Welcome free PDF reader for Android: Skiba PDF Reader! .apk file is attached to this post.

The version is an early alpha, and I'm showing it for to reasons:
(1) Test it on real devices (I don't have one)
(2) Get feedback (bugs/problems)

Currently it only can render text, and it only renders it in black. No images, no other stuff. But it is text that we are mostly interested in, right?
It works reasonably well for small and medium documents, and will probably run out of memory on large (500+ pages) documents.
It also shows one page at a time. No fancy page scrolling for now. Use single tap to get up/down controls. Double tap to get zoom controls. You can also use d-pad for page navigation and zooming.

Please try it and report:
(1) Speed
(2) Ease of use
(3) Bugs (of course)
(4) Suggestions
(5) Etc.

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Version 0.1.7
* two stupid nasty bugs fixed

Version 0.1.6
* more parsing speed
* screen rotation handling
* new zoom controls
* extensive error reporting (crash reports, error reports)

New version, 0.1.3 is available (see first message).
It seems to actually work

C'mon guys, give it a try and share your experienece!

I think I'll start begging for feedback

Please, please, tell me whether it is working for you or not!

I've got two replies so far: "it always crashes" and "it works, but some letters are wrong". Obviously I cant draw a picture from only two replies. So, once again, please please install my program, try open some pdf, and post your results here!

Hi Dmitry,

I tested your reader with four documents, on Android 1.5.

1.) Single simple page with text, table and horizonal lines (3 KB)
The text displayed at the correct position, even in the table cells.
Some tables cells should have a grey background, but the background is white.
The horizontal lines and lines of the tables are missing.

2.) Single complex page with text and a lot of graphics (107 KB)
All text displayed at the correct position, all graphics are missing.

3.) Multipage bachelor thesis (83 pages, 722 KB)
Only the page header are shown on each page. The whole text and graphics are missing, also the table of content.

4.) Mulitpage game manuel (84 pages, > 6MB)
Only white pages.

What I liked
========
The navigation through the file system is very easy and plain. I like it very much. This part is worth a own application I would say!
The application never crashed during the test.
The zooming is ok. What I liked very much is the additional popup menu to select different zooming grades (100%, 200%, ...).


What I didn't liked
============
The arrows of paging are sometimes difficult to hit they should be larger.
To use the zooming menu you always have to double touch to open it. It should be available all the time.


I hope this helps...


Cheers,

Torsten

wiederke wrote:Hi Dmitry,

I tested your reader with four documents, on Android 1.5.

...

Cheers,

Torsten

Wow! Thank you very much Torsten, for such a complete test!

I'm planning to redone zoom menu in the next releases. I will also increase clickable area for up/down controls.
Drawing in color + lines and fills are planned next.

What bothers me much is that missing text and blank pages. Can you please mail me documents used in tests 3 and 4? My mail is Dmitry.Skiba at gmail.

Once again, thank you

Hi Dmitry,

the documents are on the way to you.


Cheers,

Torsten

New version (0.1.6) is out!

See first message for changlog and apk.


to wiederke:
I'm sorry, but the reader still won't open one of your documents (game manual) This is because that document is encrypted and reader doesn't support encryption yet. I will certanly implement it in the near future.

I've just tried it on two docs : the first was OK, and the second... hum... it was the phone manual provided by my carrier on the SD card, and it is 14 Mo ! So it crashed the application !

As for the utilization, I found it nice.
Some possible improvements :
* Speed. I'm sure you're doing whatever you can for this one, so I won't comment anymore
* Perhaps it would be useful on the G1 to change the orientation on a real orientation change rather than when the user open the physical keyboard ?
* Bookmarks : I found this really useful : have a list of last used documents, and for each document, open it where it was last opened !
* textual search : for technical documents, it is always welcomed to be able to look for something in the document !

On the bright side :
* it works ! And that's invaluable !
* the tap / double tap control is nice !


I will probably try to use it for real, to read real books, and I will let you know of any new comment !

Emmanuel7 wrote:I've just tried it on two docs : the first was OK, and the second... hum... it was the phone manual provided by my carrier on the SD card, and it is 14 Mo ! So it crashed the application !

As for the utilization, I found it nice.
Some possible improvements :
* Speed. I'm sure you're doing whatever you can for this one, so I won't comment anymore
* Perhaps it would be useful on the G1 to change the orientation on a real orientation change rather than when the user open the physical keyboard ?
* Bookmarks : I found this really useful : have a list of last used documents, and for each document, open it where it was last opened !
* textual search : for technical documents, it is always welcomed to be able to look for something in the document !

On the bright side :
* it works ! And that's invaluable !
* the tap / double tap control is nice !


I will probably try to use it for real, to read real books, and I will let you know of any new comment !

Thanks a lot, Emmanuel7!

Thanks to your crash report I was able to fix two really nasty bugs. I've updated the first message with version 0.1.7. Let's try to open game manual again

Now, for the suggestions:
* Speed. Yes, speed is my top priority. In fact, reader is missing features because I want to get maximum parsing & rendering speed first. I'm almost done with optimizing, and next thing is extensive caching
* Orientation change on flip. Seems like a good idea. Though implementing this feature without having the actual device can be hard. Can you tell me existing applications that support this kind of orientation change?
* Bookmarks (You mean 'Recent documents', right?). Oh yes! This will definately be in the next build.
* Textual search. I will think about it. Also I heard something of possibility of 'seach helper' which will allow to find text in pdfs with phone-wide search. That would be cool too.

Hi Skiba,

Nice to hear you could fix some bugs with my crash. I just though this crash was because the pdf was way too big !! ( even if in this case, detecting it and alerting about it is better ). By the way, the crash report you use is awesome !! I've seen it on this forum, and I should absolutely use it !

* Speed : I'm sure it's one of your priority. Caching looks like a good option there too ( some thing like always decoding the next page, as most of the time, users read pages in the order ).
* I think it is really simple : just add this in your manifest :
<activity android:name="MyApplication"
android:screenOrientation="sensor"
<...>
* bookmarks : no, I mean more than just recent document. I used a ebook reader on DS, and when I launched the application, it automagically opened the last document at the LAST OPENED PAGE ! So in addition to the recent document, you could store the last viewed page.
And, ideally, you could allow the user to add to a document bookmarks ( ie just the page number ), so they can navigate through the docs much more easily.

( note that all this are just improvement/suggestion, your appplication is already really nice ! )

Thanks for your work !

Emmanuel7 wrote:Hi Skiba,

Nice to hear you could fix some bugs with my crash. I just though this crash was because the pdf was way too big !! ( even if in this case, detecting it and alerting about it is better ). By the way, the crash report you use is awesome !! I've seen it on this forum, and I should absolutely use it !

* Speed : I'm sure it's one of your priority. Caching looks like a good option there too ( some thing like always decoding the next page, as most of the time, users read pages in the order ).
* I think it is really simple : just add this in your manifest :
<activity android:name="MyApplication"
android:screenOrientation="sensor"
<...>
* bookmarks : no, I mean more than just recent document. I used a ebook reader on DS, and when I launched the application, it automagically opened the last document at the LAST OPENED PAGE ! So in addition to the recent document, you could store the last viewed page.
And, ideally, you could allow the user to add to a document bookmarks ( ie just the page number ), so they can navigate through the docs much more easily.

( note that all this are just improvement/suggestion, your appplication is already really nice ! )

Thanks for your work !

Sorry for replying so late, I was busy at my work.

Thanks for screenOrientation tip, I will certanly use it.

Bookmarks: I was thinking of similar thing, only for several recent documents. I.e. each entry in 'recent list' will open document and restore exact position inside it (page number, scale, position on page). Though it adds one extra tap to return to your most recent document... And in-document bookmarks is also a must-have feature, I agree.


Well, thank you for sharing your comments, they keep me working on this thing

Hi,

I've just tried the 0.1.7 version with the 14 Mo HTC magic user manual, and it just works !
So nice work with this previous bugs !!

Now I'm waiting for your next release
( <teasing mode>just the orientation thing would be nice </teasing mode> )

Hi,

First of all, thanks a lot for your wonderful app... That's so helpful... I love it !

Today, I've got a problem with a simple PDF generated by Cute PDF : one sheet with only text, no image (everything is ok in Acrobat Reader). When i read it with Skiba, numbers are all displayed correctly but text is unreadable. It looks like an encoding issue.

I've attached an example of document. Maybe that's only a problem with Cute PDF which does not encode correctly the document...

Regards,

Thibault

king_albert wrote:Hi,

First of all, thanks a lot for your wonderful app... That's so helpful... I love it !

Today, I've got a problem with a simple PDF generated by Cute PDF : one sheet with only text, no image (everything is ok in Acrobat Reader). When i read it with Skiba, numbers are all displayed correctly but text is unreadable. It looks like an encoding issue.

I've attached an example of document. Maybe that's only a problem with Cute PDF which does not encode correctly the document...

Regards,

Thibault

Thank you Thibault for using my reader, and for reporting this issue! I will certanly investigate it. (It may not happen soon though, as I'm trying to build program for ADC II, trying to get my regular job done, and trying to finish renovations in my flat )

Dmitry

Very nice application. It might be useful to add a menu button to rotate pages. It happens very frequently to download documents with 2 or more pages/slides per sheet that need to be rotated