I’ve got my domain name back. I had hoped that the current registrar would let go of it when it expired, but they held on to it so I was forced to update it again through them. I was hoping I could get it through someone else for cheaper. Oh well.

I’m a bit torn when it comes to working on new ports and projects for the iLiad. The way that I can keep on putting out all these apps is because I never really fine tune them after I get them to a working state. The one exception to this is FBReader. Everything else works “good enough”. Most of the time this boils down to screen refresh issues. That really is the biggest downside to e-ink. I’ve got most of the refresh code figured out, but putting a refresh in everywhere it’s needed is a very tedious and time consuming process (depending on how the original program was coded). Someone at iRex had mentioned that they may work with the Gnome people to change this.

Getting back to my original point, I need to keep moving and working on new things to keep my interest. I apologize to those who would like high-quality production ready releases. But if I started focusing on the little things, I myself would give up. Most ports I do because it’s something that I want or need on the iLiad. And once they’re “good enough for who it’s for”, that’s when I call it done. Maybe someone whith more patience and a bit less ADD can work on the small stuff. ;)

I’m attempting to port Xournal (http://xournal.sourceforge.net/) to the iLiad.  It’s going pretty well, everything works almost as expected.  The show stopper here is screen updates when writing.  I can’t seem to get the screen to constantly update as I’m writing.  It will update after a brief period, and when I lift the stylus off of the screen, but not while I’m writing.  So far, I’ve tried using dmDisplay(dmCmdPriorUrgent, dmQTyping); to initiate the updates.  I’m starting to think I need to go about it a different way, or create a loop to continuously run that while it’s drawing the line.  I can release it now, but it may be too annoying for people.

 

I’m working on porting Mozilla Thunderbird and the Lightning Calendar extension to the iLiad.  This would solve the needed email, calendar, and address book functions that are missing on the device.  I got it to build, but it keeps core dumping on me.  I’m in the process of recompiling with debugging enabled, but that is taking forever.  I really need a faster computer and a development area with multi core support…

I’ve worked on a lot of porting projects for the iLiad. I’ll try to keep this post current with everything that I’ve worked on and it’s status.

FBReader:

Developer Site: http://only.mawhrin.net/fbreader/

MobileRead Discussion: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10344

Information: FBReader is a document/book reader program. It has support for many of the formats that the iLiad does not natively have. These include CHM, RTF, plucker, palmDoc, ztext, unencrypted mobipocket, HTML, open reader, text, OEB, and others. This, combined with the iLiad’s internal viewers, make the device the most powerful and versatile ebook reader on the market.

Status: FBReader is currently very usable on the iLiad. Page turns and refresh work as expected, and installation via the standalone file is very easy. It gets even better if you modify er_registry.txt to allow for opening documents directly from the contentlister. Other than further FBReader updates, there’s not much more that needs to be done on this port.

AbiWord:
Developer Site: http://www.abisource.com/

MobileRead Discussion: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10353

Information: AbiWord is a word processor. It can open up just about every document format on the market including Microsoft Word, RTF, and Open Office.

Status: AbiWord currently works well enough to use as a Word/RTF document viewer. The iLiad was never really meant to be used for extensive document creation. So while you can do a bit of formatting and changes, creating a while document would not be a fun process. With the addition of hudson’s USB Keyboard module it is quite a bit easier. Again, changes can be made to er_registry to allow documents to open directly from the contentlister. Also, the program was not modified to work with the iLiad’s hardware buttons.

StarDict:

Developer Site: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10405

MobileRead Discussion: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10080

Information: StarDict is a dictionary program. More so than that, is provides a great way to search for other information. There are dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopedias, and translation books available for it online. With enough books, you can literally have all the information you would want at your fingertips.

Status: Stardict works well enough on the iLiad. Right now, the biggest issue is the screen refresh. This can be added to the program with a bit of effort. Right now it’s using Antartica’s libX11 with the refresh hacks built in.

Content Lister based Music Player:

       MobileRead Discussion: [http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10288](http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10288)





       Information:  This is a music player using MPD (Music Player Daemon) and MPC.  MPD is the same program used in the iPod Linux project.  I’ve setup a series of scripts to allow the player to be controlled from the command line.  The is the most elegant solution I can come up with to allow music playing on the iLIad.  Because it runs as a daemon, you can listen to books while reading or in other programs.





       Status:  With [Yokos’s improvements to the UI](http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=65439&postcount=15), it is very easy to use.  However, there are a few issue.  The first one is that the volume control doesn’t do anything.  The best (only?) way to change the volume is the edit /mnt/settings/er_registry.txt.  Also, some songs skip when flipping pages.  I’m not sure if this is the fault of the iLiad’s processor, or because of the click sound.  Hopefully, iRex will allow for disabling the click but keeping the sound on.

EmelFM2:

       Developer Site:  [http://emelfm2.net/](http://emelfm2.net/)

MobileRead Discussion: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10426

       Information:  EmelFM2 is a file manager.  It’s simple, but does the job.  No longer will you need to connect the iLiad to the computer to move files around and organize your documents.  







       Status:  The current package does not set the $HOME environment variable.  This is important because when deleting files, EmelFM2 moves them to the trash.  I have yet to find an option to make it permanently delete, which I think is Ideal.  I need to update the package, so it set’s the home to the current working directory.  This way you won’t have to worry about filling up the root file system if you delete a file which is too large.

iLiad Development VMware Image:

       MobileRead Discussion: [http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10200](http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10200)





       Information:  This is a vmware image of the iLiad development environment that I use to do all of my application porting.  It uses Antartica’s Toolchain, with some other common libraries included.  





       I have also make a tutorial on how to compile an application using the vmware image: [http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=64088&postcount;=35](http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=64088&postcount=35)

Future Projects/ Work in Progress

Gnumeric:

Developer Site: http://www.gnome.org/projects/gnumeric/

Mobileread Discussion: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10482

Download: http://projects.mobileread.com/iliad/projects/gnumeric/gnumericcf.zip

       Information:  Gnumeric is a spreadsheet program similar to Microsoft Excel.  It works on the iLiad, but I’m not sure if it’s release quality as of yet.  I had to included a newer version of Glib in the package so that the program would run.  It does start, and it will open and save excel files.  However, it is a bit slow, and the package is very large.  Also, the rows and columns are never the right size when the program opens unless the spreadsheet was saved with Gnumeric.  You should also be able to make changes to er_registry to allow opening excel files directly from the content lister.

Pidgin (Formally Gaim):

       Developer Site:  [http://www.pdigin.im](http://www.pdigin.im/)

MobileRead Discussion: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10405

       Information:  Getting the basic functionality of pidgin to work is easy enough.  However, the problem comes with ssl.  It’s required by Google talk and MSN Messenger.  I’ve been unable to get pidgin to compile against a distributable version of the gnu ssl library.  I’ll look further into this, but my priorities are currently elsewhere.

First, a simple about me post…

My name is Adam Boeglin, I use the name Adam B. on most forums (creative, I know). I’m a true gadget geek. I have an obsession with technology and electronics. My new, favorite device is the iRex iLiad ebook reader. I first purchased the device because of my distaste for paper, and all things not digital. The iLiad allows me to read and organize documents without having a desk and drawer full of paper.

I’ve only recently started using Linux full time. I’ve dabbled in linux since I was 16 or so, but about 3 years ago I found Ubuntu. It was the only linux distro that made enough sense to stick with. I’ve done a little bit of programming since high school. Mostly basic stuff in VB, C++, and Java. I can understand and modify most code I run into. What I don’t know how to do, I can research and pick up as I go.

A few months ago I was frustrated with not being able to read my many CHM files on my iLiad. It seemed the best program in which to do that was FBReader. After a lot of research and help from both MobileRead and the Irex Forums, I was able to get a working version. This was the first application I had ever ported. Eventually I added a bit of polish, and it’s turned into a very usable document reader for the iLiad, that solves almost all of it’s format support shortcomings.

I’m still learning, and I’m always willing to accept help and suggestions. I truly love my iLiad, and I want it to perform at it’s full potential.