[Announce] [0.8.31] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

Hello,

I'd like to announce modern computer flatboat which is a mobile pdf viewer written in Qt and using MuPDF's libfitz.
Some of flatboat's features are (for other features see the help page and the gitorious page):

• a column mode
• an in-document history
• writing support for ink annotations and text annotations

The column mode, is designed for (multicolumn) PDFs with tiny font and few images. By joining horizontally overlapping text regions it tries to detect columns.

Everytime you "jump" (e.g. follow a link, go to the last/first page) within the document, the page you come frome is stored. This in-document history is accessible via I, to jump back to the most recent page simply press Backspace.

One of the activities easy to perform with a touchscreen is drawing. That’s why I implemented reading and writing support for ink annotations first. Since version 0.8 flatboat also supports Text annotations, i.e. those with an icon, which pop up, if you click on them. FreeText annotations (text visible without user interaction) will probably follow with one of the next releases.

You can install it on N900 via extras-devel (see the homepage while garage is in read only mode), whereas you will find the source code and builds for Harmattan, Android, Ubuntu, OS X and Windows on its homepage.

Since it's statically linked against libfitz (the library of mupdf) and some of mupdf's thirdparty libraries, the binary is bigger than it has to be. Maybe I'll try to convert some of the libraries to shared objects later on.

If you like to use it with dbus-switchboard to make it your standard pdf viewer:

• add "flatboat" with "flatboat %realparams%" to Handlers
• set the X-ref ".pdf" to "flatboat"
• set the Default "application/pdf" to "hildon-dbus-switchboard.desktop"

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2299259/flat...ncastPart1.gif
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2299259/flat...ncastPart2.gif

PS: The name is a (stupid) anagram of "portable document format".

PPS: m.c. flatboat does not write a so called appearance stream with each annotation, some readers do need those (see the help page).

Re: [Announce][beta] m.c. flatboat - a simple pdf viewer
 

Thank you! I use mupdf at PC, a great and simple pdf viewer. Could you attach it here? I can't connect to dropbox for some reason :(

Re: [Announce][beta] m.c. flatboat - a simple pdf viewer
 

@frafI
Thanks, i installed your app and it is fine for now :)

@laolang_cool
the file could not be attached here ( it is 3 MB )
try this on your N900
then you should find the deb on your N900 ( in MyDocs )

./sifo

Re: [Announce][beta] m.c. flatboat - a simple pdf viewer
 

As sifo already said, it's way too large. If it really doesn't work I can upload it elsewhere (suggestion?).

I have to mention, that flatboat doesn't behave like mupdf, it just inherited its rendering engine (which seems to be faster than poppler). But I will upload the original mupdf to extras-devel, too, since it's source package generates "libmupdf-dev", which is required by my package.

Re: [Announce][beta] m.c. flatboat - a simple pdf viewer
 

I try to build jbig2dec (dependency of mupdf) using autobuilder via the web interface. The changes file contains the orig.tar.gz, however the web interface doesn't ask me to upload it. Any ideas?
Edit: Seems to work using dput.

Re: [Announce][beta] m.c. flatboat - a simple pdf viewer
 

I'm trying mupdf on n900, keys don't work at all, I have to use touch screen to do all operations on pdf :(

Re: [Announce][beta] m.c. flatboat - a simple pdf viewer
 

I had the same experience, but I did not exclude the mupdf binary from the control file, because someone might find it useful anyway.
Because the mupdf developpers wanted to keep it small and portable (I guess) they didn't use any major toolkit, so modifying/patching the GUI is not a very pleasant job. That's why I wrote my own frontend using qt.

Flatboat now supports previous/next page (or scroll down/next column in column mode) via right/down/volume-, but I'll add keys for zoom and rotation.

Re: [Announce][beta] m.c. flatboat - a simple pdf viewer
 

I think I got it, thank you for your work!

Re: [Announce][beta] m.c. flatboat - a simple pdf viewer
 

Version 0.6 is in extras-devel now (and the links in Post1 are updated), which adds key shortcuts for most of the functions (for other changes, see changelog).

Re: [Announce][beta] m.c. flatboat - a simple pdf viewer
 

Excelent work; Thanks a lot.

Regards.

Re: [Announce][beta] m.c. flatboat - a simple pdf viewer
 

according to the competition page this also supports harmattan, so is there another thread for it or the deb file also works with N9?

Re: [Announce][beta] m.c. flatboat - a simple pdf viewer
 

Sorry, I did not see your post. The deb in the first post is for harmattan only, while the version for fremantle is in extras-devel.
Please note that the harmattan version is untested (by me), I just changed the paths and used the other MADDE toolchain. If this works on harmattan please leave a little note here. Because it is untested, I did not select it as a platform on the official Coding Competition form (see post by kojacker).

As I am already posting:
Version 0.7 is nearly ready and will be released on Friday after the Coding Competiton ends. It will bring some notable features:
* ink annotations (reading and writing)[1]
* an in-document history: If you followed a link or jumped to the literature section, you can press backspace go to the page you were before.
* table of contents (outline) can be displayed
* "last files" screen shows title and author
* external links should work now
* additional zoom options (fit height, width or page or stretch)
* some nice icons instead of text

[1] I've choosen to implement ink annotations first, because I have not much time and thought, they were the most utile ones on mobile devices.

To those who already tested flatboat:
Currently "1" is associated to "open last document". However "1" is hard to enter since the arrow button and "1" are quite close to each other. Should I change the mapping for the last n documents to start from "2" or is frequently pressing "1" not as nasty as I think?

Re: [Announce][beta] m.c. flatboat - a simple pdf viewer
 

Hi frafl,

Thanks for your app! I just tested it on my n9 and was wondering in addition to the changes you mentioned, for the page number can it indicate the total no. of pages in the document i.e. pg X/Y instead of the current pg. X

Thanks!

Re: [Announce][beta] m.c. flatboat - a simple pdf viewer
 

Yes that is possible. I only left that out because space is a very limited ressource. I'll include it for this release, it's anyway delayed due to a bug in the android version.

Re: [Announce][beta] m.c. flatboat - a simple pdf viewer
 

Version 0.7 is out now for all supported platforms, see the first post. The total number of pages is currently displayed on a transparent background (i.e. without a background). This looks nicer than a white background, but is not as easy to read. Maybe, I'll change that with the next version (opinions?).

Re: [Announce] [0.7] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

I did not find a way to report bugs through gitorious, so I'll write it down here:
When started, flatboat opens the last viewed PDF file.
If this last PDF has been deleted between the two flatboat sessions, flatboat does not have a fail-safe method and segfault hideously.

Re: [Announce] [0.7] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

Thanks a lot, it's OK to post bugs here.
This error should not happen because flatboat tries to load that file, I capture that very lately. I may have introduced that bug with outline or annotation support.
Edit: Until I fix this (with the next release), you have to remove the settings file (/home/user/.config/flatboat/flatboat.conf), if you encounter this bug. Of course, the histories (recent documents and each in-document history) are lost in this case.
Edit2: Can you provide more details? I can't reproduce that bug, I just see the golden background, you should see after a fresh install.
Edit3: This only happens in column mode: the QList holding the columns is empty and I didn't check that in one place.

Re: [Announce] [0.7] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

Version 0.8 is out, which (hopefully) fixes this bug and adds support for text annotations. The links in the first post were changed to point to the new files.

Re: [Announce] [0.8] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

I simply loved it , i hope you can furnish it more and more ,some times it just lags and responds late to the tap scroll. thanks for sucha great work .

Re: [Announce] [0.8] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

Thanks for your reply. Could you be a bit more specific about the lag?

One reason may be that I use a kind of long click to show the main menu. Since the N900 has a keyboard and reacts well to doubke clicks I could remove this in the maemo version. I introduced this for Android, were I can't expect a keyboard and doube clicking is unusual and works only every second or third time.

Maybe some settings of the QML Flickable element can improve the situation. Finally I thought about subclassing the Flickable element in C++ for the Android EInk version, which would give me more options to improve this issue too.

Re: [Announce] [0.8] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

by lagging i meant to say that it could be pure qml-like app,fluent ,greasy or lets say more responsive.By lagging i mean ,it takes a little bit time to render the page from top to bottom ,scroll works ok but still i think it needs a little bit tweaking,Then i would suggest that there should be two big options on the sides to turn to next page or the previous one. Double click idea is great but i think the options to turn to next page are quite tiny there and also what if we want to read something with keyboard closed ?So probably there should be big arrows to point out a direction to next page or to previous one. sorry my english sucks .But i hope you understand.

Re: [Announce] [0.8] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

@imo:
Just a tip (no offense) - Use some formating and proper interpunction in your posts, as now they're pretty awful to read, and require *much* good will to do.

It would be shame, if sense of your post would be lost due to its form.

/Estel

Re: [Announce] [0.8] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

1. Speeding up the rendering process is hard and won't happen in the near future. The only optimization, I can think of is rendering the page in a lower maximal resolution and scale the resulting image after a certain zoom level. It may be possible to render only a part of the page, but this may slow dwon scrolling enourmously.
2. Page turn: You can use the volume buttons (on N900) or the tap zones on the bottom and top. I would not prefer to introduce larger buttons, since they hide the text.

Re: [Announce] [0.8] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

Version 0.8.10 is out, which is bugfix release with some additional improvements:

• the text mode (which is no longer white on white - one bugfix) combines very short lines to longer ones
• each annotation and the eraser have their own key now (N: note (“Text”), D: draw freehand(“Ink”), E: eraser), but you have to switch to annotation mode with A (or the pen button in the main menu) first
• you can remove single entries from both histories (recent files and in-document) without clearing the entire list

Now there's also a Windows version (see gitorious).

Re: [Announce] [0.8.10] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

One thing I really found annoying: having to tap twice on the screen to display the GUI and go to next page.
I know that I can use the keyboard shortcut, but that's not how I would like to use this reader.

I may have not seen it, but I wish that you could implement an option to simply scroll through pages via the touch screen

thanks for this useful software

EDIT: of course I read afterward about the volume button to turn page ...

Re: [Announce] [0.8.10] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

After the second question of that kind I think, I'll enlarge the tap zones a bit, it's quite hard to hit them without the stylus. Did you try to hit them or don't they seem to be something touchable?

Re: [Announce] [0.8.10] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

It's just that as any average user, I never bothered to read the documentation and therefore I was no aware of this feature.

Now that I know about it, it seems to work OK, but it is not intuitive: as said above, the behavior that I expected was sliding a finger in one direction to go the next or previous page.

But given the time spent to render a page, it is better to use a tap or an existing physical button.
An animated icon specifying that the action as been recorded and is processed would be useful though.

Re: [Announce] [0.8.10] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

It's ok that you didn't read the documentation, it should work without (at least this was my intention).

However I don't agree that swiping is the only natural solution. I didn't want to use it here, because many PDFs will be to large for the screen and scrolling via a QML Flickable takes precedence and is even more natural I think. This does of curse not hold for an epub reader or similar, which always displays the entire page (or better: redefines how long a page is).

Some other readers (e.g. CoolReader and Orion Viewer on Android) use larger invisible tap zones or swiping. What I dislike about them is, that you may unintentionally switch the page if you try a long click or touch the screen accidentally (happens easy on devices with very sensitive infrared touch screens like the PRS-T1). So I made the zones small and slightly visible, however a relative height (10%) is not a solution that fits all devices.

The status icon you proposed is already on my list but was neglected. I'll implement one for the next release.

Re: [Announce] [0.8.20] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

Version 0.8.20 now features larger tap zones and a loading icon.

Interestingly it took three approaches until such a simple thing as a loading icon worked. It's not so easy to force a declarative view to update itself.

Re: [Announce] [0.8.20] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

Why can't I access my SD card? The File dialog does not let me get to it. There seems to be an SD card icon next to the "file" button, but it is greyed out. I can access the SD card just fine with other applications.

Re: [Announce] [0.8.20] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

Such an elegant application... thanks!
I too had problems getting at my mem card. However, it appeared after I mucked about in the n900 tree and came back out. Will see if that sticks after a reboot.

Re: [Announce] [0.8.20] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

The file dialog always starts from the directory of your most recent file.
You should be able to access your sd card by using the "up" button in the file dialog until you reach the top level, where it usually displays your internal partition and your sd card. There is however one exception: if you open a file on another (not MyDocs or SD Card) partition (e.g. inside /tmp in connection with browser/e-mail and dbus-switchboard) you only get to the top directory of that partition. One easy workaraound for this is keeping a pdf file on your sd card in the "recent documents" list. First load this file and then click open.
Edit: Additionnaly, you can, of course, access any file via console: "flatboat /path/to/my/file".

The icon means "save" and is greyed out, because you didn't modify the document. It's just a modern replacement for the standard floppy icon and does not represent the place you save to.

I already found some new bugs and I will als look into the file dialog for the next bugfix release, but this may take a week or two, since I'm quite busy at the moment.

Re: [Announce] [0.8.20] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

Alright, I was able to open a file on my SD card using the terminal. I like that it remembers the last place I was in on the file. This will now be my book reader of choice. Thank you dearly for this very nice app.

Re: [Announce] [0.8.20] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

Well, this took more than "a week or two", but finally I'm able to present version 0.8.31.
Since garage and the autobuilder queue is not available (read-only) at the moment, N900 owners will have to download this version from my homepage (see first post), just like N9/N950 owners.

Here's the changelog (vs. version 0.8.20):

• bug fixed: page not rerendered, if zoom doesn't change in column mode
• bug fixed: if 2 notes are created without leaving note mode, the second one contains the first as prefix
• bug fixed: wrong encoding of notes
• semi-bug fixed: additional file chooser, which starts at drive selection for maemo
• bug fixed: document not rendered on load if zoom is 100%
  control key also leaves note mode (as ESC) since N900 has no ESC

The 4th bug fix is a reaction to the crippled standard file dialogs, which caused the problems mentioned above.

Re: [Announce] [0.8.31] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

Hello, I recently installed this program on my n900 and am experiencing problems getting it to load. Initially it would appear to load, then crash to the desktop. Now it loads up to a yellow color with no menus or icons. I can close it, but that's it. Any ideas?

Re: [Announce] [0.8.31] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

Yellow color sounds not too bad, it's the background if no pdf is opened.
To get to the main menu either double tap, tap and hold or press m, to open a file tap on "file" in the main menu or press o.

Edit:
When it crashed to desktop, did you open it from the menu or called it with a filename (either from terminal or via dbus-switchboard, see first post)?

Re: [Announce] [0.8.31] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

1. If a user tries to search without any text in the search box - segfault
2. It's horrible to make the buttons show themselves (at least 4 taps until successful)
3. Autobuilder version is out of date
4. And a feature request: would it be possible to show a scaled (low res) fragment of the pdf until the document is rerendered (when zooming)?

Re: [Announce] [0.8.31] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

The development of flatboat is on hold a.t.m. as i have no e-ink qt5 testing device and flatboat is already partially ported to qt5.

For 2: There are 3 ways of showing the buttons: double click/double tap (which is actually there for Desktops), tap and hold and pressing the m button.

For 4: This is a nice idea. Goes to my TODO list.

Re: [Announce] [0.8.31] m.c. flatboat - a mobile pdf viewer
 

If you need qt5, there's qt5 for Maemo :) [1]

[1] http://wiki.maemo.org/Qt5-Maemo5