Mobipocket and eBooks on the Nokia N97
Published by Ewan Spence at 10:56 UTC, August 12th 2009
By know I hope that the regular readers of All About Symbian will realise that I have my hands on the Nokia N97 – in many respect it's a Nokia 5800 with a few extra bells and whistles (like a keyboard) but in one respect it's a significant improvement over the first touchscreen S60 device.
It has an eBook reader.
Not built in mind you, and I'm not yet aware of a dedicated S60 5th Edition eBook reader available, but thanks to one addition to the platform, Mobipocket's mature (if not yet updated beyond S60 3rd Edition) book reading platform will run happily on the N97. To be fair it did run on the 5800, but there was one gotcha... one slip of a stylus in the menus and the display went to fullscreen mode, which is a good thing in a reader, but the way to come back to somewhere that allowed you to touch softkeys, call up menus and generally interact with the program was to press the * key.
Observant 5800 users, like myself, soon realised that there was no * key on the 5800. The only option was to uninstall the app, reinstall it, and start reading again. Madness.
Thankfully the keyboard of the N97 can be brought to your literary aid if you slip into full screen mode, because (simply) it has a star key, even though it's not part of a numeric keypad. That's enough to turn the app away from a dangerous game of Russian roulette to a 'must install' on my N97.
It says a lot for the ecosystem that Mobipocket can't even pop out a quick update to provide an on-screen escape button just to give some compatibility, but I guess negligent owners Amazon are concentrating on the Kindle devices and iPhone apps.
To get and install Mobipocket Reader:
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Open up the browser on the N97 and go to the mobile site of Mobipocket (i.e. http://m.mobipocket.com/)
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Choose the “Download Mobipocket Reader” link
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The fourth link (as this is written) is for “Symbian S60 3rd Edition” and lists a number of phones, ending with the (very old) N93. Click on that link, it is the SIS installation file. The web browser should install it to the device straight away.
Whoever programmed the final version of Mobipocket knew what they were doing – as witnessed by the fact that the app still runs on devices and new editions of the OS released three years or so after this was built. The only missing feature is that there are no specific touch screen additions, although the on-screen buttons and menus (including the main library views) all interact with your fingertip as you would expect any S60 app to do.
While you can open up an eBook from the regular File Manager, the built in library view will look in the folder “ebooks” on both the C: internal memory and the Mass Storage and microSD cards – I'm dropping my books on the E: built in mass memory using the Nokia PC Suite. While I have Mobipocket set up to open the last viewed book on opening the app, you can choose to launch the library (and it's available on the menu bar as well) and this will display the books in that folder, with the metadata and actual titles, and not the filename.
Mobipocket will read a number of formats, including the popular .prc and .doc formats, so there is a huge choice out there, and if this isn't enough we've a guide on All about Symbian on how you can take PDFs and Texts and make your own eBooks with some free tools available online. Rather than repeat all that, we'll just point to that tutorial.
So there we go, I'm happy again, with eBooks on the N97. It's disapointing that the best choice is still an old piece of software that we have to hope continues to work (or do you know differently?) and I'm still convinced that there are at least 1000 people out there happy to pay £10 to get a modern eBook reader for the Symbian platform. Perhaps we should collect the money in a big jar at All About Symbian and commission one ourselves?
But that's for another day – I'm happy with my ten year old book collection on a tiny sliver of microSD that I can finally read on the move again.
-- Ewan Spence, August 2009.
Categories: How To
Platforms: S60 5th Edition
Feature Discussion
And ehhh, currently there now reside 6392 music tracks in 128 kbit AAC on my device. Totaling 17 days and 12 hours of music and using about 22 or slightly more GBytes of the mass memory. Scanning and updating the libary take quite a bit of time. But cold starting the player is 'acceptable', while browsing in the music player is still fast.
Then, just to test things to be sure, I reinstalled mobipocket reader, and confirmed that web browsing no longer worked with my data plan. Then finally uninstalled it and confirmed web browsing worked again.
This makes no sense to me, but after careful testing, I can't think of any other explanation. So, just make sure you test your browsing after you install this. Hopefully you won't have trouble like I did.
I am planning to try FBReaderJ instead. (http://www.fbreader.org/FBReaderJ/)
I don't use a Symbian phone anymore, but a quick Google search shows that both ZXReader and Qreader are available for the N97...
| I'm not yet aware of a dedicated S60 5th Edition eBook reader available, |
This is a great app. :icon14:
For being able to read in full screen go into settings and have the reader open up to library. That way when you are finished just hit the end call button and it shuts it down. Now just start your book in full screen. To start book again just open it from file manager or library.
You can register your pid in diesel ebooks and download from there. I read books currently with mobireader on my Samsung I8910HD.
You can convert non-DRM books using Calibre (http://calibre.kovidgoyal.net/) to the format of ZXReader. To convert DRM books from Mobipocket, you'll need to Google for the Python script mentioned in another comment. You may need to go to a certain Swedish site to find it.
Page turning can be done using the centre D-pad buttons (up/left for page back, down/right/centre for next page), the space bar AND the volume key (volume DOWN turns to the next page and volume UP turns back a page, but that's the correct orientation with the phone in landscape mode). My only minor gripe is that I can't read in landscape mode with the keyboard closed (using the vol key to turn the pages).
As a bonus, the font sizes in landscape mode are WAY more readable than they were on my E90, where for reasons I could never understand, the internal screen had much smaller fonts than the external fonts.
Julie
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Originally Posted by juwlz
My only minor gripe is that I can't read in landscape mode with the keyboard closed (using the vol key to turn the pages).
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(And the volume keys are much noisier than the D-pad or space bar for page turning when somebody else is trying to sleep in the same bed.)
Julie
http://www.mobipocket.com/mobile/dow...ft/default.asp
I have try some of them but I get a message on my mobile during the installation that the soft is not for this version of mobile.
Thanks
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Originally Posted by iplocker
Can somebody tell me exactly please what file I will have to install in my I8910 OMNIA II HD to get the mobireader ?
http://www.mobipocket.com/mobile/dow...ft/default.asp I have try some of them but I get a message on my mobile during the installation that the soft is not for this version of mobile. Thanks |
because i'd like to buy that device and i love mobipocket
tank you
I am an avid ebook reader and equally dissapointed as everyone else that there does not seem to be any further development of mobipocket for 5th edition phones.But after reading a post on mobipocket forum I have downloaded the following brilliant bit of freeware :http://www.mobiletopsoft.com/symbian...rtual-key.html
Basically its a simple key mapper - I have mapped both my end and start call keys (green and red) to move pages up and down and mapped camera key (shutter key) to map left soft key to bring back up menu to close from full screen mode.You can include or exclude set apps so mapping does not muck up anything else - works a treat on N97 - makes reading in portrait mode much easier and more confortable.The software is unsigned but there is a link for symbian signing website on post below on link page.I had no problems signing or installing - will run in background. I am sure the keymapper has been around for a while but its a smashing little app it was built for 3rd edition but so far I had no problems.Making using mobipocket reader as good as it was on the N95.
Boothy
Yes your right :http://www.mobiletopsoft.com/symbian...rtual-key.html
link works OK in another forum post - anyway heres a quick tutorial for setting up mobipocket on the N97
You need to do 2 operations:
a.Map the keys
b.Include\exclude relevant programs for mapping.
a.Map keys
1.First open device so qwerty keyboard is available in landscape mode - start program and select `add`in`options menu.
On screen you should have original key, mapped key - press `options` again > `special key` and press `no`(this is the end call key).The mapped key should now be highlighted press the down button (or return button if prefer - they both move page down in mobi reader)on joystick.
Press `done` on side menu(right soft menu button)and go to options > add to repeat process - rather than select special keys press green call button and and this time press up on joystick for mapped key.
Press add again - this time pressing camera (shutter)key on side of device - in mapped section go to `special keys` and select `left soft key` and press done.
You should now have the following on the main page.
1.{camera}=>{LSK}
2.{no}=>{down}
3.{yes}=>{up}
2.Save mapped keys
Press options again - select `save as` and select 1 of custom profiles.
B.Include program
1.At the top of the screen to the right of settings title is an arrow - press this and it will take you to the include\exclude screen - by default it is on exclude - therefore go to `options` and `change mode` to include (the title will change at top of page) - go back to `options` and press `add from installed` and select mobipocket reader from list.It should now appear on page.
C.Run program in background
1.Press arrow at top of page to get back to settings page - press `options` and press `run in background` or alternatively just press `back` on settings page - if you press `exit` the program will close and not run in background.The program is only 40 k and therefore should not effect running of device unless you have very little memory left.
D.Run Mobipocket reader
If you now run mobi reader the end call key (red) should move page down and call key (green) should move page up.I now read permeantly in portrait mode (I find it easier on the move)and press shutter key (you have to press quite hard similar to camera activation)to bring up option menu and exit program\go to library etc.
Boothy
Does anyone have a solution??
Sadly the solution is like the rest of us to wait for amazon to sell mobipocket on to someone else so that they may carry on with further development with mobireader - Since amazon bought mobipocket, software development for symbian devices has stalled - the s60 3rd edition software works on nokia 97 but it is not designed for s60 5th edition devices - therefore you will not have any touch screen implimentation similar to other 5th edition apps except the bottom soft left and right keys.I presume your HP phone was windows mobile based which is a different operating system entirely.
Boothy