Please note: It is very important to close any opened text file, go back to the library view before upgrading.
0. The update is free for existing BookZ users!
To download/redownload the update, you need to click “Buy” and iTunes will remind you this update is free.
1. Before upgrading
- Quit the reading interface and get to the library view before upgrading. (Very Important)
- Connect to iTunes, do a backup.
- Note down any important bookmarks. For example, there is an important bookmark at 10% of the book within the paragraph “Doooooog blah blah blah”, you need to note down “Doooooog” (10%). In case the upgrade fails, you could always know where you were in a book.
- Updating with iTunes is preferred as updating via WIFI sometimes corrupts the binary.
2. Important tips/tricks in the new version
- Encoding settings: You could load text files encoded in Latin, Greek, Russian (Cyrillic), Chinese (GB18030, BIG5), Japanese (S-JIS, Japanese(EUC), Jap ISO2022) and lots of other encodings.
- Google Pages now work with BookZ. You could upload any text files to Google Pages(free!) and download them with BookZ. Notice that text files must end with “.txt” in order to be recognized.
- You could now edit book names by tapping the little blue arrow to the right of a title in the library view.
- Web view now supports bookmarks! It will automatically load the first item in your bookmark list.
3. Highlights in this version
- Integration with the Project Gutenberg: Give BookZ a title and it could find the book for you in the Project Gutenberg–all in the iPhone-ish way!
- Download Center automates book downloading for you
- 20+ encodings supported
- Lots of adjustment for user-friendliness
- Significant stability improvement
4. Why is the “+” button in the library view gone?
Because looking into other’s territory is not allowed ; )
5. Why is my existing library gone?
Application data is managed by iTunes. Unchecking BookZ and “Apply” in iTunes will result in all books being wiped out.
6. Oops, my upgrade was not successful…
The issue: a text file was opened before the upgrade process and thus the data was broken.
The fix: If you have backed up your iPhone/iPod Touch before upgrading, you could restore, close any file opened by BookZ and re-upgrade. Without a backup, the only way is to perform a clean install of BookZ.
July 26th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
I love the new version! Good improvements all around. Another new feature not mentioned above is the ability to bookmark pages in the web browser – nice.
July 26th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Thanks Joel: )
July 27th, 2008 at 1:05 am
Iam having problems after the app upgrade. Now the app crashes everytime I try to start it. What can I do to make the app work again?
July 27th, 2008 at 2:59 am
Running this update killed the app on my iPod. Now when I try to launch it, it just crashes and returns back to the home screen. Have tried a full reboot of my iPod but still get the same results. Have also removed it from the iPod and copied it back via iTunes, and still the same result. No more BookZ working for me.
Any tips on how this can work again ?
July 27th, 2008 at 3:33 am
An addendum to the previous comment .. I got the app working again. Had to delete it from my iPod, restore the previous version from iTunes (losing my library, bookmarks, etc), then download the update in iTunes and install it again.
Also had to re-setup all my preferences and download my library again.
Do you have a process to report bugs Steve? I’ve already found a few in this new version
July 27th, 2008 at 9:45 am
The problem has been found: a text file was opened when performing the upgrade and thus broke the data.
To avoid losing data, please CLOSE ANY FILE, GO BACK TO THE LIBRARY VIEW before upgrading.
Thanks
July 28th, 2008 at 8:43 am
Can you explain how the Bookmarks work? Does Bookz insert a bookmark into the txt document? If so, can you explain what the software looks for?
I’d like to manually put in book marks into the original txt file before I upload it to the file. It would be nice to know how the software reads and records bookmarks so I can do that on the original text file.
July 28th, 2008 at 8:54 am
Joe:
BookZ records its bookmark to somewhere else. If it records directly to the text file, you’ll have to wait for like 10 seconds to set a single bookmark ; )
In-text tags has not yet been implemented and that’s why there is a “Search” function in BookZ. While you are reading, you could search for, say “Chapter 3″ and BookZ will try to find the string “Chapter 3″ and jump to that location.
Steve
September 9th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
I am a Chinese and I spent $4.99 on the BookZ. So I want to know whether I can read a txt book in Chinese with BookZ. I have trid to upload some Chinese txt books to my Ipod Touch. The BookZ can display the Chinese characters correctly, but not all the consents can be shown. I do not kown what’s the problem. Thank you.