Book reader feature set

Discussion of eBook Feature Set

This page serves as a forum for discussing the features required to make the device a useable eBook reader. Access to a diverse library of reading and reference materials will be a prime selling point of the olpc project. The devices are being cost-justified to interested nations based on the idea that money currently budgeted to purchase textbooks for students could be used to purchase a $100 laptop for each child and that the textbooks would be available in eBook format on the laptop itself.

Before diving into the discussion, you should be aware that the designers have chosen to include Evince along with the basic HTML/XML capability of the browser. One would hope that this includes both the DJVU and PDF capabilities of Evince however DJVU probably provides the most value-add.

Features

Reader

The number one required feature for an ebook reader HAS to be the clearest, most easily readable text display possible on the hardware. Anti-aliasing or font-smoothing can be a great asset if implemented well or a horribly "smudgy" mess if implemented poorly...

Useful features might include:

• User definable "style sheets" to control font size and type face, etc.
• I wonder if the previous point includes the style explained by myself in the discussion. --Dagoflores 00:44, 2 April 2006 (EST)
• Display graphics in various formats; both vector and bitmap formats
• Display complex formulae
• Link in multimedia elements such as sound or video files (this is not an e-book. Ebooks should be limited to text and still images in order to get maximum use of electricity. People can still choose other apps to view multimedia content)
• Bookmarking, preferably sharable via network
• Annotations, preferably sharable via network
• Link to external programs for coursework such as worksheets, labs, etc. which can be forwarded BY the teacher to the students, and sent back to the teacher once the homework is done.
• Human readable, yet efficient markup language (should use an existing e-book markup language since many e-books will be available as well as tools. Existing e-book formats are often based on a simplified HTML markup)
• Compressed files (easily decompressed to access original files) (this needs to be carefully balanced against the built-in compression of the JFFS2 file system. Since JFFS2 can handle alternate compression formats it may be better to influence the JFFS2 development. Ideally, ebooks will be tightly compressed on modern desktops, and the OLPC will be able to quickly decompress them without using too much CPU/electricity)
• Simple, intuitive interface
• Localizeable
• Supports complex-text langugage rendering (for example, arabic and thai)(bidirectional is where the real complexity is)
• A way to scroll, or "turn pages" of ebooks with the following properties: simple, natural, low-learning curve.
• Users should be able to encrypt and view documents. Special care should be taken to treat the contents in a highly sensitive manner to make wide-scale analysis of such documents infeasable.
• A text to speech option might help kids that do not like to read a lesson but would not mind listening to it at a speed they could understand it.

Library

The laptop has the storage capacity for many hundreds of books, articles, stories, essays, etc., so cataloging, organizing and searching will be crucial.

Useful features might include:

• A standardized schema of metadata for categorizing work
• Sorting on any of the fields in the schema, plus system generated data like last page read, etc.
• Full-text search capability across all titles - MUST be speedy so indexing will be necessary
• Network access to larger library to allow downloads of additional titles

Interface

Post eBook interface ideas here.

• Should the eBook interface look like Adobe Reader[1]?
• Should it look like Evince[2]? (Most UI suff can be hidden)
• Should it have a status bar?

Jog Reading Wheel

A few years for a ridiculous sum of money, considering the fact that the units are no longer supported or sold, I bought a stony clié PDA T625 C ( I still have it on my desk if someone wants to make me an offer:) Anyway one of the most salable features and indeed usable things about this PDA is the thumb wheel on the side of the case. It allows me to read PDF or whatever documents and scroll up or down the pages of the document using this little plastic wheel, if you push the wheel in you can also reset to the start of the document. Don't take my word for it here is what many other people say about this neat feature;

http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/review/sony_clie_peg_n760c_review "On the left side of the Clie are the jog-wheel, back button and hold. The jog-wheel? “What a dumb idea,” I thought when I started using the unit. “What is the point when you can just touch the screen to select objects and items?”

Well In less than a week I found this little addition to be an absolutely wonderful feature. I can fly though addresses or to-do’s with a flick of my thumb while driving, on the phone, etc."

Down Arrow: I do the same thing reading e-books on my laptop web browser by holding down the down-arrow key.

Blackberry-style Controls

The Blackberry has one thing that is really right in that both the enter/fwd key and the esc/bck key are easily available. The OLPC/Sugar interface should have use the 4-way pad an Enter and an Esc. This way, you can follow links in your PDF and HTML ebooks. If a user can't jump back to the place where they were reading easily, they will not be as willing to look up terms in the glossary (for example). eBooks will be made assuming that the user can jump back -- authors should not have to re-format their works for the OLPC.

The 4-way pad is already in the hardware specification as is the enter/fwd; an esc/bck should be added now. It will come in handy for many applications.