iRex Forum

[carandol]

Over at MobileRead, we've been creating PDF stationary for making notes on, and writing letters and things. It occurred to me that I could write a letter on decorative PDF stationary on the iLiad, then copy it over to the PC and send it as an attachment, for that personalised touch...

*Then* it occurred to me, that if some clever person were to create an email program for the iLiad which integrated the scribble function and an array of personalised stationary, we would have a device which could send and receive handwritten emails via wifi -- something none of the other ebook readers can do, and one which might actually attract more attention to the iLiad.

Anyone want to take up this challenge?

[Nergal]

the challenge can partly be fulfilled

I have just written a very very simple and dumb email-sender for the iLiad, 2 minutes ago received my very first email via iLiad *hurray*

It depends upon the beaver text editor to actually write the emails content and python for the email transfer.

Only smtp with no security features so far - was my absolutely first contact with programming something with email-protocols.

I think I'll post some more tonight including code and manual - atm I'm happy it works and very hungry . Stay tuned.

oh yes, no attachements yet, though this is planned and of course no scribbling yet, but I hope with the python-port it should be possible to rewrite the java-merger from Bert with python in a basic way. though nothing promised!

carandol, your idea is gorgeous - I have named my app in the hope to get your idea to work 'dLetter' (for 'digital Letter' - mark the 'L' as 2nd letter ) I hope you like the name.

Cheers,
Nergal
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dLetter - iLiad email client

[carandol]

Well, I'm glad you like the idea! Everyone else was noticably quiet. I shall look forward, hopefully, to seeing the software develop. Being able to send and receive email (sorry, dLetters!) on the iLiad strikes me as a Good Thing.

[zerospinboson]

yeah, you posted this idea a bit before i got my iLiad.
anyway, seems like a very cool idea

[Nergal]

have a look at http://www.urigal.net/post/80/. Load the tarball, inside there is an english-readme, with all information you need (at least i hope so )

have fun

Nergal

P.S.: Further information please at mobileread http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24629
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dLetter - iLiad email client

[daudi]

Hey, I'm glad you revived this, and indeed it is a great idea (for occasional use---probably best not use it on mailing lists that don't even like HTML email!).

I got a fair way with a script that took a different approach and then forgot about it. It doesn't try to send directly from the iliad, but instead processes the inbox on the PC. The user creates a PDF notepad and writes on that, and sets the title to be the email subject and the To: address in the description so no additional software is required. You then just write the email by hand, send it to the outbox on the iliad and then upload to your PC. I also created one piece of stationery for it. I think it probably needs more work, but it is able to send hand written emails. Script and an example of the attachment here.
There are a few issues with it, such as it is no good for windows users, and uses mutt to send the email (I don't have the time to look at other programs like metamail).
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My thoughts as I considered whether or not to buy an Iliad and things I've learned after getting one: http://davepublic.pbwiki.com/Great+expectations

[Nergal]

daudi, that is pretty much the same what i intended to code yesterday evening, but I thought I should give the python-port a try and since I wanted to write an iLiad application as well I finally got this hacked together.

The idea with subject in the title and adress in the manifest-file description was my first approach, too - but I wanted to keep it as simple as possible for the start, maybe I'll pick it up later on, since it is pretty limited to have only one receiver.

I have already written an scribble.irx parsermodule to georeference the strokes from a map-template.pdf (not released yet, part of another project) with Python on my notebook, I hope to reuse that code for the merging process.

btw -Cool Stationary ) and thanks for the script, it's a pity the JavaVM is soooo limited on the iLiad that the merger from Bert won't run.
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dLetter - iLiad email client

[daudi]

Hi Nergal,

My approach fits firmly into the category of nasty hack. What you are doing seems much more elegant and something that runs directly on the iliad will be great, especially if it is not dependent on the type of OS on the PC.

If you read some of the notes at the top of the script you'll see that I also started thinking about how to reply to emails by hand. Briefly, the idea was to format each email as a PDF, store email header info in the manifest, print the email header info with checkboxes, and print the body of the email all in the PDF. The user could then tick the appropriate checkboxes with the stylus to decide who the reply goes to and write comments on the body part of the email. There could be an extra page for additional comments. The edited email PDF would then be processed on the PC with the appropriate To: Cc: and Bcc: addresses taken from what had been stored in the manifest based on which checkboxes the user has ticked. I never started to implement this though.
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My thoughts as I considered whether or not to buy an Iliad and things I've learned after getting one: http://davepublic.pbwiki.com/Great+expectations

[-Thomas-]

[Nergal]

thanks Thomas, I have no clue of C, so it would be beyond my knowledge, but I think http://pybrary.net/pyPdf/ looks like what I want - but first of all I want to make the emailing work in general.

Than the scribble-merger solution, since it will be a complete app of its own. I think merging the scribbles without external PC would be pretty cool if with email or just to save a state of work, that shall not be overridden.
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dLetter - iLiad email client

[daudi]

[Nergal]

Just made the 2nd release - this time it lacks sending and does receive only. I thought you might nonetheless use it, since receiving is so far more useful than sending with the iLiad, at least I think it is .

I have edited the first post on mobileread http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24629 to make it easy to find the always latest version.

If you want to have both you need to put them into different folders on your iLiad or change the name dLetter0, dLetter1 ... as you like.

I think I have found a better way for sending emails, but that is in idea-stadium, so I might need some time to code and test it.

It looks like receiving even emails with non ascii characters works fine but this is not really tested, only an 'ö' got through, which I acidentially left

Nergal
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dLetter - iLiad email client

[Nergal]

And the 3rd release out in the web. This time with both sending and receiving.

(Update: for all of you who already had downloaded the latest version, please do so again, there was a typo in the released source code. look here: at mobileread for further information.

There are some issues left and possibly some bugs. But it works pretty cool.
Though I am halfway through what I want until version 1.0 it has only 0.4.9a to indicate that it is not thouroughly tested. This is up to you

You may download as ever here: http://www.urigal.net/medias/files/dLetter.tar.gz

There is a (hopefully) full manual included, which should help you to set it up.

Have fun with it,

Cheers,
Nergal![url][/url]
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dLetter - iLiad email client

[Nergal]

bug fix release ... look at the aforementioned links to my blog or mobileread.
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dLetter - iLiad email client