Problems with the LifeDrive

[jonheibeck]

I used to have an Ipaq. It was stolen a few days ago. The most common reason I used my Ipaq was to read books. I have several hundred eBooks in plain text format.

Today I bought a LifeDrive. I like many of the features of this PDA. However, there does not seem to be a decent text format book reader available. I can't find anything that will let me read them on my LifeDrive.

I have tried about 7 - 10 different programs in the past 6 hours and am left cold. 1 of the biggest problems I found with most versions I tried is that with the program running, the input panel is open, and I can't close it. This limits the book to half the screen. Intolerable.

I tried DeepReader. I went to full screen mode. The input panel was still there but the DeepReader controls were gone. I could not close the input panel. I could not exit full screen mode.

This kind of thing happened with most of the readers I tried. PalmFiction looked good, but the Readme file was not written in english so I could get it to work.

Someone wrote a program called uBook for WinCE. It's very simple to install. It works great. I can read eBooks in txt and rtf formats. I can not understand why a similar program has not been written for Palm devices.

This is a deal killer for me. I believe I will return my LifeDrive and buy an Ipaq unless someone can tell me in plain english how to read my books.

On top of all this, the installer program does not have the hard drive listed. You can install to a removable flash card, but not to the built-in hard drive. What's with that?

[Kitten]

Sorry to hear you are unhappy with your LifeDrive. Maybe I can help a bit.

To put files on the hard drive, use the LifeDrive Manager. I use it all the time with no problems. I have over 300 e-books on my LifeDrive.

What problems are you having with PalmFiction? I have used it on my LifeDrive with no problems.

[forcemaker]

On top of all this, the installer program does not have the hard drive listed. You can install to a removable flash card, but not to the built-in hard drive. What's with that?
Could be that some programs don't know that there are two media/drives. Remove the SD/MMC card before installation. Then there will be no choice for the programs to select the wrong media.

About this plain text reading stuff....... it's silly, I cannot imagine that there was no solution. I will search for some stuff for You, maybe I'll be successful!

Personally I would be sad to know somebody going back to WinCE/Mobile from PalmOS! ;-)

[forcemaker]

So, back I am.

I took a look at PalmGear.com's (http://www.palmgear.com) software archive and found following tools which might be the right for You! :-)


RichReader 1.62 (http://www.palmgear.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=software.showsoftware&PartnerREF=&siteid=1&prodID=2597)
RichReader Freeware 1.62 (http://www.palmgear.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=software.showsoftware&PartnerREF=&siteid=1&prodID=3819)
Plucker 1.8 (http://www.palmgear.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=software.showsoftware&PartnerREF=&siteid=1&prodID=13609)
pdaConverter 1.37 (http://www.palmgear.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=software.showsoftware&PartnerREF=&siteid=1&prodID=42002)


My personal suggestion would be Plucker. pdaConverter is a Windows front end for Plucker file creation and will help You most likely in Your matters. Plucker - I just tested on my LD - does all the High-res+ stuff - no Graffiti area if You don't want it.

[ctfromnh]

I just added Plucker last week and it works great! I cannot compare to any other program, but I do enjoy this, and I have loaded free books from manybooks.net. I also loaded ereader - seems fine, too.

[jonheibeck]

Thanks. I'll try your suggestions.

Palmfiction had so many files, and some were clearly for other languages and I couldn't tell which ones to install. I didn't want to install any more than necessary. I never seemed to get all of the right ones because it kept giving me an error about a db, I think.

Plucker was confusing too. I installed the Windows converter, but when I ran it, it opened a small window with a button to create a new chanel. So I tried it a converted 1 file. It was just to much to do for 1 file. If it had a batch job, it would better. But I don't want to convert all of my files in order to use them.
Also, on the PDA, with Plucker open, the input Graffiti keyboard window is also open and I can't close by tapping the button on the right end of the toolbar. Although I can change between the input selections. This reduces the amount of usable screen by 1/3. forcemaker, I'm looking at Plucker right now and can't get the graffiti window to close.


Next, the Quick Installer program has 2 main windows. One is for memory, the other is for removable media. There is no place to install to the hard drive. If I drag the prc file to the drive in the Manager, will that automatically install it? If not, how do I actually install a program to the hard drive?

Thanks.

[wshwe]

You might want to try Repligo. You can convert any document you can print. I have no financial interest in the company that sells Repligo.

[forcemaker]

About Plucker and the input area.... Back then writing my comment, I was sure there was only one version of Plucker... but there are plenty.

I got this one:
Hires Plucker viewer, English only, no distiller components.
Link to High-res-Plucker (http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/plucker/plucker-1.8.zip) (follow the download instructions of sourceforge, it's easy :-)

I just tested the pdaConverter, which does output in Plucker's format.
The conversion of RTF to Plucker works. But actually almost all formatting seems to get lost.
I saved an RTF document with Open Office as HTML (which is the format Plucker converts native). After ''plucking'' the so created html file I loaded it on my LifeDrive. The result is more disillusioning than promising.

If Your eBooks in RTF format are indeed without great formatting... You could try to use the pdaConverter easily to batch convert Your documents. (Just select more than one file in open window! :-)

I got no experience with other programs, sorry, can't help further, at this point. Nethertheless, good luck!

[Kitten]

If you copy the prc file(s) to the Applications folder in the LifeDrive Manager, they will appear on in the category 'LifeDrive'

For PalmFiction, using 0.14b, I installed the following files and it worked great!
PalmFiction.prc
pfDefaultThemeHI16.prc
pfUI_EN.prc

HTH!

[iemand]

Hi all...I am new to the LifeDRive (actually, I'm gonna buy one tomorrow!), but not new to PalmOS, so maybe I can help a bit....
There used to be not to many apps that could read native .txt files, but now there are plenty!
DocumentsToGo (the latest version) does it, and ZLauncher has a plugin that lets you preview .txt files from within it's filebrowser, as do some other filebrowsers, TXTMemo is another one...
Do a search on PalmGear and give them a try, you'll find more!
All the ones I mentioned are capable to use the whole (extended) screen.

Let us know your findings...

[dsaroff]

Also ereader, mobipocket, & tomeraider all read native text fullscreen on the LD. The 1st two are free.