EbmDoc

EbmDoc is an application for the Franklin eBookMan to read Palm Doc-formatted files. Here are some screenshots.

Download

Note: Don't download version 1.3 unless you need Hebrew. It could create issues with other international text. Miroslav Vasko has been kind enough to make some corrections to the code to fix display issues in version 1.2, so most people will want to use 1.2.1. There are several other new goodies in version 1.2.1.

In order to compile the code, you'll need the Franklin SDK, which I can no longer find at Franklin's site. E-mail me if you're interested. If you want to rebuild the resources (resource.rcp), you'll need Chris Warren-Smith's rpc2ebm. This is my first EBM program, as well as my first C++ program, so don't look too closely at the code :)

EbmDoc is released under the GNU GPL version 2.

Why EbmDoc?

After all, Mobi Reader already reads Doc files, plus HTML and other formats.

Well, Mobi Reader is pretty good, but has a few shortcomings. First of all, it isn't open-source, so it can't be easily modified. I don't really like the way their scrollbar works, or their bookmarks. The search functionality doesn't seem to always work right. Plus, I have no idea why there is a page-number indicator; the whole idea of pages should be left to tree-books.

EbmDoc is a little faster when scrolling, the search feature (seems to) work better, and you can scroll by any amount. It's not perfect, but I think it's pretty nice.

Also, EbmDoc is released under the GPL, meaning anyone has the freedom to modify and improve it. Two such improvements are the addition of Hebrew support (thanks Bobby Weinmann and Chris Spencer) and Slovak language support (thanks Miroslav).

EbmDoc borrows heavily from Chris Warren-Smith's excellent EBJlib and EbmFrotz, as well as Bill Clagett's CSpotRun reader for the Palm (my long-time favorite). Without these open-source efforts, EbmDoc would have been a much greater challenge!

Suggestions or comments are welcome; send e-mail to mpicker0@yahoo.com

Relevant links

Known problems

  • Page up calculates the screen going backwards through the text. It may be laid out slightly differently going backwards. For example, if you are viewing a page, hit page down, then page up, it may look a little different; I'm not sure this is really a bug and it's probably not going to be "fixed."
  • You can add bookmarks, but they are stored in the ebmdoc.prefs file, not in the Doc file itself (as in some Palm readers and PC readers such as DocReader). So bookmarks will be available only on the EBM; if you copy the Doc file back out to your PC, they won't be there. This probably won't change.
  • You can select other filters on the file menu (such as TXT). Don't.

Surely many others! Please let me know if you have problems; the more information you can give me, the better. I don't use my EBM that much anymore, and I'm pretty busy these days, but I'll try to help.

Limitations (not really problems)

  • Filenames are limited to 64 characters (including extension)
  • Font files must be named with a .fnt extension, and must be in RAM. Font filenames are limited to 32 characters (including extension)

Changes

  • 5/30/2007

    Version 1.2.1: Several fixes and enhancements courtesy of Miroslav Vasko (zemiak@gmail.com):
    Scrollbar removed and introduced status line with position bar, clock and battery status
    When you click on the screen, it will emit full PageUp or PageDown
    Bugfix: cancel in Goto percent works, it doesn't change position anymore
    Bugfix: when you click on the very top of the screen, it doesn't jump to the beginning of the document anymore
    Bugfix: Goto percent / Top has not displayed the first character of the document
    Bugfix: When you have pressed PageDown on the last page of the document, it had jumped randomly. PageDown on the last page has been forbidden.

  • 3/3/2004

    Version 1.3: Hebrew support, courtesy of Bobby Weinmann and Chris Spencer

  • 2/19/2003 10:00 EST

    Version 1.2:
    Jogwheel enter is configurable to several new functions (thanks to Ken McCullough)
    New scrollbar and top margin preferences (also thanks to Ken)
    Bug fixed where scrolling to bottom of Docs with bookmarks could show garbage

  • 1/31/2003 10:50 EST

    Version 1.1:
    Fontgroups now supported! (see fontconv page for information on making your own!)
    Added line spacing options to move lines apart or closer together
    Help now included

  • 1/24/2003 10:45 EST

    Official version 1.0
    Support Mobi-fied PDB files
    Supports uncompressed Doc files on MMC
    Fixed display of accented characters

  • 1/22/2003 16:20 EST

    Version alpha 1/22/2003
    Added settings dialog with settable font size, bold option, and margins
    Still no support for Mobi-fied PDB files :( Hopefully soon...

  • 1/21/2003 10:30 EST

    Version alpha 1/21/2003
    Fixed some crashing and garbage characters