[Old] Baka-Tsuki Android App: BakaReader

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andyrobo123
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Re: Official Baka-Tsuki Android App: BakaReader Available no

Post by andyrobo123 »

Here is my response to fallingcirno post. I am not quoting his post as it makes mine look far to long.

I am going to look into adding the ability to download whole novels and volumes after I have released the next version of the app. I will also look into adding something to mark downloaded chapters.

I will look for a way to let the user only display chapters that have been downloaded, so all chapters that have not been downloaded for a novel are hidden from view. Downloads tend not to take much time so I don't think the downloads page would be very useful. When I add a download whole novel/volume option I plan to display a loading window then says "Downloading chapter 1 of 12" and keeps updating.

I will probably add an option to make chapters as read when... and give the options, downloaded, opened, started scrolling, scrolled to bottom, never.

When I mark chapters as being download I will add a small symbol, or "DL" in the place you recommend (anyone have a better idea?). I don't plan on marking a chapter as reading for now, I am not sure how much use it would be. I can tell what chapter I am on as it is the last chapter in a novel marked as read, if I have finished that chapter but not started the next then I can see it has been scrolled to the bottom and just click menu->next. If I start adding lots of different colors to the screen all meaning different things it might get confusing for people.

The idea with a home screen is that it helps new users easily tell whats going one when they start using the app. However I do like the idea of removing it, what do other people think? good idea? bad idea? don't care? I don't want to make a change like this based on only one persons opinion.
I agree that that the menu button could be better used, I plan to add one more option to the chapters page menu in the next version. I think its better to slowly add new options to the menu than fill it up early and need to removing things later to stop it getting to full when adding more.

If I had the app automatically add novels to the watch list it would have to be an option. The more novels you have in your watch list, the more power the phone uses when checking for updates. It is so easy to add a novel to your watch list there is not much point in doing it automatically.

An expandable volume list view will be coming in the next version. This has been a lot harder to do than I was expecting and is the reason this update is taking so much time. I have most of it working at the moment, just need to tidy up the code and test it.

I did originally plan for the app to have the ability to read whole novels. However I have found that phones have trouble downloading and displaying such large amounts of text so I had to remove it. I might look at adding the ability to read whole novels for tablets as they should have more memory and CPU power, but it will not be any time soon.

Ordering novels be different stats would be a lot of work and I don't think it would give much benefit to the users.

I plan to add a downloaded filter to the chapters list, a reading filter to the novels list might be useful but I am not looking to add it anytime soon.

When you say Teasers do you mean the "Story Synopsis" from the wiki? This is something I have been thinking about adding but I haven't had time to look how difficult it would be.

When you say default language do you mean novel language? Doing this would be very difficult to do and something I will work on if I ran out of other idea or get a large number of requests. Or do you mean the language of the app (buttons, menus and other stuff)? I only know English so I can't translate it myself, but if someone wants to translate it then I can send them the files they would need. Android makes translating applications very easy and people doing it don't need to know how to program.

I am glad you like the app, thanks for all the ideas.
Baka-Tsuki reader for Android phones/tablets.
Search for "BakaReader" in Android market place or download from http://market.android.com/details?id=co ... bakareader
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fallingcirno
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Re: Official Baka-Tsuki Android App: BakaReader Available no

Post by fallingcirno »

Thanks for the prompt reply.

- Marking as Reading: I think that marking something as reading could be useful, if a person likes to keep up with multiple novels at once. But maybe not.
- Auto-watch list: I see your point, that makes sense.
- Reading whole novels: Ah, didn't realize that would be a problem. If reading by chapter is more manageable, just leave it that way.
- Sorting and filtering: These two, admittedly, are lower priority than the other things.
- Teasers: I was talking about these, but I think showing story synopses would be useful too (maybe as a menu item in the "Chapters" page).
- Language: By this, I meant the translations of novels into other languages (e.g., Spanish). You may want to see if there is demand for this first.
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andyrobo123
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Re: Official Baka-Tsuki Android App: BakaReader Available no

Post by andyrobo123 »

I am getting ready to put out the next update, it should be in the market in about an hour. This update is by far the biggest so far. I have tested it myself but if the update happens to break anything please let me know and I will fix it as fast as I can.

Included in this update is:
Ability to group chapters by volume (can be disabled in settings)
Ability to download every chapter in a volume
Ability to download every chapter in a novel
Added an indicator to chapters to show they have been downloaded
Fix bug where app forgets what chapter is being read (reported by ben1234)
A few other small fixes

Edit: Update has been posted
Baka-Tsuki reader for Android phones/tablets.
Search for "BakaReader" in Android market place or download from http://market.android.com/details?id=co ... bakareader
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Re: Official Baka-Tsuki Android App: BakaReader Available no

Post by d&c »

Hey Andy,

I've been a long time lurker of the site now, and was greatly impressed by your app. As a (now) second year CS student I'm greatly interested in how you did this app, would it be possible to see the source code?

Thanks
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ben1234
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Re: Official Baka-Tsuki Android App: BakaReader Available no

Post by ben1234 »

My phone's internal memory would like to beg for support for move to SD card
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cenatu
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Re: Official Baka-Tsuki Android App: BakaReader Available no

Post by cenatu »

i have an archos 28 internet tablet and it runs on the most recent version of android, bot i cant find the app in the market? HELP...
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ben1234
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Re: Official Baka-Tsuki Android App: BakaReader Available no

Post by ben1234 »

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cenatu
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Re: Official Baka-Tsuki Android App: BakaReader Available no

Post by cenatu »

yeah. that probably would work, but i cant even get it so show that i have the tab. it keeps telling me that i dont have any devices installed or sumthin like that. i registered it and everything and it still wont work. :?:
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revoltracers
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Re: Official Baka-Tsuki Android App: BakaReader Available no

Post by revoltracers »

I have been using the app on my Galaxy S since its release, and it's very good with the added features! I especially like the fact that whole volumes can be downloaded, as my connection to BT seems to be unstable from time to time. This app has become my preferred means of viewing BT content!
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andyrobo123
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Re: Official Baka-Tsuki Android App: BakaReader Available no

Post by andyrobo123 »

d&c wrote:I've been a long time lurker of the site now, and was greatly impressed by your app. As a (now) second year CS student I'm greatly interested in how you did this app, would it be possible to see the source code?
I don't plan to release the source code for the app. As for how the app works, it is fairly straight forward. It downloads a page from the Baka-Tsuki site then scans the HTML that makes up the page to extract the wanted information (list of noves, list of chapters or chapter text). It then stores the information inside a database which it uses to query and display.
ben1234 wrote:My phone's internal memory would like to beg for support for move to SD card
I will try and enable this on the next version and see how it works. The app is only about 300Kb so it shouldn't make much of a difference, but I know what its like to keep running out of space on a phones internal memory.
cenatu wrote:i have an archos 28 internet tablet and it runs on the most recent version of android, bot i cant find the app in the market? HELP...
From what I understand some archos devices didn't come with some of the default Google applications (Market, Gmail, Calender, ...) because people at Google didn't like them making Android Tables with earlier versions of Android, but some people have developed work arounds for it (such as http://code.google.com/p/archos-apps-installer). I don't know if this is your problem. I could send you a .apk file for the app to install but that would mean you wouldn't get the updates I release for the app.
Baka-Tsuki reader for Android phones/tablets.
Search for "BakaReader" in Android market place or download from http://market.android.com/details?id=co ... bakareader
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ben1234
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Re: Official Baka-Tsuki Android App: BakaReader Available no

Post by ben1234 »

andyrobo123 wrote:I will try and enable this on the next version and see how it works. The app is only about 300Kb so it shouldn't make much of a difference, but I know what its like to keep running out of space on a phones internal memory.
I was thinking of an option to store the downloaded chapters in the SD card rather than the phone's internal memory.
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Re: Official Baka-Tsuki Android App: BakaReader Available no

Post by d&c »

andyrobo123 wrote:
d&c wrote:I've been a long time lurker of the site now, and was greatly impressed by your app. As a (now) second year CS student I'm greatly interested in how you did this app, would it be possible to see the source code?
I don't plan to release the source code for the app. As for how the app works, it is fairly straight forward. It downloads a page from the Baka-Tsuki site then scans the HTML that makes up the page to extract the wanted information (list of noves, list of chapters or chapter text). It then stores the information inside a database which it uses to query and display.
So you have a HTML scraping application on a server, and just have the app querry it? Thanks for the help, I've alway wondered how it was done, perhaps I'll be motivated enough to try it now...
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andyrobo123
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Re: Official Baka-Tsuki Android App: BakaReader Available no

Post by andyrobo123 »

I posted an update last night, it includes:
Ability to view chapter summaries (menu -> info on chapter list)
Ability to move the app to the SD card
App now removes the new style navigation tables from bottom of chapters
ben1234 wrote:I was thinking of an option to store the downloaded chapters in the SD card rather than the phone's internal memory.
Currently the chapters are stored as text inside a database on the phones internal memory. It should be possible to store the chapters as files on the sd card and just have the database point to the files. It would be difficult to move the whole database over to the sd card, as Android give developers some nice ways of updating the database that are only available when the database is stored in the default location. Chapter text is the only large thing stored in the database, the rest is just small things like Chapter/Novel names, URLs, Chapter titles which don't take up much space.

I will do some testing to check how big the database can get and if I think it is getting too large then I will look at giving the option to move chapter text onto the sd card.
d&c wrote:So you have a HTML scraping application on a server, and just have the app querry it? Thanks for the help, I've alway wondered how it was done, perhaps I'll be motivated enough to try it now...
No, the phone does the scraping and stores the result in an SQLite database on the phone. I purposely designed the app in a way that meant I didn't need to keep my own server. There are pros and cons to having a server doing the scraping over the phone. Biggest advantage of having a server is that in can check for updates faster than a phone can (not limited by battery usage) and then push the updates to phones. Biggest disadvantage of having a server is that if the server breaks then so does the app (that and a server costs money :P).

Here is a simple example of how it works:
User opens the novel list page -> Phone downloads the Baka-Tsuki main wiki page -> Phone scans the page 1 line of HTML at a time -> when it finds a line with a novel entry it extracts novel name and novel URL -> Phone adds novels to SQLite database -> Phone gets novels list from database -> phone displays novels to user.
This is a bit simplified but it gives a general idea.
Baka-Tsuki reader for Android phones/tablets.
Search for "BakaReader" in Android market place or download from http://market.android.com/details?id=co ... bakareader
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Re: Official Baka-Tsuki Android App: BakaReader Available no

Post by gabgrave »

Hi, I would like to check which directory or where the database for the DL chapters are stored in the SD and internal memory card? Been trying to find them so I can back them up before I reset my phone, but have not been able to do so. I have set the settings to save to SD card and redownloaded the chapters, but still do not see it in the SD card. Any help would be great, thanks!
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Re: Official Baka-Tsuki Android App: BakaReader Available no

Post by ben1234 »

I found them in the /sdcard/android/data/com.andytank.bakareader folder on my Arc
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