Plop! reader

Plop! reader v0.4.0: better looking UI!

Wed, 05 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s a new release of Plop! reader, an application allowing you to read entries from your Wallabag v2 instance, on your Pocketbook / TEA Touch Lux 3.

For more informations:

Installation and configuration ← READ THIS!
Features

Download: Plop! reader v0.4.0

This is still an early version, which means your feedback is important!

This new version of Plop! reader brings several changes to the UI, which is now better looking!

First of all, the application is fully translated in French and English (#27). English is still the default language, but you can switch to French adding a lang option to your config.json file:

{
    ...
    ... Here, your existing config
    ... Note there is no comma after the last entry in a JSON file ;-)
    ...
    "lang": "fr"
}

In the list of entries, the application now displays an image for each entry (#79) – for entries which have an image (JPEG or PNG only) on the server. The Second line of each entry doesn’t display technical data anymore and only display what’s useful: the date of the entry and its estimated reading duration (#85).

Icons have been added in several places and a few buttons have been reworked:

In the main header, the Exit, Sync and Menu buttons are a bit bigger (easier to touch) and now use nice icons (#82).
On each entry in the items list, an icon (on the right of the screen) indicates if we have the EPUB version of the item (potentially with images), or only an HTML one (no embedded image).
Icons have been added to the main menu (#82).

A few other changes:

When there is no entry in the items list, some help is now displayed, instead of an empty screen (#9).
Your position in the list of items is now saved when you exit the application, and restored when you re-launch it. You no longer always start at page 1 (#34).
Less important data about each entry, like its URL, are displayed in a lighter gray level (#77).
There should be less artifacts when starting the application (#37) and less flickering when displaying the list of items (#78).
The entry which is acted upon (when an action dialog or a contextual menu is opened) is now highlighted (#33).

This project is open-source, under GPL-3.0. Sources are on Github: pmartin/plop-reader.
If you are curious about what might come next, take a look at my current roadmap.

Plop! reader v0.3.1: faster EPUB downloads (with wallabag v2.2)

Fri, 06 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s a new release of Plop! reader, an application allowing you to read entries from your Wallabag v2 instance, on your Pocketbook / TEA Touch Lux 3.

For more informations:

Installation and configuration ← READ THIS!
Features

Download: Plop! reader v0.3.1

This is still an early version, which means your feedback is important!

Starting from v0.3.0, this application downloads an EPUB version of each entry from your wallabag server, provided it supports export of entries as EPUB – which means you need wallabag >= 2.2 – released a few days ago! I’ve also had reports indicating it works with wallabag.it.

With v0.3.1, several EPUB files are downloaded in parallel, which means synchronization should go much faster than before:

Note: to speed sync up even more, the EPUB version of an entry is only downloaded when the entry is synced from the server for the first time and only for entries that are unread or starred: it’s never updated later on the ereader. This might (or might not) change in the future, depending on feedback.

This v0.3.1 also adds a Delete all local data item in the context-menu of the application:

After touching this item, you’ll be asked to confirm:

If you confirm in this dialog, all local data (and only data local to your ereader) will be deleted (nothing will be changed on the server-side), including all changes you might have done on the ereader and not synchronized to the server yet.

This feature should only be used if you encounter some strange behavior within the application – especially if there is a bug that causes synchronization to fail (don’t forget to report the bug ;-) )

This project is open-source, under GPL-3.0. Sources are on Github: pmartin/plop-reader.
If you are curious about what might come next, take a look at my current roadmap.

Plop! reader v0.3.0: with EPUB support for wallabag v2.2!

Thu, 03 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s a new release of Plop! reader, an application allowing you to read entries from your Wallabag v2 instance, on your Pocketbook Touch Lux.

For more informations:

Installation and configuration ← READ THIS!
Features

Download: Plop! reader v0.3.0

This is still an early version, which means your feedback is important!

With previous versions of this application, it would only download an HTML version of each entry; and this HTML version doesn’t contain rich content like images.

Starting from v0.3.0, the application will download an EPUB version of each entry from your wallabag server, provided it supports export of entries as EPUB – which means you need wallabag >= 2.2 – not yet released!

If you are still using an older version of wallabag, Plop! reader will not try to download EPUB version of each entries and will keep working like before.

Here are a few screenshots: first, reading the EPUB version of an entry which includes an image:

If the EPUB cannot be read (it happens, some entries are not exported properly by the server), you can long-touch an entry. You’ll then get a context-menu in which you’ll be able to choose between the HTML and the EPUB versions of the entry (the HTML might be better in some cases):

For now, to speed sync up, the EPUB version of an entry is only downloaded when the entry is synced from the server for the first time and only for entries that are unread or starred: it’s never updated later on the ereader. This might (or might not) change in the future, depending on feedback.

Also, for now, EPUB files are downloaded synchronously while syncing – which means the synchronization process can take a bit of time (several minutes if you are fetching a lot of entries, like on first sync!). This will probably be enhanced in the future, downloading EPUB files in the background (see #57) or with several downloads in parralel.

This project is open-source, under GPL-3.0. Sources are on Github: pmartin/plop-reader.
If you are curious about what might come next, take a look at my current roadmap.

Plop! reader v0.2.1

Thu, 20 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This is the a bug-fix release of Plop! reader, an application allowing you to read entries from your Wallabag v2 instance, on your Pocketbook Touch Lux.

For more informations:

Installation and configuration ← READ THIS!
Features

Download: Plop! reader v0.2.1

This is still an early version, which means your feedback is important!

Changes between v0.2.0 and v0.2.1:

Sync is no longer aborted if the ereader tries to update an entry that was deleted on the server (see #54).

This project is open-source, under GPL-3.0. Sources are on Github: pmartin/plop-reader.
If you are curious about what might come next, take a look at my current roadmap.

Plop! reader v0.2.0: first public release!

Fri, 30 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s the first public release of Plop! reader, an application allowing you to read entries from your Wallabag v2 instance, on your Pocketbook Touch Lux.

For more informations:

Installation and configuration ← READ THIS!
Features

Download: Plop! reader v0.2.0

This is an early version, the first public release ever! Which means your feedback is important!

Here are a few screenshots: first, the main screen of the application, the list of entries:

When you’ve read an entry, you can change its status:

The menu, where you can switch between the three kinds of entries:

And, finally, the About dialog:

This project is open-source, under GPL-3.0. Sources are on Github: pmartin/plop-reader.
If you are curious about what might come next, take a look at my current roadmap.

The informations displayed for an entry, in v0.2

Wed, 28 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The main screen of the application, the list of entries, looks like this, for v0.2:

I’ll admit, this is not looking really great (for now, work on UI is planned for v0.4), but each entry displays a set of informations that could be of interest:

The second line of each entry is composed of the following data:

#X/Y: X is the id of the entry in the local database, and Y is the id of the entry in your Wallabag instance.
aX/Y: indicates if the entry is archived in the local database on your ereader (X) and in your wallabag instance (Y, fetched during the last synchronization).
*X/Y: indicates if the entry is starred in the local database on your ereader (X) and in your wallabag instance (Y, fetched during the last synchronization).
uX/Y: UTC timestamp of the last change on the entry in the local database on your ereader (X) and in your wallabag instance (Y, fetched during the last synchronization).
tX: estimated reading time of the entry, in minutes.

In the future, when work has been done on the UI, these informations will be displayed in a more visually-pleasing way - or not displayed, for some that are only useful now for debugging purposes.

Roadmap (September 2016)

Fri, 23 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

At the end of September 2016, this project’s development has not gone far yet, but here the idea I have in mind for the first couple of versions.

Note this is a couple of ideas I have on my mind now, but, as always, the plan might well change ;-)

v0.1: first private beta

This version should only be released to a few power-user.

Goal: collect some feedback, to determine if this is useful and if the project should continue, or this is an idea that doesn’t bring anything useful to the table and should be terminated.

This version has an ugly UI, doesn’t have much error-handling (it’ll crash if you don’t do everything the right way), but bring synchronization between the device and the server and offers reading of the entries in HTML format.

v0.2: first public beta

In this version, there is more error-handling and more logging. Enough to prevent crashes in the most common error-cases and get useful feedback from a larger base of users.

This is still a beta version, and still to be considered as unstable; it also still targets power-users.

v0.3: EPUB reading

Until now, the application only offered reading of HTML version of entries, which especially means no images.

With this release, depending on the availability of the EPUB-export feature in wallabag itself (in its API), EPUB files for entries will be downloaded when syncing from server and should provide for a much better reading experience.

This is still an un-finished version, still targetting power-users.

v0.4: a better UI

This release focuses on a better UI and improvements on UX.

This should be the first version targetting less advanced users.

v0.5: technical improvements

The application now has a few recurrent users, and it’s time to think a bit more about improving some underlying technical details.

This version should not bring much chances to the end-user, but will rework a few internal components, which should help in the long run.

Plop! reader v0.1.0

Mon, 19 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Here are a few notes about the private beta version 0.1.0 of Plop! reader.

Download: Plop! reader v0.1.0

⚠ You must follow the installation / configuration steps, or the application will segfault ⚠

Warning

This application is a pre-version. It is unstable and might wreck havoc on your device and in your Wallabag instance! Use at your own perils!

Known limitations of this v0.1.0 version:

Only tested on Pocketbook Touch Lux 3 “TEA” with a 5.14 firmware and Pocketbook Touch Lux 2 “TEA” with a 5.9 firmware
It will not work on a 4.x firmware
It only supports Wallabag 2.x (which means it doesn’t work with Framabag) and has only been tested with Wallabag 2.0.6 and 2.0.8
At first launch, when no sync has been ever done, the screen is a bit empty.
Not much help included.
Far from perfect UI.
Only reads HTML content of the entries – which means no images (they are remote and not fetched) and some encoding problems for special characters.
Much code-rework is needed.
There is not much error-handling at all: a missing or invalid config file will certainly cause a crash, for instance.

This is a private beta version, to collect useful feedback from implicated power-users, before doing any public release of this application. Please note v0.2.0 should be a public beta, even if still directed to power-users (able to create a JSON config file, for instance).

I’ve used this application for a couple of weeks now, including two week-ends offline and it seems to work… But, as you surely know, there are always things the developer of an application didn’t think about ;-)

Features

Implemented

Here’s a quick short list of features that are currently implemented and should work in this v0.1.0 release:

Fetching the 200 most recent entries from the server and synchronizing them to the ereader.
Marking an entry as archived or starred on the ereader.
Synchronizing this change to the server.
Works offline and only accesses the network when you touch the sync button (reactivating wifi if need be).
Three distinct lists: unread, archived, starred; and menu button to switch between lists.
Uses the internal ereader’s reading application to open contents, which means you have all the usual reading features and options.
Logs to plop-reader-log.html at the root the device; which means this log can be read from the library and you can get it via USB.

Not implemented, but planned

Many things are not implemented yet, but are planned for (several) future versions. Most of them are tracked as issues on github.

Installing and configuring the application

Send the application to the device

After connecting the ereader to your computer with an USB cable, you must send the Plop! reader.app file to the ereader, in /applications/ :

It will then be visible in the applications drawer of the ereader:

Configuration file

You must create a JSON file, called config.json, from the following template:

{
    "url": "YOUR WALLABAG INSTANCE URL",
    "client_id": "CLIENT_ID GENERATED BY WALLABAG",
    "secret_key": "SECRET KEY GENERATED BY WALLABAG",
    "login": "YOUR LOGIN",
    "password": "YOUR PASSWORD"
}

Note: to create a client id and secret key, go to the Developer screen of your Wallabag instance.

If your Wallabag instance is protected by HTTP-Basic, you can use the following template (but take a look at this wallabag issue):

{
    "url": "YOUR WALLABAG INSTANCE URL",
    "http_login": "HTTP-BASIC LOGIN",
    "http_password": "HTTP-BASIC PASSWORD",
    "client_id": "CLIENT_ID GENERATED BY WALLABAG",
    "secret_key": "SECRET KEY GENERATED BY WALLABAG",
    "login": "YOUR LOGIN",
    "password": "YOUR PASSWORD"
}

After connecting your ereader to your computer with an USB cable, you must send this config.json file to the ereader, in /system/share/plop-reader (you might have to create that last directory):

Note: the database.sqlite3 file seen on this screenshot will be created automatically by the application, you don’t have to do anything regarding this file and should never modify it yourself.

Using the application

When first running the application, its screen is quite empty, as you haven’t fetched any entry from the server yet:

This is the same screen - the main screen of the application - when entries have been fetched from the server:

You have 3 buttons in the header:

On the left, the button to close the application.
On the left of the right half the screen, the sync button: use it to fetch entries from the server and to send local statuses to the server.
On the far right of the screen, the menu button.

Touching the sync button runs a synchronization between your ereader and the server:

Touching the menu button opens the following menu:

From this menu, you can open the About screen:

The menu button also allows you to navigate between the lists of unread / archived / starred entries:

In each of these lists, you can use the left and right physical keys of your device to navigate between pages of entries.

To read an entry, touch it; and the ereader’s internal reading application will start (it takes a few seconds):

When you are done reading an entry, close the reading app by touching the upper-left corner of the screen, and you’ll get this dialog, which asks you if you want to change the status information of the entry you just read:

Troubles?

You will run into troubles; that’s what a first ever private beta is all about, afterall!

If you experience problems, two options:

Check the existing issues on github and create one if needed (and if the project is not private anymore)
Send me a mail ;-)

In any case: feel free to send me a mail even if you don’t run into troubles. I’m really interested by the opinion of some power-users of wallabag, especially if you’ve used this app in real conditions for a few days!