Biblia.com on Amazon Kindle browser
I posted this on another thread:
Thank you. Biblia is certainly heading in the right direction.
I have, however, hit three problems in viewing the new version of the site on my Kindle:
1. Once I go to the full-screen view, I have no way of getting out of it or navigating. I cannot get the cursor to go up to the controls at the top: on reaching the top of the text pane it simply scrolls the text. I think I could get to the controls if I went right to the top of the text, but that would mean scrolling back 500 pages. In the multi-pane views I can simply move the cursor to the side to get out of the text pane. In the full-screen view I think I need a narrow strip on the left side that allows me to get out of the text pane and move my cursor to the controls at the top.
2. On entering the full-screen view I seem to move back about 50 pages and, because of problem 1, the only way to get back to where I was reading is to page down a few hundred times. This may only be when I have the text size increased, but is such a faff that I haven't experimented fully yet.
3. Pop-ups often fall off the edge of the screen. They are not confined to the text pane that I am reading. Presumably in full-screen view the other panes are still there but hidden, and the page is displaying the pop-up over one of the invisible panes.
Any help is appreciated.
Comments
Although problems 2 and 3 can be worked around if I stick to the normal text size, problem 1 remains the major issue. I need a way to be able to get to the controls at the top of the full-screen view. Because of the device I am using, I do not have a mouse that can move anywhere, I only have a cursor controlled by up, down, left and right buttons. At the top of the page it scrolls the text and the cursor won't move any further.
The Kindle's smaller screen size makes it difficult to work well with Biblia's layout. You might have a better experience on the mobile version of the site. There's a link in the sidebar that takes you to the mobile version. The mobile version doesn't have all the features of the full site (yet!), but it's designed for smaller screens and less-than-full-featured browsers.
Thanks Bryan. I tried the mobile version for a while and also reverted back to library.logos.com for a while. However, the two big things missing are:
1. footnotes,
2. the ability to resize text, either with the browser settings or in Biblia.
When do we get an update to the mobile version? Surely Biblia is primarily of use to those using mobile devices. If I want to view these resources on a computer screen I'll use Logos Bible Software.
Thanks for all your efforts.
Jonathan - do you have the Kindle 3?? If so, I am very interested in your Biblia experience. I am anxiously awaiting my Kindle and wondered (with all the latest improvements to Biblia) how it displays and performance
Having experimented a bit further, problems 2 and 3 seem to be mainly related to my desire to use a larger text size. Kindle offers only the opportunity to magnify the page not to actually change the text size, although on Biblia.com it does actually increase the text size while the main body of text (in the full-screen view) remains correctly placed. Pop-ups, however, are also magnified and fall off the page. There is no opportunity to scroll to be able to see them.
I can barely use the single-column or two-column views, even at the default text size, because the pan and zoom controls that appear on most websites on Kindle don't appear on Biblia.com. I can, therefore, only see the left-hand side of the page.
How far back the text jumps when I go to full-screen view seems to depend somewhat on whether I am using the magnification or not. If I am, it jumps back to page 360 of the book I am reading, no matter which page I was on. If I am viewing at normal size, it jumps to the start of the chapter I was reading, or the previous chapter.
It is difficult to say how much of this behaviour is due to the limitations of the Kindle browser and how much is due to Biblia.com.
An option to change text size within Biblia.com (perhaps retaining a smaller size for the pop-ups) might get around these problems.