Freda update 5.2 is now being deployed. This release includes various bug fixes, and a transition to more up-to-date versions of various code components (which may mean improved stability, or may not). The major changes are:

• Google Drive browsing is no longer supported, because Google's access policies have changed
  
• It's now possible to sideload Freda from my web site, and there is the option to purchase a premium features licence for a sideloaded installation
  

Hello

I was recently sent a Epub book by its author and when I try to open the file with Freda (and Aquile), it seems that some of the text is scrunched up over the top of itself on the left side of the page.
I am using a Microsoft laptop and I am not much above sending emails in terms of computer skills. Is there anyone who might be able to suggest where the problem lies?
Would a screen shot of one of the pages help? I don't seem to be having much success with that either. 

Thanks

Jennifer

Hello,
It seems every thread after 2-3 threads is me complaining
I've been using Freda with license I bought from play store for almost a year and now with the updates I'm trying to share the license with my windows pc so I can sync between them.

Quote:On the device that already has a licence:

1. Start Freda, and on the main menu choose 'licence'.
   
   
2. You'll see a popup saying that premium features are available on this device, and a 'sharing' button.  Tap the 'sharing' button.
   
   
3. On the next popup, tap the 'consent' button.
   
   
4. If you haven't already signed in to OneDrive, Freda will ask you to do so.  Tap the 'login' button, and supply user name and password if needed.
   
   
5. Next, you'll see a popup saying "Freda will share licence information for (your user name) ...".  Tap 'continue'.
   
   
6. Now, you will see a popup message saying that the licence has been made available for sharing.  You can close this popup.
   
   

On the device that doesn't yet have has a licence:

1. Start Freda, and on the main menu choose 'licence'.
   
   
2. A popup will be appear, showing the message "Premium features have not been purchased on this device...".  Tap the 'sharing' button below that message.
   
   
3. On the next popup, tap the 'consent' button.
   
   
4. If you haven't already signed in to OneDrive, Freda will ask you to do so.  Tap the 'login' button, and supply user name and password if needed.
   
   
5. Next, you'll see a popup saying "Freda will share licence information for (your user name) ...".  Tap 'continue'.
   
   
6. Now, you will see a popup message saying that a shared licence has been found, and is now being used, so premium features are unlocked. You can close this popup.
   

Hi, We, the wife and I, have been very happy using Freda premium for many years on our old Android devices.

We just got two new tablets as mentioned above, one upgraded to Android OS 13 where Freda works as expected. However, for some reason, the other tablet upgraded to Android OS 14 and Freda is just haywire, very unresponsive. I understand that Android OS 14 is very new, so my question is should Freda work on it? Secondly if there are problems with this OS will the problems be resolved? I'm happy to wait awhile.

Regards Bernard.

Hello,
since the program overhaul, I have been having multiple problems with the new sync and archive functions. Before getting into detail, thanks for the work, been using the app happly for quite some time.

I'm currently using the windows 11 store app on my pc and android app on my phone and trying to sync books from pc to phone and bookmarks both ways. (I'm saying sync but I'm using the archive function because it is similar to the sync'ing procedure before the update)

I came across a few problems:

  1. One Drive connection seems logged out when probably it is not. (Both on pc and phone)
When I enter to sync and archive, the button at the bottom reads "connect to OneDrive", when you click on it a few times (sometimes at first click sometimes at third, I wait a little after each time) it becomes "reset the OneDrive connection" without asking for password.
Unless I do this I can not import or export archives.
Since it is not asking me for password, I'm guessing even though OneDrive is logged in, it only looks like it is logged out and because of this some features doesn't work.

  2. Ebook bookmarks doesn't get imported with archives or doesn't work even if it is getting imported. [b](Both on pc and phone)[/b]
I'm assuming bookmark means where you closed the book last time. It always opens the book from first page if book and bookmark is newly imported, if book is not newly imported but bookmark is newly imported it opens the book from the last page I was on that device and not the page from the imported bookmark.
I do select "bookmarks and highlights" both while exporting and importing and I can see journal files being created at One Drive which I assume corresponds to bookmarks and highlights.

  3. Ebook series with long titles doesn't get downloaded correctly. (Export from pc, import from phone)
For example:
I have books from a light novel series called "The Irregular at Magic High School".
TL;DR: 
Even though the file name is short, Freda, as far as I can tell, merges the book title with author names and limits the max length by deleting the middle part.
Since the book titles are named as "<light novel name>, Vol. <number in the series>: <that parts name>" and authors are almost always the same, the number and the book name gets deleted.
Resulting in all books in this series getting the same name on freda archives:"the+irregular+at+magic+high+sch-=-tsutomu+sato,+kana+ishida.epub"
So when exporting from pc to archive everything is ok but, when I download from archive to phone it somehow downloads same book multiple times instead of different books.

Long version:
For example, I delete everybook from both pc and phone.
I open 2 books at PC:
First books title is "The Irregular at Magic High School, Vol. 2: Enrollment Arc, Part II".
I shortened the original file on my pc to "MKnR 02 Enrollment Arc, Part 2.epub".

Second books title is "The Irregular at Magic High School, Vol. 3: Nine School Competition Arc, Part I".
I shortened the original file on my pc to "MKnR 03 Nine School Competition Arc, Part 1.epub".

When I export them from pc to archive, 2 files are created at OneDrive:
"mknr+02+enrollment+arc,+part+2-=-.epub"
"mknr+03+nine+school+competition-=-.epub"

When I try to import them to phone from the archive a third file is created:
"the+irregular+at+magic+high+sch-=-tsutomu+sato,+kana+ishida.epub"

And I see errors at the archive page logs(this is probably something else it says source 'feedbooks' and source 'calibre' and so on..):
"failed to replay sync action to create source because a source of this name already exists on this device"



After the archive is imported when I check the books on the phone, according to titles, there are 3 books (I'm shortening the names):
"Vol 3" , "Vol 3" , "Vol 2"
But when you open them all of them are actually "Vol 3" and all of them have "Vol 3"s thumbnail.

Freda provides basic book-reader capabilities free of charge, but  certain features are restricted until you pay for the 'premium features' add-on.  In addition, unless you have paid for this add-on, a message will be shown next to a grey button at the bottom of the main app screen, informing you that premium features have not been paid for, and every now and then the app will show a popup message, suggesting that you buy the premium features package.

Once you have acquired a licence for the premium features, they will be unlocked and the nagging messages will go away, and all app functionality will be available without restriction.  There are three ways to get a licence:

1. Tap the grey button on the main app screen, and make a payment (via Google Play Store for Android devices, or the Microsoft Store for Windows devices); or
   
2. Have the licence granted to you automatically by Freda, because it detects that you've been using the app on this device since early 2023; or
   
3. Share a licence that you have on some other device (because on that other device you've met condition 1 or 2 above).
   

• On the device that already has a licence, tell Freda to add the licence to Freda licence server database
  
• On the device that doesn't yet have a licence, tell Freda to check the licence server database and see whether a licence is available for your OneDrive id (email address).
  

1. Start Freda, and on the main menu choose 'licence'.
   
2. You'll see a popup saying that premium features are available on this device, and a 'sharing' button.  Tap the 'sharing' button.
   
3. On the next popup, tap the 'consent' button.
   
4. If you haven't already signed in to OneDrive, Freda will ask you to do so.  Tap the 'login' button, and supply user name and password if needed.
   
5. Next, you'll see a popup saying "Freda will share licence information for (your user name) ...".  Tap 'continue'.
   
6. Now, you will see a popup message saying that the licence has been made available for sharing.  You can close this popup.
   

1. Start Freda, and on the main menu choose 'licence'.
   
2. A popup will be appear, showing the message "Premium features have not been purchased on this device...".  Tap the 'sharing' button below that message.
   
3. On the next popup, tap the 'consent' button.
   
4. If you haven't already signed in to OneDrive, Freda will ask you to do so.  Tap the 'login' button, and supply user name and password if needed.
   
5. Next, you'll see a popup saying "Freda will share licence information for (your user name) ...".  Tap 'continue'.
   
6. Now, you will see a popup message saying that a shared licence has been found, and is now being used, so premium features are unlocked. You can close this popup.
   

Longtime user on a windows tablet...and yes I have seen some very odd advertisements over the years.

At first I was not happy with the V5 update.... but now that I have read why you did it I find it commendable.

After first launch I had to set things up again and I noticed two things:

1). There was an issue after tablet reboot (update) that Freda lost the last page you were on. It did not used to do that, I think someone else has also mentioned that.

2). Page turning has changed... and I often see the page swipe as if it turned, only to find it is still on the same page.

Most recent update was within the last week and a new issue has developed. The DLL for MOBI is crashing during the opening of a Mobi format book, leaving FREDA in an uncertain state. This did not occur in the first update to V5 as I was reading the same mobi encoded book then.

Of course I had a MOBI encoded book open at the time of update, which cause confusion and I tried reinstalling and other remedies. I just converted the book to EPUB (elsewhere) and things work fine.

So the error has a very long name of a DLL (with mobi in it)...that is not recognized as a program (or corrupt). Freda itself does not crash, but becomes unresponsive.

Unfortunately, for me my tablet is Win10 32bit which is the source of the issue. Just thought I would let you know.

cheers,
rdl

Hello, Is this Freda update no longer support Pin to start (books) feature? If No, how can I do that?

Hello! Long(ish) time user, first time poster. First of all, thank you for such a wonderful app, I truly appreciate how customizable it is in every aspect and it has been of great use as I've gotten back into reading the past couple of years.

I got the v5 update a couple of days ago and since then I've noticed an issue I didn't have before, and I'm wondering if there's some setting I'm missing or if there's some kind of glitch to work around. In case it's relevant, I use the app on Windows 10, on a single device, and thus never connected the app with OneDrive as all the files I use are local. Most, if not all, of the files I use are .epub.

The issue I've been having since the update is that whenever I try to open a file, it opens from the first page regardless of what my position was the last time I used it. The progress is saved every time I open a book, but on a different "version" of the file that I can access from the bookshelf view, which has hilariously led to there being about 10 different copies of the same book at different progress percentages on the shelf (including multiple 0% ones) as I kept trying to figure out what was going on. 

I tried looking through the settings but didn't find anything that seems related, so I would really appreciate any guidance. How can I make it so that opening a file automatically loads it on the last progress position?

I hope my explanation wasn't too messy. Thank you so much in advanced and thanks once again for such a useful and accessible app!

Hope you all have a lovely week!

Hello,

I am using a Microsoft Surface as a reading device and until the last update, holding my finger anywhere on the screen while reading would let me display every settings that was available while reading (return button, chapters, settings, how far I am in my book, etc.).

Now, I can't. I have tried holding and tapping with two fingers but the only way I found that involved touch was by adding the action specifically in the touch controls.

So, how do I bring back the old behaviour? Or, surely there is a *very* good reason for this to be gone? Otherwise, it would be nice to have this be brought back in the next update.