eBook Library
Brief Description:
Version 6.2.1 and 6.2.2 are bug fixes. Mac Version 6.2.0 lets the user tap the spacebar to pause and continue reading. Windows XP version 6.0.0 is unchanged.
eBook Library was developed to help you practice speed reading at speeds from 50 to 1500 words per minute using plain text Unicode (UTF-8) encoded files. Steps to make such a file are provided below.
There are several ways to load an eBook into eBook Library. The eBook Library menu has three menu picks, one to help you find free eBooks, one to load an eBook from your eBookshelf and one to save an eBook file to your eBookshelf. You may also click on the "Choose New Source" button and navigate to a text file. You can pause and continue at any time. For example, you might start an eBook and decide to finish later. If you wish to continue reading the last text source used, click on the "Use Last Source" button (instead of the "Choose New Source" button) and the text will appear almost instantaneously, ready to start reading. eBook Library will remember the line at which you stopped and display this info when you start a new session. Your speed settings are saved between sessions. You can start reading at the beginning or at any line. You can use automatic or manual scrolling.
Displayed above, the user has selected the low end of the medium range. The speed is set for approximately 400 wpm. The full text can be seen very dimly in the background. As you can see, coding prevents breaking of words. The line width is a compromise between a normal newspaper column and a wide newspaper column. Each line is broken into two snapshots; text is displayed one snapshot at a time. Above, you see the right snapshot on the 628th line of a 3336 line text. Automatic scrolling is selected. The user stopped reading the last source text at line 611. If checked, the box at the top right of the window further dims the background text (useful for users who project the display on a large screen and the background text is more obvious). This setting is saved between sessions.
When eBook Library is launched the first time, a new folder named "eBookshelf" is placed in the Users/Documents folder. This folder is used thereafter to store eBooks. Above is a snapshot of an eBookshelf folder containing ebook texts.
Steps to make a text source file:
- Find the text (eBook or otherwise) you want to read. Restrict your selections to plain text, us-ascii encoding (not iso-8859-1) and no compression. This is important!
- Copy just the desired text.
- Paste into a new TextEdit (or equivalent) file. (Windows XP users can use NotePad.)
- Select TextEdit menu pick Format > Make Plain Text.
- Save As Unicode (UTC-8) file with ".txt" suffix.
- Use this file as the eBook Library text source file.
Downloads:
Click here to download Universal Binary Version 6.2.2 (2.6 MB zip file) for Macintosh (OS 10.2 or later).
Click here to download Version 6.0.0 (925 KB zip file) for Windows XP.
Please send comments and suggestions to youngpr@myactv.net