PDF reader, for reading Ebooks

She must really like a lot to see you...

Ok, next time you go in ask your eye doctor if you should spend hours reading a book from the TV. The doctor will look at you like you've lost your mind.

There is a reason that good e-readers don't use the same technology that TVs do. Books aren't backlit. Most people naturally adjust books to the sweet spot in their vision by moving the book closer or further away. Are you going to move your chair to reduce eyestrain?

Can you display PDF files on a TV? Yes. Does that make it a good idea read books off of a TV screen for hours on end? No.

+1 !

A major cause of Nearsightedness is only looking at things close up.
Looking at things near and far is giving your eyes a workout and very likely good for all us heavy computer/phone users rather than a bad thing.

therealjoeblow Wrote:Actually, not bad at all. Have you tried it before you piped in

1) Load an e-magazine in Foxit Viewer (Adobe Acrobat's resolution is the shits compared to Foxit for some reason, and Foxit is 7mb vs Acrobat's 221mb installed size!)

2) Set it to display "Single Page" (1-up)

3) Set the display scale to "Fit Width"

4) hit F11 to go fullscreen (not really necessary, but it cleans up the interface by getting rid of useless toolbars and scrollbars)

5) use PGUP and PGDN to scroll up and down in pages to read the columns, and to switch pages

6) Look at that on your 50" HDTV - it is *perfectly* readable from 10' away, looks awesome, and is totally functional!

6 years ago when this request was first made, I could see there being limited value, but today, emagazines are definitely the way to go, and are also definitely considered "media".

I wholeheartedly second the request to add this functionality (including cataloging of the magazines into a similar library with cover-art browsing)!

Cheers
The REAL Joe

Excuse me, but are there people in this topic discussing the eventual eyestrain from using pdfs in xbmc? How absurd is that? To put it simple: that is none of your business, that's up to the users.

Ok first the facts: pdfs are one of the most used mediums for text, images or both, nowadays.
Pdfs frequently hold content like comic books, magazines, newspapers, articles, product manuals, mini-presentations, customized photo albums, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc and some more etc.
As some users have described, most pdfs displayed on a large screen tv are perfectly readable, and can conveniently be displayed with 2 pages on-screen at the same time.
If some are, indeed, not readable, due to font size or type, the user will be the first to notice. "Zoom" is also something that has long been invented.
Given the enormous variety of pdf files and types of content, it seems absurd to claim the inutility of such a feature, with subjective reasoning such as "it's not a good idea to read books off a tv screen for hours on end", as gjones stated.
Why "hours on end"? A short article can be read in 2 minutes. Why "books"? Pdfs can hold varied forms of text and picture content.
And even if the user wanted to read 20 pages of Dickens on his large screen tv, displayed with a proper font, would it really be that bad? And wouldn't that be the user's problem, not ours?

Any media center should be obliged to support pdf as much as reading picture files, jpgs, pngs, or just plain text files.

And there are people here saying "you shouldn't use that on your tv, it's bad for your eyes"??? Please!!

pingomister Wrote:Excuse me, but are there people in this topic discussing the eventual eyestrain from using pdfs in xbmc? How absurd is that? To put it simple: that is none of your business, that's up to the users.

Ok first the facts: pdfs are one of the most used mediums for text, images or both, nowadays.
Pdfs frequently hold content like comic books, magazines, newspapers, articles, product manuals, mini-presentations, customized photo albums, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc and some more etc.
As some users have described, most pdfs displayed on a large screen tv are perfectly readable, and can conveniently be displayed with 2 pages on-screen at the same time.
If some are, indeed, not readable, due to font size or type, the user will be the first to notice. "Zoom" is also something that has long been invented.
Given the enormous variety of pdf files and types of content, it seems absurd to claim the inutility of such a feature, with subjective reasoning such as "it's not a good idea to read books off a tv screen for hours on end", as gjones stated.
Why "hours on end"? A short article can be read in 2 minutes. Why "books"? Pdfs can hold varied forms of text and picture content.
And even if the user wanted to read 20 pages of Dickens on his large screen tv, displayed with a proper font, would it really be that bad? And wouldn't that be the user's problem, not ours?

Any media center should be obliged to support pdf as much as reading picture files, jpgs, pngs, or just plain text files.

And there are people here saying "you shouldn't use that on your tv, it's bad for your eyes"??? Please!!

Then by all means, write it yourself. The idea behind feature suggestions is to rally support for something needed, not something wanted by a few people.

Yes, PDF usage is extremely widespread. That has little to do with this request for ebook support. Web browsers are even more widespread, but there is still a lot of discussion to just how useful they are for a 10-foot interface.

If you have a suggestion, you have two options. Be willing to sell someone else (a developer) on the idea of its vast importance or be willing to learn enough to do it yourself.

GJones Wrote:Then by all means, write it yourself. The idea behind feature suggestions is to rally support for something needed, not something wanted by a few people.

Yes, PDF usage is extremely widespread. That has little to do with this request for ebook support. Web browsers are even more widespread, but there is still a lot of discussion to just how useful they are for a 10-foot interface.

If you have a suggestion, you have two options. Be willing to sell someone else (a developer) on the idea of its vast importance or be willing to learn enough to do it yourself.

A number of posters here are assuming incorrectly that we'd ONLY be reading PDF's and eBooks via the TV if such a feature was implemented. Ideally what I'd like is to download eBooks from XBMC and then read them via the XBMC app on a tablet. Often I like to read while listening to music so being able to access and change both all within an XBMC app would be extremely useful. This is especially so if you are using a certain Apple product that can't multitask .

BTW I am new to XBMC and absolutely love it now, it is like a little christmas present to myself and I've had zero problems with it so far. I have been dreaming for years for what I can now do with XBMC, keep up the fantastic work guys!!

crooksy Wrote:A number of posters here are assuming incorrectly that we'd ONLY be reading PDF's and eBooks via the TV if such a feature was implemented. Ideally what I'd like is to download eBooks from XBMC and then read them via the XBMC app on a tablet. Often I like to read while listening to music so being able to access and change both all within an XBMC app would be extremely useful. This is especially so if you are using a certain Apple product that can't multitask .

BTW I am new to XBMC and absolutely love it now, it is like a little christmas present to myself and I've had zero problems with it so far. I have been dreaming for years for what I can now do with XBMC, keep up the fantastic work guys!!

I get reading PDFs on a tablet or on a computer, but not why this needs to be part of XBMC. XBMC is pretty squarely aimed at a 10-foot interface for TVs.

While I understand your issue, I just can't see why it should be built into XBMC core to help so small a user group. Even if this were implemented, I think it would still have issues with your hardware multitasking (or lack thereof).

For me, I think the use cases on this one fall on the "desktop/tablet on which I run XBMC sometimes" instead of "dedicated XBMC machine." That dedicated XBMC machine litmus test is a pretty good indicator if it should be in core, if you ask me.



On a side note, glad you found it. I can't take any credit for any code in core but am working on a few addons that will be available some day.

GJones Wrote:I get reading PDFs on a tablet or on a computer, but not why this needs to be part of XBMC. XBMC is pretty squarely aimed at a 10-foot interface for TVs.

While I understand your issue, I just can't see why it should be built into XBMC core to help so small a user group. Even if this were implemented, I think it would still have issues with your hardware multitasking (or lack thereof).

For me, I think the use cases on this one fall on the "desktop/tablet on which I run XBMC sometimes" instead of "dedicated XBMC machine." That dedicated XBMC machine litmus test is a pretty good indicator if it should be in core, if you ask me.

On a side note, glad you found it. I can't take any credit for any code in core but am working on a few addons that will be available some day.

Well I guess it is all down to how you define the term "media centre". To me a media centre is where a user has lots of different media files that are all stored in one location or over multiple sources on a shared network that can be EASILY accessed via multiple access points. Media files as a minimum include music, pictures, videos/movies, TV, radio, podcasts, streamed media, aggregated media (RSS) AND eBooks.

The TV shouldn't be used to dictate this definition as the only or main access point. Instead multiple devices should be allowed to access the same library and the GUI optimised to match the benefits of each device.

This makes the media more accessible to those users who aren't as computer savy as the rest of us because they only have to learn one interface with no fuss.

Which if we are all honest is the holy grail for all of us (especially my wife ) and XBMC is perhaps the closest of all to reaching this goal.

crooksy Wrote:Well I guess it is all down to how you define the term "media centre". To me a media centre is where a user has lots of different media files that are all stored in one location or over multiple sources on a shared network that can be EASILY accessed via multiple access points. Media files as a minimum include music, pictures, videos/movies, TV, radio, podcasts, streamed media, aggregated media (RSS) AND eBooks.

The TV shouldn't be used to dictate this definition as the only or main access point. Instead multiple devices should be allowed to access the same library and the GUI optimised to match the benefits of each device.

This makes the media more accessible to those users who aren't as computer savy as the rest of us because they only have to learn one interface with no fuss.

Which if we are all honest is the holy grail for all of us (especially my wife ) and XBMC is perhaps the closest of all to reaching this goal.

The ten-foot interface is the accepted usage for XBMC. Though some may use it on a desktop, the design goal is remote-centric for display on a TV or a monitor used in a way consistent with that of a TV.

PDF is useless on xbmc and tv's, please close thread.