Manybooks.net Site News

Well, I’ve been messing around with some stuff ever since I got a cellphone a few weeks ago. It’s a Motorola RAZR somethingorother (V3?), which means it can run Java apps, has a little WAP browser, and a pretty decent screen… so why not read an ebook on it?

I’m sure plenty of people can explain why not — for me it’s a rhetorical question. But I browsed around some, and discovered that there seem to be plenty of folks for whom this is an attractive option, and there are a few tools out there that might make the whole thing more appealing.

First, the actual application on the cellphone; I limited myself to apps that would run on the phone I’ve got (there are so many different kinds out there it’s dizzying), just so I wouldn’t go crazy. Here are the notable options, in my opinion:

1. PEB (PhoneEbook) - Can read Palm Doc files from a server. Requires a live data connection. Nice, since manybooks.net has Doc files ready to go. But the live net connection requirement feels a little restrictive.

2. mjBook - a Windows app that creates a “midlet” from your text files. Once the midelet is loaded onto your device the book pages well, and though the font is small it’s easy enough for me to read, particularly since I’d rather have a lot on the screen to minimize paging. It’s also apparently pretty good with multiple languages.

3. Yuet Reader - another midlet, this time with some explanation of what a midlet is, which really helped me out: it’s a .jar file (actually a zip file with a different extension) which, when unpacked, is a series of java classes and some text files that contain the ebook. This reader works with English and Chinese, and isn’t quite as flexible as mjBook, but the default font is quite readable and the instructions for making your own midlet ebooks are clear and direct.

So that’s how you’ll read your ebook on a cellphone — either via a network connection, or using a .jar file that contains the text and the code for displaying, paging, bookmarks, etc. I chose to go with the latter, and was faced with the first big issue for my cellphone: Cingular doesn’t like you to load your own java applications, I don’t think, but downloading a jar file is OK. I suppose they want the data plan revenue. If there are ways around this I haven’t run into them yet, and besides, it’ll be easier to share books if folks don’t have to use special hacks or workarounds to get them onto their own phones. So I started looking into how to run a WAP server.

Long story short: a virtual host on manybooks.net, using a PHP toolkit called HAWHAW, will serve WML to WAP browsers and regular web browsers (and XHTML and HDML and a bunch of other stuff that is new to me but sounds cool), with only a few simple lines of code — and examples are provided in the documentation. Add a few lines to the httpd.conf file to allow PHP to parse .wml files (AddType application/x-httpd-php .wml), a line to mime.types (application/java-archive jar) and it’s ready to go.

I’ve written a script that builds an mjReader midlet using the files generated by the Windows app (for a sample ebook) along with the text files from manybooks.net — I’m keeping YuetReader in the wings, with hope that the author continues to develop it — and a simple, two page site at mnybks.net that will work with my cellphone and my web browser. Right now the download page requires part of the URL from a manybooks.net page to use as the “Book ID”, like this:

http://manybooks.net/titles/delrayl1876818768-8.html

Which means the “Book ID” is delrayl1876818768-8.

That seems like kind of a pain, so I’m working on numerical identifiers to make it easier for folks to type in the code from a phone keypad. But visitors to the site that happen to see this are more than welcome to grab a title or two for their cellphone, either via their WAP browser or their regular browser if they know how to load a book directly (please, share that knowledge with me!).

Here’s how I’ll link to the web-download: cellphone version or maybe “use this code at mnybks.net: delrayl1876818768-8”

What do you think?

OK, that didn’t take too long - I’ve assigned a unique numerical ID to each title, so go to mnybks.net and use BookID: 14130 .

A couple of folks have pointed out that Mobipocket expects a “.prc” extension, not “.pdb” — Fixed!

Thanks to Victor Rehorst I’ve finally figured out how to get Mobipocket formatted ebooks — without resorting to running a Windows server! The keys were mobigen.exe, the well-hidden command-line app from Mobipocket, and Wine, the Open Source implementation of the Windows API on top of X and Unix that runs on OS X.

Whew. I think it works, but it’s really late, and I’m tired — long story, but this morning I had a root canal and this afternoon I visited a CPA to talk about taxes, and getting this to work is what I thought about during both events to keep my mind off the horrors…

So I haven’t tested much, but it ought to work. You’ll tell me if it doesn’t, right?

Wesley Frazier suggested that the Newton “Paperback” format would be welcomed by Newton users, and I was lucky enough to find an OS X binary, some instructions, and a few support files to install. Wesley was kind enough to test a few titles, and it seems to be working the way it should.

If there are any Newton users with feedback or suggestions I’d be very happy to hear from them.