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- Freda

Windows Mobile Pocket PC 2003, 5 , 6 , 6.1(.NET Compact Framework 3.5)

Freda is a free program for reading electronic books (ebooks) on Windows Mobile devices. Features:
Compatible with Windows Mobile versions 6, 5 and 2003
Reads ePub (DRM-free), HTML and TXT format books
Touch screen interface
Works with all screen dimensions and orientations
Customisable controls, fonts and colours
Installation Instructions:
To install via ActiveSync ActiveSync is the preferred method for software installation on Windows Mobile devices. To install the package in this way:
1.On your Windows PC, download and run the Windows Desktop setup (MSI) program from here.
2.Once the setup program has finished, connect your Windows Mobile device to the PC, and wait for ActiveSync to begin synchronisation
3.ActiveSync will launch the installation process automatically; follow the instructions that appear on your PC screen, and on the screen of your Windows Mobile device. Depending upon the security settings on your device, you may receive security warnings about various components of the program. For the program to be installed correctly, you must accept these warnings, asking the installer to proceed regardless.
You can install the application in main memory or on a storage card, as you prefer. But do note that it may run very slowly if installed on a storage card; in this case, you will most likely want to turn off all the 'animation' displays (see 'Settings – Appearance'). The program may give an error message stating that it requires an updated version of the '.Net Compact Framework'. In this case, please to refer to the supplier of your Windows Mobile device, and ask them to assist with upgrading it. You can inform them that the software requires '.Net Framework version 2.0' (or any later version). Alternatively, you can install the upgrade yourself; refer to .NET Compact Framework 3.5 Redistributable. You will need to use the 'download' button to download the Framework's installer file onto your PC, then connect your device to the PC and (on the PC) run the NETCFSetupv35.msi file that you downloaded. Advanced users: installation directly onto the device It is also possible to install directly onto the device. Download the Mobile Install (CAB) file from here, and place it in any folder on the Windows Mobile device. Execute the CAB file (normally achieved by tapping on the file in an Explorer window), and it will install the program and all components in their default locations. You can now delete the CAB file from your device if you wish. The CAB installation will create (if it does not already exist) a folder \My Documents\Freda ebooks\, and place a copy of this document (Freda Manual.epub) in it. This folder is the default location for your library of ebooks (you can change it using the Settings - Folders screen). Un-installation Instructions: If you installed it using ActiveSync, you should use the ActiveSync application manager to uninstall the Freda application. Alternatively, you may remove the program from your device manually, by deleting the folder \Program Files\Freda and all its contents and subfolders.
Opening and Reading Books
Opening a book When started, Freda will display an initial 'splash' screen. To open a book, tap anywhere on the screen to open the Freda main menu. You can also open this menu using the 'enter' or 'action' key. From this menu, select the 'Open' option. A sub-menu will be shown, offering either 'Library' or 'Bookshelf'. The Library is the collection of all books currently in your library folder (by default, \My Documents\Freda ebooks\); the Bookshelf consists of the last twenty books you have opened. When you first run Freda, the Bookshelf will be empty, but once you have been reading some books, it provides a convenient way to return to a book you were reading earlier. Select the 'Library' option to bring up a view of your books as a detail list (one row per book, with filename, file type and folder shown in various columns). To sort by a particular column, tap on the column heading. Tap to select the book you wish to open, and then tap on the OK soft-key button at the bottom left of the screen. Freda will now load and paginate the book; during this process the program will show a grey screen with an animation. When the book is ready, Freda will display the first page (or in the case of a book that you have previously been reading, the last page you read). The 'Open->Bookshelf' menu option will bring up the bookshelf view: This shows all the books you have recently been reading, with the most recent at the top. For each book, a cover image is shown, then book title and author. To sort by a particular column, tap on the column heading. To open a book, tap on it, then tap the 'OK' softkey at the bottom left of the screen. Reading a book To move to the next page of the book, you can do any of:
1.press the right or down buttons on your device's key-pad/D-pad (if present)
2.tap the right soft-key button on the screen, labelled '>>' (if visible; if you have put Freda into 'full-screen' mode, this control will not be visible - see Full Screen Mode)
3.flick the screen with your finger-tip, as if flicking the page upwards, towards the top of the screen
4.flick the screen with your finger-tip, as if turning the page to the left
5.tap near the bottom or the right of the screen
Note: depending on how Freda's controls have been set up, some of these options may not work. See 'Settings – Controls'. To move to the previous page of the book:
1.press the left or up buttons on your device's key-pad/D-pad (if present)
2.tap the left soft-key button on the screen, labelled '<<' (if visible; if you have put Freda into 'full-screen' mode, this control will not be visible - see Full Screen Mode)
3.flick the screen with your finger-tip, as if flicking the page downwards, towards the bottom of the screen
4.flick the screen with your finger-tip, as if turning the page to the right
5.tap near the top or the left of the screen
Note: depending on how Freda's controls have been set up, some of these options may not work. See 'Settings – Controls'. When moving to another page, Freda displays a 'scrolling' animation. If this is not desired, you can switch it off using the 'Settings – Appearance' screen. While reading, you may encounter a page that Freda has not yet loaded or paginated. In this case, you will see the grey screen with the loading/paginating animation, while Freda prepares the page for you. Adding books to your library Freda's library of books consists simply of all books in the folder '\My Documents\Freda ebooks' on the device (note: you can change this location using Settings - Folders). If you have a book file on your PC, you can add it to Freda's library by using ActiveSync to copy the file into that folder. Alternatively, if you have found a book on the internet, you can download it directly into that folder by using your device's web-browser. Chapters and the loading of books ePub books are broken into chapters, and Freda takes advantage of this when loading books, by quickly loading whichever chapter you need to see, and putting it on-screen just as soon as it is ready. The program will carry on with loading all the other chapters as a 'background' task. If you have enabled the on-screen display of page numbers (see Settings - Appearance), you can see this because, until the book is fully loaded, the page number will be unavailable and a 'Paginating' message will be displayed instead. In the case of very large books, Freda may be unable to hold all chapters in memory at the same time. In this case, Freda will stop loading chapters, and will load/unload chapters on demand, so that you can always read the current chapter, but some earlier or later chapters will not be held in memory. In this case, the page number will be unavailable, and some features (such as 'Find' and 'Go To Page' will be unavailable. Although TXT book files are not broken into separate chapters, Freda internally treats them as if they were, to give better flexibility around loading and paginating them. Broadly speaking, Freda splits the TXT file into chunks of 1,000 lines, and treats each chunk as a separate chapter.
Working with Books
Go… The Freda main menu (accessed by tapping on the screen) includes an item 'Go …', which can be used to navigate to other parts of the currently open book. The items on the menu are as follows: Go Back: returns to the place you were before your last 'Go ...' operation. Go To Page: brings up a screen with a slider control that you can use to select the page number to move to, and a list of all available chapter names/numbers. Go to (chapter): allows you to jump directly to the start of any chapter in the book. Some of these options may be inaccessible ('greyed out') at any given time. For instance: 'Go Back' is unavailable if no 'Go...' operations have yet been performed, and the 'Go To Page' slider for page selection will not be available until all chapters of the book have been paginated (because until this has been done, we do not know what the pages' numbers are). Find The Freda main menu includes a 'find' option, to allow you to search for occurrences of a word in the book. If the option is 'greyed out' it means that the book is not yet fully loaded. If you accessed the main menu by tapping on a word, the 'find' option will search for the next occurrence of that word. If you tapped on a blank area of screen to bring up the menu, the 'find' option will present a screen for you to enter the text you wish to search for, and an option to set the search direction (forward or backward). If Freda finds the search text, it will switch to the page containing it, highlighting the first word containing the search text (to search again, tap on that word and pick the 'find' option). If Freda reaches the end of the book without finding the search text, it will display a message box to this effect; tap on the message box's 'OK' button to clear the message off the screen. Links/Hrefs Words within ePub and HTML books may be links ('hrefs') to another point within the book. Such words are, by default, displayed in blue. Tapping on a link word will 'go to' the link target. This will only work if that target points to a page that is already loaded, so you may get inconsistent results when following links in a book that is still loading. To return from following a link, use the 'Go... > Go Back' menu option.
Settings and Options
Full Screen Mode The main Freda menu contains an item to switch between 'Windowed' mode and 'Full Screen' mode. In 'Windowed' mode, the application title bar appears across the top of the screen and the soft-key buttons along the bottom. In 'Full Screen' mode, these elements are removed, and the whole of the screen is available for displaying book text. When you switch modes, you will see the 'Paginating' animation for a few seconds, while Freda repaginates the text to account for the change in the amount of screen space available for displaying text. Options: The main menu includes an 'Options' item with three sub-items:
1.Application Settings to adjust appearance, controls, folders and other settings which will be used regardless of which book is opened.
2.Book Properties to adjust code page and layout features which will be different for each book that you open.
3.Presets to let you save and restore application settings (for example, to let you quickly switch to a configuration that works best for night-time reading, or one-handed operation).
The 'Application Settings' option on the main menu will display a multi-tabbed screen, with tabs containing various screens on which you can adjust font face, size and colour, folders, appearance and various advanced settings. Tap on the ‘tab’ labels along the bottom of the window to move between these screens. When done, you can save your settings and return to the main reader screen by tapping on the OK soft-key button at the bottom left of the screen. Or to abandon your changes, tap on the Cancel button on the bottom right. Upon returning to the main reader screen, you may see the 'Paginating' screen for a few seconds, if you have made a change that affects the size of displayed words (font size, for example). Settings - Fonts and Colours The first two 'Settings' tabs allow you to adjust font face, size and colour. The font tab displays all the fonts faces availble on your device, and a range of plausible font sizes. The colour tab provides three buttons, respectively allowing you to adjust the foreground text colour, the background (paper) colour and the link (href) colour. Clicking on these buttons will bring up the standard Windows Mobile 'Color Dialog', which allows you to select a new colour for the chosen element. Note the behaviour of this dialog: First: tap on the coloured square to select a colour Then: tap on the 'ok' label in the title bar of the 'Color Dialog'. Settings - Folders This tab allows you to customise the folders used by Freda (useful if, for example, you wish to keep your files on a storage card). Two folder locations are customisable: Library Folder: controls where Freda will look for ebooks (by default, it looks just in the selected folder, but if you prefer it can scan that directory and all subdirectories. See Settings - Advanced. Note that Freda does not create these folders for you, and it does not move any files. Temp Working Folder: specifies where Freda will keep its temporary working files – for example, the html files that are produced by unzipping an ePub archive. Freda never purges these files (though you can do so manually, see Settings - Advanced) so you should pick a location where you know there is plenty of free storage space. To change one of these folders, tap on the corresponding 'Change' button. A tree view will be displayed, which you can use to specify the chosen directory location. When you have selected the folder you want to use, return to the main Settings screen by tapping the OK soft-key button at the bottom left. Settings - Appearance On this tab you can enable or disable the 'scrolling' and 'paginating' animations and the display of page number at the bottom of the page. You can also tell Freda to, on starting up, automatically open the last book you were reading, rather than starting on the 'Splash' screen. The final two options let you, respectively, change the width of the external leading (i.e. the number of pixels of blank space that Freda will leave around the edge of the screen) and the line-spacing. Settings - Controls This tab lets you customise the way that Freda responds to various control gestures. The available gestures are:
1.Tap at edge: a brief finger tap near to the edge (top, bottom, left or right) of the screen.
2.Tap middle: a brief finger tap anywhere other than the edge of the screen.
3.Long tap: keeping the finger pressed on the screen without moving it for around half a second (Note: actually, the handling of this gesture is not customisable; it always opens Freda's main menu).
4.Soft Keys: a tap on one of the '<<' or '>>' softkeys at the bottom of the screen.
For each gesture, available behaviours will be some or all of:
1.Change page: move to the next or previous page of the book.
2.Show menu: display Freda's main menu.
3.Ignore: do nothing.
You can also enable or disable the use of the swipe/flick gesture to change page, and tell Freda whether to use an up/down gesture or a left/right one. Settings - Advanced Options on this tab allow you to: Search Subfolders in Library: change the behaviour of the 'library' screen so that, in addition to searching the library folder, it also searches all its subfolders. Take care – if there are many files and folders under the library folder, it will mean that opening the library takes several minutes. Clear Temporary Files: delete everything in Freda’s temporary folder (where it keeps its working files). Take care – Freda just deletes everything in the directory; it does not make any effort to work out whether any particular file belongs to it. As long as you stick with the default setting (\Program Files\Freda\Temp) this will not be a problem Clear Bookshelf: forget all information about what books have previously been loaded (i.e. thumbnail images, last-opened page, etc.). This function does not delete any ebook files. The two 'Clear' options will be applied when you tap the 'OK' button - i.e. to clear the Bookshelf, tap (to 'tick') the option, then tap the 'OK' soft-key at the bottom left of the screen. The 'Book Properties' option on the main menu will display a screen allowing you to customise the rendering of the currently loaded book. When done, you can save your settings and return to the main reader screen by tapping on the OK soft-key button at the bottom left of the screen. Or to abandon your changes, tap on the Cancel button on the bottom right. The properties will be saved alongside the book details in Freda's 'Bookshelf', and will be used every time this particular book is opened in the future. Options on this screen allow you to adjust the code page used for decoding the file, increase or decrease the margin used, force the indenting of the first line of every paragraph, force the use of justified- or left-alignment and force the insertion of a line break after every paragraph. Note the following points: For EPUB and HTML books, the code page will normally be specified within the book file itself. For TXT files, the code page is not specified within the file, and by default Freda will just use the device's default code page. If this gives bad results (such as some characters - particularly accented characters and quote-marks - appearing as funny-looking symbols), you can use this screen to tell Freda to use a different code page, and see if this produces better results.
For EPUB and HTML books, margins (i.e. gaps above, below, left of and right of various elements) may be set using CSS style-sheets. Freda attempts to interpret these margins in a way that makes sense for display on a handheld device (for instance, a left margin of 1.5 inches would be sensible for a book printed on A4 paper, but would be daft on a screen that is only 3 inches wide). Freda approximates the correct margin width by looking at all the CSS margin settings in force for a given element, and setting a margin amount equal to 0%, 10%, 20% or 30% of the screen width. If, for a particular book, this gives more margin than you like, you can scale it down by setting the maximum permissible margin to 20%, 10% or 0% (which means no margin will be applied to anything, regardless of what the style sheet may say). For TXT books, there is no way to specify margin, and this option has no effect. Upon returning to the main reader screen, you may see the 'Paginating' screen for a few seconds. The 'Presets' option on the main menu provides a sub-menu with options to 'Load' and 'Save' presets. A preset is simply a named collection of application settings. You can save as many presets as you like. To save a preset, select the 'Save'option on the menu, and then either type in the name of a new preset, or select an existing one. The current application settings will then be saved under the specified preset name. To load a preset, select the 'Load' option on the menu, and select the preset you want from the list of available presets. The current application settings will replaced by the settings that were saved under the specified preset. Upon returning to the main reader screen, you may see the 'Paginating' screen for a few seconds.

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