Stuff to use with the Document Reader - Four Great Novels

I

ipsi

状元
EDIT: Ok, putting them to your card, however I try, doesn't seem to work. It somehow fucks up the record count, and then Pleco thinks it's an empty file. That's just weird.

EDIT: Ok, the files have moved to http://china.panlogicsoftware.com/ebooks.html :).

I've found and converted 'The Four Great Novels' into PalmDoc files that are easily usable with Pleco (Links at Bottom). If you synch them to the main memory of your device, Pleco will find them automatically, and you won't need to enter a filename :D.

Anyway, if people want to have a decent play around with the document reader and actually try and read some proper books, this looks like a good shot.

There are a few problems though - One is that all the punctuation is Chinese, and Pleco doesn't have any fonts which support that. Except for the Chinese '.', or 。. EDIT There is a *very small* amount of Western Punctuation. I thought I had replaced it, but some is still there. Strange. /EDIT That could make reading it a bit tough. I have the plain text files floating around if anyone wants to convert them, but there won't be much point, as it should be fixed soon. Right, Mike?

I also found 西游记 on a different site, so it's probably going to look a bit different to the others. I'm also not sure about the paragraph formatting and stuff.

They also take a while to load up, so don't expect it to happen instantly :).

Each file loaded without problem on my Treo 680 - no crashes or anything. Just remember to select UTF-8 as the encoding.

They're also all in UTF-8 format, which does work. :). Does make the files a bit bigger though, but I'm sure we can all deal, right?

Oh, and as to copyright, I suspect they're so old they're no longer in it, correct? Especially given that people aren't really sure who authored them and such like. If I'm on acid, please delete this post. It *will* take a while to load up, I'm afraid, as it's a pretty large file.

Actually, I can't attach files here. I'll chuck it on my Uni account, but if someone else could take over hosting the files, and quickly, it'd be good, as that account will expire soon...

Also, Mike, if you let me know when you've decided on some sort of marked up format, I'll write something to go through and convert the original HTML to whatever it is, which should hopefully make these look a bit nicer. :).

So yeah. Enjoy everyone :).

Files are now here: http://china.panlogicsoftware.com/ebooks.html
 
G

gato

状元
May want to break them up into smaller chunks for quicker loading, but thanks!

How about converting these Lu Xun stories and essays for us, too? :D The site below has the downloadable zipped up HTML files. One would need to paste them together, etc.
http://www.ebook99.com/jxd_zg_lx.htm
中国作品》鲁迅
 
I

ipsi

状元
Actually, I normally just run a script over them, and then use some regular expressions to clear out the HTML :).

Also, the reason I didn't seperate them is that I'm not sure where I should break them. I don't really think having 400+ files to scroll through in Pleco's reader is very nice (which is what would happen if it was one file per chapter), and I'm not sure how break them up in another way. Any ideas?

I'll have a look at the Lu Xun stories. :)
 
S

sfrrr

状元
Thanks. I'm about to see how they work on my finicky Axim. And, if you do do some Lu Xun, that would be fun too--assuming I can get through whatever I choose to read first.

Sandra
 
I

ipsi

状元
Ok, I've converted the Lu Xun files :D. Well, most of them. I think I'm still missing one or two, but I did try to download them.

I'm sorry, but I can't read the names of any of these stories, so you'll have to put up with abbreviations (or PM me with proper names, and I'll edit my post with them).

Anyway, they can be found in this directory here:

http://china.panlogicsoftware.com/ebooks.html

I haven't tested them all, but I have done a couple. They seem to work. A bit quicker to load up, unsurprisingly :).

Enjoy.
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Yes, wide punctuation support is certainly coming on Palm. Not sure if a marked-up reader format will make it into 2.0, though, it's one of a number of features we're considering dropping so we can finally get this thing out the door reasonably quickly (and get started on iPleco/Pleco for S60/Pleco Desktop/etc, which at this point there seem to be considerably more people clamoring for). But it would be nice to at least get basic rich text and bookmarks in there in some form, even if it's with an officially unsupported, may-be-changed-completely-in-a-later-release, weird-private-use-character-based coding system.
 
I

ipsi

状元
Doesn't need to be much. Just headings, Chapters, Bookmarks, and remembering your previous position would be awesome. Page Breaks too. I can handle weird private-use characters. It's essentially just another form of markup.

While I can understand the desire to ship the thing, basic headings and such shouldn't be too hard, should they?
 
G

gato

状元
ipsi, what did you use to convert the files? Why are they .prc files (used for executables) instead of .pdb? It's not working for me, yet.

First, used Palm QuickInstall to install to internal memory, but PalmOS would try to run the file or something and would crash and reboot.

Then, renamed as .pdb file and tried to install to card. Was able to install, but on trying to open with PlecoDict reader, PalmOS crashes and reboots.
 
I

ipsi

状元
I used MakeDocW, as suggested on these forums. What I do is the following:

Use the Palm Quick Install Util to install them to main memory.
Open Pleco Engine
Menu + E
And they will all be listed there. It's never tried to run them, and they're not listed as apps.

I'm not sure why they are PRC, but it works for me... That's damn strange. Try synching them to your card, leaving the PRC extension intact, and open them like that? Or move them to internal memory from the card?
 
G

gato

状元
Was able to install, but on trying to open with PlecoDict reader, PalmOS crashes and reboots.
Click to expand...
BTW, Mikelove, if you have a moment, can you explain there seem to be so many more crashes in Palm programs. Here if it's simply because the doc is in a wrong format, why can't the program handle the mistake and display and error message. In the C world, program usually crash because of bad pointers (pointing to wrong parts of memory). Is that what's happening here?
 
I

ipsi

状元
Seems like it could have been a problem with permissions. Still gotta change a couple more, then try again. See if the new file is bigger than the old one. If so, that was your problem.
 
I

ipsi

状元
Ok, permissions changed. Try downloading again...

It also won't work for me when it's on the SD card. For some reason, when it's on the card it's described as having 0 records, despite being over 400kb. Weird. I'll try downloading one straight to internal memory...
 
I

ipsi

状元
Ok, downloading them OTA to internal memory works fine for me. Give that a shot with some of the smaller ones. Then maybe try synching again.

Also, I didn't get crashes. It just opened the file and displayed nothing when I tried to open it off the SD card. Weird.

Hope this works for you!

I'll try putting them directly onto the card when I get home. See if that works. (I'm actually sitting in a mall at the moment).
 
I

ipsi

状元
Yeah, that works Over The Air to Internal Memory. I'll check if they work on the card when I get home in about 30 minutes or so.
 
I

ipsi

状元
Ok, I've edited my first post to reflect this, but they don't seem to work when on an SD card. I don't know why, but my Treo 680 just thinks they have no records at all, despite being several hundred kb. Moving them to internal memory works flawlessly, even if they were 'empty' files on the SD card (So FileZ from External to Internal works). I don't get that. Any ideas Mike?
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Haven't implemented support for reading files off of the memory card yet, or at least if there's code in there for it we've never done an actual test with it, so that probably explains the problem. Known bug anyway, not that there's any shortage of those...
 
S

stephanhodges

状元
I can host the files, assuming they don't violate any copyright laws 8) You can send me a direct email at tabletguy AT panlogicsoftware DOT com...
I'll set you up with access to a file storage location and access to a web page so you can list them with a description. I'll probably add you to the page http://china.panlogicsoftware.com since that already has some downloads for some pocket PC stuff. I just need to coordinate with "smalltownfart" :)
 
I

ipsi

状元
Mike: Fair enough. I would have thought that it was the same reading it off an SD card as it was from internal memory, but there we go.

Stephen: I'll send you an email shortly. :). I don't think they violate copyright, being as old as they are.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top