User manual

Mobile Bookshelf - a book reader for cell phone.

Mobile Bookshelf transforms text file(s) into a MIDlet - program that can be executed on a mobile handset. When such midlet is started on mobile phone, it lets user to read the text files embedded in it.

Using Mobile Bookshelf GUI user can choose many text formatting parameters - such as a font, interline spacing, etc. Mobile Bookshelf GUI provides preview function that demonstrates how the text will look like, when it's displayed on a mobile phone.

Before installing Mobile Bookshelf, please make sure that you have JRE (Java Runtime Environment) version 1.4.2 or better, installed on your computer. To verify version of JRE you can execute command "java -version" in command window (Start -> Run -> cmd). You should see the message similar to the one below:

java version "1.4.2_05"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.4.2_05-b04)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.4.2_05-b04, mixed mode)
      

If you don't have JRE installed, you can download it, using the link below:

Mobile Bookshelf distributed as a zip archive, to unpack it please use appropriate program (for example WinRAR or WinZip).

After you've unpacked it, you can launch it using the bookshelf.bat or bookshelf.sh if you happen to use some sort of *nix OS.

Mobile Bookshelf GUI is a program that builds Mobile Bookshelf midlets.

Menu

Using the menu you can add or remove text files, select the default values related to text formatting, choose the model of mobile handset and configure plugins.

Some menu items are accessible with a hotkeys, for example hotkey for File -> Save is Ctrl-S and hotkey for File -> Open is Ctrl-O.

"File" menu

Open

Add text file to a current midlet.

Save

Save midlet (including all it's text files) to a disk file.

Close

Close current text file and remove it from the midlet.

Exit

Leave program.

"Configuration" menu

Phone model

Set the model of your handset.

Interface

Interface language, default save and open folders.

Source text

Source text settings, paragraph offset, encoding.

Formatting

Hyphenation, fonts, interline spacing, etc.

Screen Rotation

Rotates screen 90 or 270 degrees for reading in landscape mode.

Plugins

Add and remove midlet plugins.

"Fonts" menu

Import System font

Imports the font from the set of the system fonts available to java runtime.

Import Palm font

Imports Palm (.pft or .pdb) font from the disk file.

Delete font

Deletes imported font.

Main area

Main GUI area shows files that are currently open. Each file occupies separate tabbed panel with it's filename shown in the tab title. All panels also have controls and preview area.

"Result" controls

Name

Name that will be used to identify this file amongst the others included in the midlet.

Font

Font for a text.

Interline spacing

Space in pixels between text lines.

Paragraph offset

Empty offset at the start of every paragraph.

Justify

Justify right edge of the text.

Hyphenate

Perform hyphenation.

Left margin

Adds one-pixel margin at the left to improve readability.

"Source" controls

Language

Text language, used for hyphenation.

Encoding

Text encoding.

Paragraph start

Number of spaces at the start of paragraph in the source text.

Preview area

Using the "Preview" button you can generate a preview of a text, with "Up" and "Down" buttons you can scroll text up and down.

Saving midlet

After you've added all required files to a midlet, and formatted texts according to your preferences, you can save midlet to a disk file.

To save midlet please use menu item (File -> Save) or a hotkey. Midlet will be written with the name you've chosen. Two files will be generated one with .jad and the other with .jar extensions. Both files must be copied to a handset, to a proper location.

Font import

Please note, that fonts antialiasing option is intended for color displays, such fonts will not look good on black-and-white displays.

Also, you can't set font color and font background for fonts imported with ClearType antialiasing.

After you've installed the midlet, you can start it like any other java program. Then you'll briefly see a welcome screen, and the text of the first book included in a midlet will be displayed:

Scroll text with a joystick or a numeric keys, by page or by line. Midlet will automatically remember the current text position and the current book (if there are several books in the midlet). The rest of functionality is implemented in a form of plugins, and can be removed or added to a midlet.

Plugins

Menu

Displays menu (activated with the right sofbutton), with the "Exit" menu item. Some plugins (for example "gopage") use this plugin, adding own items to its menu.

Info

Shows informational page: date/time, current page number, number of pages in the book, book title. Activated with a numeric button 5.

Gopage

Allows to go to a specified page in the text, activated through the menu.

Switchbook

Allows to switch between several books in the midlet.

Autoscroll

Automatically scrolls text by page, line or by horizontal pixel row, according to the chosen time interval. Activated via menu, time interval is adjusted using the joystick (to left - to right).

Autoexit

To preserve battery charge, this plugin turns off backlight after five minutes of inactivity and exits midlet after 15 minutes.

Plugin wil not perform any actions if midlet is in autoscroll mode.