PRST1 Modified Reader

Modified Reader

The modified reader is a version of the Reader software that comes with the PRST-1. It has been modified by mobileread user Morkl initially to fix bugs in the Sony software but later more features were added to it.

Features

This reading app provides you with the following benefits:

• Possibility to install and use fonts of own choice. You can select these fonts in the same way as in the stock reader.
• Influence the way the text is shown through custom css
• Full page refresh only every x turns
• Ability to enable a small clock shown at the bottom of the page during reading.
• Ability to customise the 8 font-sizes on the Menu - Font pop-up. Values can be set independently for each book format (epub, pdf, txt)
• Fixes the bug in the original reader where fonts other than default have problems rendering bold/italic text

Installation

Prerequirements

Update your reader to official Sony firmware version 1.0.04.12210

Where to get it

You can download the "June Reader" from:

• morkl's page
• JuneReader.zip was attached to post #3 by nrapallo in Morkl's thread
• Mediafire
• Mega.co.nz
• Allereader (registration required) Link rediscovered thanks to kutyafulu.

How to install

• on a windows machine, connect the Reader through USB (Data Transfer Mode)
• unzip the downloaded file
• navigate to the folder install_noroot
• Run (double click) flash_reader.bat
• Check and confirm the drive letter of the connected reader.
• The reader will reboot after a short time.

If you want to install this using Linux or Mac, please refer to the procedure described here.
The manual installation procedure (without using the batch file) is described here.

Configuration

How to use custom fonts

For a detailed discussions on the implementation see here (and following posts).
There are many ways to do this. If you are used to the implementation of custom fonts in PRS+, you will feel quite comfortable. What is shown here, is basically an abriged version of jackie_w's post. For more detailed information please see jackie's post. It's very helpful.

• Copy all the non-built-in font files (otf or ttf) you might ever want to use to directory [READER Drive:]\reader\fonts
• Create your configuration file, [READER Drive:]\reader\reader.xml using a simple text editor, or edit Morkl's included sample file. With this file you can define, which names your fonts will be shown with in the font-selection tool and obviously, to which actual fonts the shown font names are linked to.

This is an example, you might want to use as a starting point and edit it due to your requirements.

<reader pagesPerRefresh="1">
    <fontSizeTableEpub>
        <int>75</int>
        <int>80</int>
        <int>85</int>
        <int>90</int>
        <int>95</int>
        <int>100</int>
        <int>105</int>
        <int>110</int>
    </fontSizeTableEpub>
	<styles default="/mnt/sdcard/reader/css/default.css">
		<style name="Amasis" file="/mnt/sdcard/reader/css/Amasis.css" />
		<style name="Frutiger Neue" file="/mnt/sdcard/reader/css/FrutigerNeue.css" />
		<style name="Palatino nova" file="/mnt/sdcard/reader/css/PalatinoNova.css" />
		<style name="Really No2" file="/mnt/sdcard/reader/css/ReallyNo2.css" />
		<style name="Univers Next" file="/mnt/sdcard/reader/css/UniversNext.css" />
		<style name="Verdana" file="/mnt/sdcard/reader/css/Verdana.css" />
	</styles>
	<informationBar left="none" right="clock_hm" />
	
</reader>

• Create your 7 custom css files and place them in directory [READER Drive:]\reader\css
  • The first css file to create is [READER Drive:]\reader\css\default.css, and is where the bulk of your effort goes. Here is the contents of default.css in this worked example.

@font-face {font-family: serif; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; src: url(res:///ebook/fonts/../../mnt/sdcard/reader/fonts/CharisSILR.ttf)}
@font-face {font-family: serif; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; src: url(res:///ebook/fonts/../../mnt/sdcard/reader/fonts/CharisSILI.ttf)}
@font-face {font-family: serif; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; src: url(res:///ebook/fonts/../../mnt/sdcard/reader/fonts/CharisSILB.ttf)}
@font-face {font-family: serif; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; src: url(res:///ebook/fonts/../../mnt/sdcard/reader/fonts/CharisSILBI.ttf)}

@font-face{ font-family: sans-serif; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; src: url(res:///ebook/fonts/FrutigerNeueLTW1G-Regular.otf)}
@font-face{ font-family: sans-serif; font-style:italic; font-weight:normal; src: url(res:///ebook/fonts/FrutigerNeueLTW1G-Italic.otf)}
@font-face{ font-family: sans-serif; font-style:normal; font-weight:bold; src: url(res:///ebook/fonts/FrutigerNeueLTW1G-Bold.otf)}
@font-face{ font-family: sans-serif; font-style:italic; font-weight:bold; src: url(res:///ebook/fonts/FrutigerNeueLTW1G-BoldIt.otf)}

@font-face {font-family: monospace; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; src: url(res:///ebook/fonts/../../mnt/sdcard/reader/fonts/DarkCourier.ttf)} 
@font-face {font-family: monospace; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; src: url(res:///ebook/fonts/../../mnt/sdcard/reader/fonts/DarkCourierI.ttf)} 
@font-face {font-family: monospace; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; src: url(res:///ebook/fonts/../../mnt/sdcard/reader/fonts/DarkCourierB.ttf)}
@font-face {font-family: monospace; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; src: url(res:///ebook/fonts/../../mnt/sdcard/reader/fonts/DarkCourierBI.ttf)}

@page {margin-top: 10pt; margin-bottom: 0; margin-left: 5pt; margin-right: 5pt;}

body, body.book, body.text, body.calibre, body.calibre1, body.calibre2, body.calibre3, body.calibre4 {
    font-family: serif; 
    line-height: 1.2;
    margin-left: 0; margin-right: 0;
    text-align: justify;
    }

• • The other 6 css files are much faster to make. Create a copy of your first .css-file using the filenames of your choice (what you defined in your xml file) and then adapt the filenames of the fonts, you want to be used.

Advanced css settings

There is discussion in this custom fonts thread as well as in the home screen thread regarding advanced css settings. There is a lot of detailed information and examples in this post by jackie_w.

Define number of pageturns until next page refresh

If you do not like the full page refresh at every pageturn, you can set the number of pages being turned, until the next full page refresh takes place. If this numer is very high, you will see "ghosting" after a while. To get rid of ghosting, set this number to a lower value.
At the beginning of the xml file you will find this line:

<reader pagesPerRefresh="1">

The default value is set to 1, you can adjust it to your liking.
A setting of 1 is equivalent to the original Sony stock default, i.e. full refresh for every page turn.

Using the clock

At the end of the beforementioned xml file, you will find this line:

<informationBar left="none" right="clock_hms" />

• If you want the clock to show only hours and minutes, without seconds, delete the s in clock_hms
• If you prefer no clock in the bottom of the page, replace clock_hms with none

Example configuration files

A zip file containing example configuration files (reader.xml & 7 CSS files) is available here.