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Programs for Reading Text Files?
dotpl asks: "Recently I acquired a number of books in text format from Project Gutenberg and archived them for later reading. When
I came to read, I realised how hard it is to read text files on the computer screen, so I thought about developing a 'reader' that you can read text files with, selecting the fonts and colors you like, and which has a bookmarking feature
- a la Vim - so you know where you were reading before. Then I realised that a software of the sort must already exist. How do you read big text files without suffering from severe eye strain?" While a browser may go a long way to providing the necessary functionality, most browsers bookmarking facilities are sorely lacking for this type of work, since they don't mark the position in the page, just the page, itself. Has anything like this been written?
You could try EText Reader, for linux or windows. Allows you to read zipped etexts as well as retrieve online Project Gutenberg texts. You can also select the font and bookmark stuff.
Maybe, but getting structure from unstructured text would be a bitch. carriage-return = end of paragraph, except when it's a blockquote, and single lines are assumed to be headings, except when they're in speech marks because that single line might be in the middle of a conversation... it's hell giving structure to plaintext, but once there XML would be suited (XML to XSL-FO to Printed Page).
To skip the PG boilerplate, search for the text END*THE SMALL, capitalized and punctuated exactly so.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Until there is a display technology available that doesn't have this [eyestrain] problem
The future is now. Here's how LCDs work.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Not a popular recommendation on /. I know, but the microsoft reader does what you want. It remembers the last page in an ebook you read, and lets you continue reading from that point next time you read that doc.
The Romans didn't find algebra very challenging, because X was always 10
If you have a palm, it's much much easier to just use Weasel Reader (formerly gutenpalm). It's actually designed for reading books, keeping bookmarks, etc - and even extracts the chapter headers for you when you create the pdb file from the txt file.
Also the palm screen is less straining than these bright old monitors, a lot less.
Daniel
Carpe Diem
I've used a whole lot of CRT monitors over the years ranging from really cheap to really expensive. I've just bought a PowerMacG4 and the 17" Studio Display from Apple. Compared to a highend Sun 20" monitor (Sony Tube) Without a shadow of a doubt this display is the best I have ever used. It's closer to a 19" CRT in feel though. Flat panels are still too damn expensive. (Bought a Mitsubishi Projection Screen HDTV rather than a Plasma Panel)
I want a second 17" Studio Display but I'll have to wait a few months before I can swing the $699 which is $200 off what I paid for the first 17"!
Tip: Turn down the brightness on your monitor/display, especially if the room is darker. Avoid flourescent lighting as well. You get a lot of flicker from flourescent lighting. The LCD doesn't seem to have the problem with flourescent lighting.
If you are on Mac OS X make sure you've set the Anti-Alias mode for the display you have. ie. Flat Panel or CRT.
Note: Samsung makes most of the Apple displays so look for their products for a PC clone. Really good displays.
Increase font size and experiment with black on white or white on black or white on blue, etc. I use gViM like this; change the color scheme now and then to give my eyes a break.
Printing a large book like one of the Mark Twain books would use a hell of a lot of paper. Reading 8x11 or 8x14 paper is not the same as a book either. Running something off like that at Kinko's would be expensive. You might as well go to the local library and borrow the book for real. Or buy your own copy.
The mobility - yes. I read almost exclusively from gutenberg, using the best document reader I've ever seen, which also happens to be free, cspotrun (Get it, see spot run? A simple reader.) It does everything you are talking about, and there's no flicker in PalmOS. Edit the texts and prep them with any of the utilities - I generally just use makedocw. The format (tealdoc, aportisdoc, whatever it is) compresses the docs about 2:1.
All of your docs are always at hand, and open to wherever you last viewed them, and with the autooff function of palmos, you can shut off the light and read a book that, if you fall asleep reading it, saves your place and turns off the light.
1. Open Gutenberg file in UltraEdit (shareware)
f f
2. Run this macro
InsertMode
ColumnModeOff
HexOff
UnixReO
Find "^p^p"
Replace All "QQQQ"
Find "^p"
Replace All " "
Find "QQQQ"
Replace All "^p "
3. Save file.
4. Run MakeDocW (free) on the file.
5. Hotsync to the Palm/Visor.
6. Read and bookmark in CSpotRun (free but you can send a donation). Annotate in something else.
The only thing that'll cost you is the PDA itself and I bet a used 2-meg one isn't that much.
The layout is attractive and natural, with ample margins, and no scrollbars or other such interruptions. The menus are all brought up by clicking on unobtrusive text at the top of the screen.
MS Reader also allows plugins which can be activated on selecting a word, changing pages, etc. The three I've seen are a dictionary, a translation utility and a verbal reader.
MS Reader uses .LIT files, which are pretty much just bundled and compressed HTML. It would be nice to see a similar open source book format.
With style sheets you're able to define exactly how the document should look, and display it across different platforms and browsers.
I use this concept, along with small scripts I've written myself (you know Perl, right? :) to read Sci-Fi / Fantasty titles I've downloaded from Direct Connect on my Zaurus PDA.
Highly recommended, since you can easily adjust the screen brightness on your preferred display device and turn off the regular reading lamp that's otherwise certain to annoy your spouse.
sig sig sputnik
There are a number of options out there for this, and it make take care of the text rendering on the screen, and you can print from them as well. You can even read pdfs on some handhelds as well (I can on my zaurus).
I would recommend this route if you know some programming and you should be able to piece something together.
and which has a bookmarking feature - a la Vim
So, uh, why don't you use vim then? Vim has a shitload of features for jumping around between files and remembering your spots. Just today I discovered that ctrl-O and ctrl-I moves you between files you've opened recently, furinstance. And it remembers your spot in each one. Use Gvim and change the font to HUGE and you can read with minimal eyestrain.
Personally, I use Emacs. I set the font to something san-serif, big, and very readable, use view-mode (for ease of scrolling), and use bookmarks. I also make the Emacs full-screen; even the title bar goes off the screen.
I do this on my laptop, and this helps.
But usually, I prefer to use paper.
GutenMark is a GPL'd program to format Project Gutenberg files into LaTeX. From here on, this can be converted into PS or PDF (sample), which can be easily read in a viewer with a large font size. This program also removes the PG banner, seperates text into chapters and italizes the appropriate words. And the page numbers give you free bookmarking.
Also, it comes with programs to convert .txt files, so you can also use ps2ascii and read postscript or even PDFs.
Try setting the background to black and the text to a low intensity shade of white (or colour). Increase the fonts to a size above average for text book reading, and doublespace. For me, it gives the least eye problems. I do almost the same for coding. Otherwise my eyes start to hurt aftere a while.
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Someone already mentioned Emacs, but...
It'd be trivial to bind a command to a key that allows the bookmarking of a file (ie, saving of a line number to .#filename or some such), and another jump-to-bookmark function as well. Heck, if you were feeling particularly l33t, you could extend normal text mode to do it for you (ebook-find-file automatically jumping to bookmarked line). As for fonts, it's quite simple to either change the fonts in XEmacs or (as I prefer) simply up the font size on your terminal emulator.
The nice part about emacs is that you can also write a quick script to remove useless text, like the license stuff at the beginning, since most of it is standard cut-and-paste. Not that you'd want to distribute such an edited copy, but for your own personal use. Plus, it's not like you have to go download emacs from some site...
- Cloud
http://kickme.to/ebookfaq/
look at the e-book readers section. You will find something you like on that page.
I had the same concern (I sit in front of a computer 8 hours a day at work) so I asked an optometrist this week. Her answer: looking at a computer screen causes 'short term' eye strain, but no long term damage. Basically, get a good night's sleep and your fine.
This post cannot be rebroadcast without the express written constent of Major League Baseball.
Video cards can pump out high resolutions at fairly good refresh rates, but there are two limiting factors: the monitor and the quality of the video.
:)
Sure, a video card can pump out 1600x1200 at 85Hz, but it doesn't help if a monitor can only do 1280x1024 at 75Hz. Also, the quality of the RAMDAC and the components between it and the monitor are also very critical. Some people have complained about the GeForce's 2D quality, some haven't...
That's why I love my Matrox G450 and dual monitors at work (1600x1200 @ 85Hz each)