Two problems on Siemens SX1

[babaq]

Hello, iSilo is nice, but I have two problems here on my SX1:

CP1250 encoded ebooks are incorrectly shown, I see just "?"s instead of many (but not all) Czech characters. I set options/encoding to CP1250, but no way, it is still the same...
slow operation - I have some PDB PalmDoc ebooks in CP1250 encoding and the operations (scroll, etc.) is very, very slow... the size of those documents varies from 106 to 500+ kB

What can I do about this? I had an idea of preparing the books (decompressing PDB, converting to iSilo, both quite possible on my Linux box), but what to do if someone send me an ebook e.g. via Bluetooth and I will be far far away from my computer?
Nevertheless I think that those are "child diseases" and can be healed and then iSilo will be very nice competitor for Symbian S60 owners!

[babaq]

As I see, nobody cares. There is really no answer from support or any other forum member?

[iSilo]

For documents you can convert yourself, try the suggestions given in this thread about setting the output encoding to Unicode UTF-8.

If you can not re-convert the document, you can try to disable all layout to see if it helps for the speed of those documents (Menu/Options/Display/Layout/Disable all layout).

[babaq]

OK, but what about encoding issues? If I have to look at the text with ? marks, I will not care about slowness :-)
I have tried some other readers with my nonUnicode great texts (hundreds of kB) and none of them is slow. None of them has even microscopic noticeable lag when progressing from page to page... so I think it is possible to do it.
Sorry, buddies, but maybe I will give iSilo one more chance a couple of months later. Right now it has some issues for me which I found too serious. :(

[iSilo]

The slowness you are seeing is probably because of the layout that iSilo performs in the background. So you can try to disable all layout to see if it helps. To do so, go to the Menu, select Edit/Options/Display/Layout/Disable all layout. If the document you are viewing has no table layout, then that setting should work well while giving better performance.

With regard to the Czech characters showing as '?', are you using any special software to enable display of Czech?

Would you be able to post an example document?

Also, what are the names of the other readers you are referring to?

[babaq]

So here is my new experience: layout switching has no visible effect, but it is not slowing reader down. The main slowing factor is Encoding. If I have the default Windows-1252 encoding set, everything is quick. As soon as I set Windows-1250, it takes seconds to turn the page (5sec in case of attached document) and I get boxes instead of some accented chars. If I set UTF-8, the speed is quick too and I get ?s instead of some accented characters.

I use no special localization software for Czech on my SX1, because there is no need to use anything of that kind - I have Czech firmware and there are Czech characters, T9, even the whole system is in Czech language.

Sample document - please see attached ZIP, there is a PDB file inside.

Other readers: I have tried ReadM and now I am using eBookReader from SymbianWare. I think I tried even one more, but I can't remember and I am not by my home computer where I have software archive.
Mainly I use Mobipocket Reader for formatted Unicode eBooks, but the reader can't show non Unicode files (show them bad, respectively) so I don't compare it to iSilo.

One more thing I quess is not much good on iSilo reader is the complexity of the application. It is very difficult to "grab it and read the book", as there is a plenty of tabs (I mean the folders/lists view) and the operations are not intuitive.
It is a problem in case of desktop iSiloX application, too. I used a Java Plucker desktop application (JPluckX) later in my Palm days and it was perfectly KISS ruled (Keep It Simple, Stupid) - it was very easy to setup for downloading web sites, no 16 (!) tabs of settings for each web site. Some kind of "easy mode" would rock...

[iSilo]

In iSilo, when you set the encoding for the document to UTF-8, what you are saying is that the document is encoded in UTF-8. But as you said the document is encoded in Windows-1250, which is why you get the unrecognized characters. In the original reply, the suggestion to set the output encoding to UTF-8 was in regard to performing a conversion using iSiloX.

The example document you sent is in Palm Doc format, so you can actually use iSiloX to convert it directly to iSilo format, without needing to decompress it first. In iSiloX, you would want to go to the Properties that you create for converting the document and go to Document/Text Encoding Options. There, for the "For source files that do not specify their encoding, assuming the following encoding:" field, you would want to select "Central European (Windows-1250)". You could either then set the "Output document text encoding:" to "Default (use first source file encoding)", in which case it would set the output encoding to Windows-1250, or you could set it to "Unicode (UTF-8)". Setting it to Windows-1250 gives a 91K file. Setting it to UTF-8 gives a 96K file. The original file in Palm Doc format is 117K, so you get a good bit file size reduction either way.

With some further investigation, the slowness you are seeing appears to be an inefficiency in the way iSilo handles transcodings on the Symbian OS. The inefficiencies apparently only have an effect when the encoding is set to other than Windows-1252 or UTF-8. A fix for this issue is expected to make it into the next update, probably to enter beta in a couple of weeks. So the workaround for Palm Doc files is to use iSiloX to convert them to iSilo format with an output encoding of UTF-8 as described above.

[babaq]

In iSilo, when you set the encoding for the document to UTF-8, what you are saying is that the document is encoded in UTF-8. But as you said the document is encoded in Windows-1250, which is why you get the unrecognized characters.
Um, I may not be genius, but I am not THAT dumb... ;) I've just described you the app behaviour.

The example document you sent is in Palm Doc format, so you can actually use iSiloX to convert it directly to iSilo format, without needing to decompress it first.
Yes, but do I have to? You have a slow viewer and I have to convert documents? This process in not "click and go" (remember the KISS rule?) and in fact, you should repair the viewer...

A fix for this issue is expected to make it into the next update, probably to enter beta in a couple of weeks. So the workaround for Palm Doc files is to use iSiloX to convert them to iSilo format with an output encoding of UTF-8 as described above.
Thank you, but I think I will wait for the beta - now I use other reader(s). BTW, the other viewers I tried was QReader, ReadM and eReader. (And my previous question, do you consider making the GUI easier? E.g. I can't bear that there is - in default configuration - no hw key for fullscreen, but so many different "move by..." keys!)

One more strange thing: I noticed that bold font is very very much bolder than any other bold font on my device. Is it possible to use common bold font? The extra bold font is not much readable...

[iSilo]

Yes, but do I have to? You have a slow viewer and I have to convert documents? This process in not "click and go" (remember the KISS rule?) and in fact, you should repair the viewer...No, you do not have to re-convert your documents. But it was suggested as a workaround until the issue is fixed. The other advantage of converting is the smaller file size. But if you don't care about either a workaround or the smaller file size, it is of course your choice.

Thank you, but I think I will wait for the beta - now I use other reader(s). BTW, the other viewers I tried was QReader, ReadM and eReader. (And my previous question, do you consider making the GUI easier? E.g. I can't bear that there is - in default configuration - no hw key for fullscreen, but so many different "move by..." keys!)If you do not like the default key configuration, then you can reassign the keys to different actions, including assigning the full screen action to whichever key you want.

One more strange thing: I noticed that bold font is very very much bolder than any other bold font on my device. Is it possible to use common bold font? The extra bold font is not much readable... What is the name of the common bold font that you mention?

[babaq]

But if you don't care about either a workaround or the smaller file size, it is of course your choice.
I do not need to use workarounds. I just use the other reader ;)

If you do not like the default key configuration, then you can reassign the keys to different actions, including assigning the full screen action to whichever key you want.
Yes, I can - I just think the default configuration is very move-oriented :) But believe me, working codepage translation is more important. This is not a problem, just a note.

What is the name of the common bold font that you mention?
There are some font families on Symbian devices - bold are LatinBold 12, 13 and bigger LatinBold17 an alb78b. I have Czech firmware, so YMMV. Your bold typeface is just too heavyweight.

[iSilo]

There is now a beta out that has a fix for the slowness issue when the encoding is neither UTF-8 nor Windows-1252. Please give it a try when you get the chance to verify the fix.

[babaq]

There is now a beta out that has a fix for the slowness issue when the encoding is neither UTF-8 nor Windows-1252. Please give it a try when you get the chance to verify the fix.
Hello, I gave it a try finally. So as it seems, the speed issue is resolved, there is no more difference in speed with regards to encoding. That's good. -- But there is still an issue with bad encodings translation - I still see "boxes" instead of proper chars in the Czech text. Did I miss something?

[iSilo]

The issue is that the Series 60 does not have direct support for transcoding from Windows-1250 so you'll get the boxes for some characters. Support for internal transcoding of Windows-1250 will have to be worked directly into iSilo for beta2, expected sometime next week.

[babaq]

The issue is that the Series 60 does not have direct support for transcoding from Windows-1250 so you'll get the boxes for some characters. Support for internal transcoding of Windows-1250 will have to be worked directly into iSilo for beta2, expected sometime next week.
Good, if you want, I can try this version as well. Of course, if I will have at least one trial day left (now I am on day 16 of 30, so I think the next week will fit).