Document reader with EPUB files

[Carl Nilsson]

Is Pleco supposed to remember the last position of an EPUB document? Every time I open a document it loads from the first page (unless it's within the same session). As a kind of work-around I've tried to save bookmarks but sometimes when I open the document all the bookmarks have been deleted (or at least they don't show up within the e-book). Anyone else noticed the same thing or have suggestions for workarounds?

 

[mikelove]

Where are you opening this document from? The deleted bookmarks suggest at the problem is that Pleco is losing access to the document's bookmark file (which is also where it saves the last location). Is this maybe a document that's getting updated regularly somewhere?

 

[Carl Nilsson]

I imported it from my computer through iTunes so it is opened from within Pleco. It is an e-book and I haven't made any changes to it except changing the name of the file and the location. But it lost the position and the bookmark once more after that as well (when no other changes had been made). I've had the positioning many times before with other ebooks (EPUBs), so I actually thought that Pleco wasn't capable of remembering the position.

 

[Carl Nilsson]

No idea what's going on? I'm using an iPhone 5 with the newest version of iOS and Pleco.

 

[mikelove]

Sorry - no, not really sure, haven't had any other reports of this happening recently so it's tough to say; does this happen with *every* EPUB, or do some still remember their positions correctly? Did the other ones that lost their positions also lose their bookmarks at the same time? You haven't by any chance turned on the option to view hidden files + manually deleted some bookmark files, have you? And this is definitely stored in Pleco and not on an external service like Dropbox?

 

[Carl Nilsson]

I haven't used the reader with that many EPUBs but it did happen with the two most recent ones. I've only tried to add bookmarks to one book, but on multiple occasions and they have disappeared at the same time as the position has been lost.

Hidden files was turned off (and I haven't deleted any files manually), but now I tried to turn it on and saw that there was a bookmark file for the book even though I could no longer see the bookmarks. Do all books have hidden bookmark files, even those for which no bookmark have yet been saved?

As I mentioned in #3 I imported the EPUB from my computer through iTunes (not via Dropbox or iCloud), so the file is stored in Pleco on my iPhone.

 

[Carl Nilsson]

I tried opening an old EPUB file that I had not opened for months and that one still remembered its position so maybe it's a file issue.

 

[mikelove]

All documents have hidden bookmark files, yes - we also save your last position in them. We are most likely going to move to a centralized bookmarks repository in a future release, though; we already do that on Android because they make it pretty much impossible to reliably store / access hidden files. (hidden individual files were a pragmatic technical decision back in 2009 when we launched our iOS app but they don't really make sense anymore)

Any chance you might have backed up / restored your system at some point and had the bookmarks go missing after that? Wouldn't necessarily mean that they would all be deleted, the backup system might not have completely backed them all up before your wipe / restore.

 

[Carl Nilsson]

Maybe I backed up to iTunes (I don't remember) but I didn't restore the iPhone.

I've noticed that if you cancel the load up process, the position is forgotten. Say that I read an ebook at night and then the next day I want to look up some other word, then the EPUB starts to load and if I switch to the dictionary during the load up process, the next time the EPUB is opened it will load up the front page. I just noticed this this morning, and I successfully replicated it. Luckily the bookmarks weren't deleted this time.

 

[mikelove]

Interesting - to be honest very few EPUBs even take long enough to open for that to be a factor, so seems like we need to test this more.

 

[Carl Nilsson]

Now it reset the position again and all the bookmarks are gone... I don't think I did anything this time.

 

[mikelove]

Is this a large file that takes a long time to open? (might be that it relates just to file size and isn't specific to canceling the open operation)

 

[Carl Nilsson]

Yes, it is 4.2 megabytes and takes quite some time to load.

 

[mikelove]

That probably explains it, then - have you noticed bookmarks disappearing from any smaller files?

 

[Carl Nilsson]

No, not that I can remember, but as I said I haven't read that many EPUB files in pleco, I mostly use the clipboard reader or with text files.

 

[Carl Nilsson]

Maybe it can be related to activating/deactivating night mode? I lost my position in another text file just now right after that. And it is just not the position, but all individual settings for that file – font, font size, wider margin, etc., also resets.

 

[mikelove]

Could be that too, yes. EPUB reading is due for a revamp but probably won't get it until after some major flashcard + OCR revamps, so we'll see what we can do to address this in the meantime.