where you touch then slide your thumb to move. On a static joystick that remains in one place on the screen it works fine.
Evo_Shift said:
I like that the mapping is built in so that we don't have to run an additional app before running a game.
However, I will probably stick with Tincore for the time being due to the way the dpad is implemented. I don't like how each direction on the dpad can only be set up as a single touch. I want the dpad to emulate a joystick (north, south, east and west only) so that I can use it to move my character in a game like Final Fantasy 3. The way nVidia has done it you assign the dpad just like you assign the ABXY buttons which doesn't work for movement control in touch games that use a virtual slider type joystick where you touch then slide your thumb to move. On a static joystick that remains in one place on the screen it works fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess they will end improving it. Besides being targeted to only one device will make easy to have a big library of mappings for the more
'susceptible to frustration' users.
What I noticed with mapping is that if you offer enough functionality to properly map then there are many users that are scared just by perceived "complexity".
tincore said:
I guess they will end improving it. Besides being targeted to only one device will make easy to have a big library of mappings for the more
'susceptible to frustration' users.
What I noticed with mapping is that if you offer enough functionality to properly map then there are many users that are scared just by perceived "complexity".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes
Tincore is really good, but it scare most people due to how many thing you can configure. Maybe you can create two profiles. One for advanced users and other for basic user with less options like the nvdia shield mapper.
ricardo85x said:
yes
Tincore is really good, but it scare most people due to how many thing you can configure. Maybe you can create two profiles. One for advanced users and other for basic user with less options like the nvdia shield mapper.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is indeed an idea. On most of the cases my app is just plug and play. To be honest I really dont know which options I could hide.
To be honest, I haven't gotten to use the Tincore app myself, just have read a lot about it on here and seen tutorials on YouTube. Haven't gotten around to rooting yet, mostly the whole 'warranty' deal which I won't care about when Shield 2 hits.
But, I know as far as shield goes, the thing I like about mapping with this is just being able to have this quick bar at the top with buttons you just pull off, resize, and one click register. It really does have a lot of limitation, and you guys are right about the complexity of Tincore, but if this Shield juuuuust had that 'repeat gesture while held' and 'stop playing gesture when let go' thing, it would be all I need personally.
Sent from my SHIELD using xda app-developers app
the thing with tin core is despite being the best mapper out there, it looks intimidating to newbies (i felt that way for the first few mins), the gui that is presented perhaps needs to be simplified with advanced options presented in different roll outs.(similar to nvidia's mapper along with more options)
the problem however is with most mappers including gamekeyboard, joystiq center, one reason is perhaps they are targeted at a very specific audience who they assume know what they are doing. Although this point is correct, more and more mainstream and casual gamer are getting into this feature everyday and see its usefulness.
Either way I cant imagine nvidia's mapper will ever come close to what tin core offers in terms of settings, which for me as a gamer is important.
Hmmmm, now that I've played around with it more I'm realizing more and more bugs with nvidia's mapping. One most important is the fact you can't hit buttons and move directional keys at the same time. Playing minecraft, you can't move the camera and walk at the same time like you can with regular touch screen play.
Another thing I'd like is resizeable buttons so they don't overlap. And I've even found a game that doesn't support the mapping at all, the options just don't come up when hitting start.
Think I'm gonna have to root and go with tincore.
Sent from my SHIELD using xda app-developers app
I have been looking around for an eink android tablet.
Is the NST the only option?
I understand that the screen refresh rate severely limits what you can do, but i was wondering if it is otherwise possible to run all apps?
As far as I could find, none of the other eink ereaders (Amazon Kindle, Kobo) can be rooted / made to run regular android apps.
andTab said:
I have been looking around for an eink android tablet.
Is the NST the only option?
I understand that the screen refresh rate severely limits what you can do, but i was wondering if it is otherwise possible to run all apps?
As far as I could find, none of the other eink ereaders (Amazon Kindle, Kobo) can be rooted / made to run regular android apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can also choose a 13.3" epaper tablet from sony:
http://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/sony-announces-13-3-inch-e-reader-to-launch-in-the-usa-this-may
I just can't precise if it even runs android.
I believe that neither Kindle or Kobo run android. They use a proprietary OS so, no rooting on them.
andTab said:
As far as I could find, none of the other eink ereaders (Amazon Kindle, Kobo) can be rooted / made to run regular android apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check the Android on Kobo thread.
They can run Android 2.3.4
embryo10 said:
Check the Android on Kobo thread.
They can run Android 2.3.4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Though none of these eink readers runs a modern (4.x) version of android?
andTab said:
Though none of these eink readers runs a modern (4.x) version of android?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
there is the boyue t62 and the boyue t61 the Icarus illumina is a rebrand of the boyue t61. they run android 4.2 I think I am considering getting one myself but android L coming out in a month and that's supposed to be for low power and android one is for low costs devices so I am starting to like the idea of an android one device with eink so I kind of want to wait.
There have been several readers released recently that run "open" andriod. There is the Onyx Boox T68 and the Icarus Illumina HD. You can find a comparision review of both readers here
@andTab, you are right about the refresh rate problem, but there is a way around it: NoRefresh enabler. It's a great alternative and it works nicely, too.
The only eink tablet?
Not at all. For example the Onyx Boox T68 comes with Android 4.0, a higher resolution display, more RAM, a faster processor
and is already open (no root required).
But the NST is by far one of the cheapest EINK devices running Android
smeezekitty said:
The only eink tablet?
Not at all. For example the Onyx Boox T68 comes with Android 4.0, a higher resolution display, more RAM, a faster processor
and is already open (no root required).
But the NST is by far one of the cheapest EINK devices running Android
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right. It's not even that bad for being the cheapest.
And cheap is always good.
otg support
do we know if any of the above android eink ereaders like onyx boox or boyuee T61 , T62 support usb host function - otg?? Nowhere is mentioned exactly and is very critical for my application to add a usb smartcard reader..
Take a look at Meet Earl project, it's not out jet, but looks very promising. I can't post links, look for youtube video - it will explain everything. Nook is the best tech thing I've bought. After Earl it will be second...
Boyue T62
I just rooted and set up a Boyue T62 for an avid reader. I used an exposed module to have the page up and page down buttons trigger Tasker tasks that input screen taps, making the buttons work in pretty much every reader app. It misfires on occasion, but the user says it happens so rare that it's not even an inconvenience.
The experience of reader apps as reported by her:
Built in "Books" app for non DRM books - Works flawlessly, but finding books stored in the card isn't as user friendly as it should be.
Cool Reader - works great after you tweak the options
Nook - Nearly flawless, but there is bug with the front light. If stuck on, use light icon in the tray to turn it off. Very minor inconvenience. Page turns are slower than an actual nook, but still well within reason.
Kindle - Sluggish, but once a book is loaded, works great.
Kobo - Unusably slow, but who uses Kobo anyway?
Various "Free ebooks" apps - most work great!
PDF - not tested yet.
Other apps useful on eInk
Flipboard - Usable
"Internet" - Great for pages that have a lot of text.
Built in Email - Flawless
IHeartRadio - Flawless, excellent for music to read to
Keyring - Set up and Tutorial look like crap, but it works flawlessly after that. She had this app on a hacked Nook before, and she has yet to find a barcode scanner that can't read an e-ink screen!
Google+ - Fails to install
Google Plus mobile site - works well
Dictionary.com app - Fails to install
Play Music - Fails to launch
Facebook Lite - works well
Facebook regular app - not tested
Google Keep - Works well, but color options, obviously, are quite limited. She just uses what we assume is the default yellow, which displays clearly.
Rounder - Looked AWESOME with the victorian corners she likes, but it interfered with the tasker set up I used for the page buttons.
If you're interested, e-mail me [email protected], and I'll give you the code and screen coordinates to use in tasker for the buttons, and the name of the exposed module I used to connect tasker to the buttons. I don't have the reader in front of me, I'll ask her for it for a second to get that for you. It's configed so the page turns are screen taps on click, volume on long press. The refresh button is standard refresh on press, standard back light toggle on long press, and brightness options on double press. Power key is standard power on press, power menu on long press, and screenshot on double press. Interestingly enough, screen shots are color when sent to a color device. I wasn't expecting that. The double press for the backlight options is a fantastic work around for the backlight bug in the Nook app.
When I see her, I'll see if her boyue supports USB host.