Project update and plans for this week (ending 27th November 2009)

[Julian Harty]

Gary's continuing to submit updates to the project. Revision 9
http://code.google.com/p/android-daisy-epub-reader/source/detail?r=9
includes basic support for multi-level documents however the UI
doesn't provide the ability to navigate between the layers, or within
sections, yet.

Apparently a DAISY document with multiple levels is split as follows:
level 1 parts of the book
level 2 everything, chapters

The SIML file contains information that enables navigation between
pages, etc. We need to be able to load and use this to help with the
navigation.

Gary also removed dom4j, and now using the Android XML parser as the
overhead of dom4j isn't needed.

Gary is going to fix the UI to limit the output to match the level
selected by the user. He's going to continue checking in changes over
the rest of this week.

Next steps
- We need to decide how to support fast navigation, that'll also work
on different Android devices e.g. ones without a keyboard such as the
HTC Hero. Currently navigation is limited to up and down movements on
the trackball.

- we need to provide ways to navigate by phrase, page, time. Gary's
plan is to use the Left, Right and long-press trackball movements for
basic navigation. However we want to explore using gestures soon.
We've considered using context menus, but these are not appealing in
our opinion.

- We will need better support for bookmarks. I think there's some
support for auto-bookmarks at the moment, but I'm not sure...


Jiayao and Julian plan to work on the code on Friday afternoon e.g. to
improve the robustness and to rework some of the current code. We'll
sync up with Gary by 15:15 UK time on Friday.


Further in the future:
- We would like to design and implement a range of innovative user-
interfaces to help make the reader accessible to a range of users. As
a start we're considering adding Voice-operated UI...

Julian

[T.V Raman]

SVN hygene: please avoid checking in files like .classpath
--
Best Regards,
--raman

Title: Research Scientist
Email: ra...@google.com
WWW: http://emacspeak.sf.net/raman/
Google: tv+raman
GTalk: ra...@google.com
PGP: http://emacspeak.sf.net/raman/raman-almaden.asc

[T.V Raman]

I pulled and installed the Daisy Reader from GoogleCode. Best I
can tell, all that is there at present is a tool for listing
files on the SDCard -- is that correct? What I ran appeared to do
nothing else. I copied over a BookShare Daisy book --
Google-Hacks -- and walkin the directory directory and clicking
on the .ncx file for instance did nothing. It also failed to play
mp3 files, not sure what exactly this thing is supposed to be
able to do at present.

[Julian Harty]

There's a sample book currently checked into the Resources folder at
http://code.google.com/p/android-daisy-epub-reader/source/browse/#svn/trunk/Resources/light-man
The reader allows the sections to be navigated and plays the relevant
audio but doesn't provide a way to navigate the content. This is what
Gary's working on at the moment. Release early, release often (and
remember to improve the software each time :)

Thanks for trying it out while it's still so new.

2009/11/25 T.V Raman <ra...@google.com>:

[Gary Readfern-Gray]

Hi Everyone,

I've now checked in R14 of the code.

In short there are2 DAISY standards in current use. Version 2 and
Version 3. Version 2 covers DAISY audio books but also does have
provision for audio and text, So that's where I've started.

If you have a DAISY audio book such as that found in the resources
folder of the project:

1. copy that book to your SDCard
2. Open the DAISY reader and browser to the folder containing the DAISY book.

The application will detect that the folder contains a DAISY book and
when you press select on the folder name, the book will open.

You can then use the trackball/DPad to select the required chapter
from the book and press select to toggle Play/Stop.

When you press stop and exit the application, it now remembers where
you last were in the book so you can resume reading at a later time
.
The contents of a DAISY book may have multiple heading levels similar
to an HTML page and this is now supported by the application.

I will be uploading a sample book with multiple headings later on to
try if you don't already have one and I'll mail the details to the
list when done.

When you open a DAISY book the default heading level is 1. Some simple
books may only need 1 level such as the sample book provided, other
longer books such as long novels or manuals etc may be split into
parts and chapters, in which case you would typically find Parts at
heading level 1 and chapters at heading level 2.

At present, a long press of the trackball will enable you to choose
the level you require. In the example above, choosing level 1 enables
you to navigate quickly between just the parts of the book, choosing
level 2, would include the chapter headings as well.

The application has not yet implemented several features of the
standard such as phrase navigation, Page navigation, sidebars etc,
however it can now be used at a basic level to read many DAISY books
such as the thousands of DAISY books available from The Royal National
Institute of the Blind and other DAISY book libraries around the
world.

Now, regarding bookshare, these books are in DAISY 3 and are text
only I believe? one of the discussion points in the project meeting
with Julian and Jaiyao on Friday will be basic DAISY 3.0 support so
that we have an application that can be used to access the whole range
of DAISY offerings quickly, then, over time we can flesh out full
support of both versions of the standard.

[T.V Raman]

Nice!

I'd really encourage yu to build in basic Daisy 3 and epub
support so we have full coverage; then we can flesh each type out
to the fullest extent possible. Great work by all counts up to
now, look forward to a lot more!

[T.V Raman]

p.s. as you send out these email updates, just check them in to
svn as well so you have a snapshot of a quasi-readme file.