FlexBook Component for ebooks

[Misty]

Well, let's look into it a bit before we give it names or yawn at it. I think this one is the most interesting components I've seen thus far. And it's built for making the reading experience better.

I don't mean to downplay the quality of it! I like the user interface. It's very attractive, and I like it as an ebook interface.

[daniel_reetz]

No time wasted! No apologies necessary. I was just picking up on your totally understandable frustration and wanted you to know about MobileRead. That's it!

[spamsickle]

Okay, sometimes I feel like the giant wet blanket of the group, but honestly I don't see the appeal of animating my page turns. That's not to say you shouldn't do it, or advocate it, but speaking solely for myself, it seems like a useless gimmick. When I think about my own ebook reading experience, I think I'd prefer to have my pages snap onscreen one after the other, without having to drag my cursor to the edge, grab, and drag back to watch a special effect every time I turn a page. Even just watching the animation play every time I press the "Page down" key seems like an unnecessary waste of time.

I'm probably among the oldest of the old school here. I have literally thousands of books. To me, they're an information delivery device, and presently they have some advantages over ebooks, and some disadvantages. I don't count the visual experience of seeing pages turn among the advantages.

When cars first became available, they were thought of as replacements for horse-drawn carriages. When movies first became available, they were thought of as replacements for plays presented onstage. If you look at a lot of old silent movies, you can see how they remained faithful to that vision -- single camera, locked into position like a patron in a reserved seat... It took some time to leave the old paradigm behind, and explore what the new technology could really do. Multiple cameras. Shooting on location. Close ups. Moving point of view. CGI.

I'd rather get new features that do things the old paradigm couldn't do. Footnotes and references that pop up when I hover the mouse over them, rather than requiring me to flip to the back of the book to read the note, then return to the page I'm reading, for instance. Seeing a page roll over? Pfffft. Pass.

I don't think it's a brawl, it's a discussion. I don't mean to hurt anybody's feelings, or to imply that you're wrong to be excited about something, but simply to explain that I have a different opinion.

[daniel_reetz]

Coming from my visual neuroscience background, I can say that there is a place for animation -- well designed animation, anyway. In particular, an animation can lead your eye to something that's changed -- which can work better than simply wholesale refreshing the page.

Another thing... as an artist, I like things to be beautiful, even if I do treat my books as information delivery 98% of the time. Good design wins hearts and minds and makes reading pleasurable.

[univurshul]

Spam has a some killer points of reasoning here. Maybe I'm floored with the shiny bells and whistles on this. (there are some killer things inherit to this idea that could serve the fundamental basic visuals of the human eye; I have a hard time explaining let alone grasping what I see being a huge step right now though).

But the pizzaz in the reader: yeah, I'm with Spam. I have to go back and retract the archaic statement: functional design minimalism is best unless it has true real improvements for the human function.

And I do owe some apologies; I get overly passionate about the ideas, being a linear thinker. I suppose I have my own style of debunking/supporting. My tone can get defensive and challenge viewpoints.

Misty didn't downplay anything; she knows what's up. Dan, thanks for the link. Spam, you're a genius.

I'm going back to hardware now.... I feel like the lost kid in homeroom class every time I end up in software.

[spamsickle]

Aesthetic and useful - an ebook reader that senses whether its orientation is "landscape" or "portrait", and presents either 2 pages or 1 page to fill the display device.

YMMV - specular highlights simulating the bowing of the book near the spine, and animated page turns.

No, I'm not a genius. Yes, I am a bit of a luddite, and have never owned an Apple product.

[daniel_reetz]

Aesthetic and useful - an ebook reader that senses whether its orientation is "landscape" or "portrait", and presents either 2 pages or 1 page to fill the display device.

Shiiii.... I just want a reader with enough resolution to reasonably display two pages. This stuff is so nascent...

[univurshul]

FlexBook, from the man himself:

I'm afraid my component is not an out-of-the-box solution that turns PDFs into ready-made flipbooks like that -- it is meant to be implemented by actionscript/flex developers in applications where things like PDF-converting would be done separately (not by the Book component). Also since my component is built for Flash, it won't work on iPads (iPads don't support Flash Player content).

If you are looking for an easy way to convert your PDFs though I can get you in contact with the company I work for, our product does exactly that and has a ton of additional features too (including iPad and Android support): www.ipaper-cms.com

Let me know if you need anything or want me to get you in contact with some of the friendly sales-people at iPaper (I am just one of the programmer-guys).

Kind regards,
Ruben Swieringa