[Release] FanFiction.Net Browser

[Criptych]

FanFiction.Net Browser is an application to download and read stories from FanFiction.Net on your PSP.

This program was created with PGE. Thanks, InsertWittyName!

Now you can also get the latest (hopefully) working version from Google Code.

Update (16 Apr):
This version is still in progress, but will include a lot of things I've wanted this program to have for a long time:

• Greatly improved save speed, thanks to some tips from doub on #Lua.
• View your Library by Author, Title, or Date, as well as Last Read (which was the original order).
• Automatically reload last story at startup.
• Added Search function (by Author and by Title/Description).
• Replacing most of the back-end code with PGEX, a PGE eXtension library I'm working on.
• Restructuring GUI and menu system and refitting it to work with PGEX.

If all goes well, I hope to release a PGEX beta about the same time as this update; more details then, but in short it's a set of functions and classes for stuff that's used a lot in games - sprites, frames, dialogs - and even some extensions to Lua itself, like additional string and table features.
The idea of PGEX has gotten out of hand, and has been postponed indefinitely. Most of it does work, but to do what I really want with it would require a lot of things that PGE and Lua don't really support yet; besides, it's a monster to debug.   Instead, I'm adding the features listed without the (dubious) aid of such a library, and further development will be moved into a C/C++ version of this program.

Update (25 Jan):

• Added basic formatting support (bold, italic, underline).
• Increased font size and spacing for easier reading
• Improved save speed by splitting data into smaller files.
  Warning: FFN Browser will try to import your old data, but you may want to back up your FFNDATA.DAT just in case.
• Added "Exit" option to main menu.

Update (21 Jan):

• Fixed: UTF-8 character decoding error
• Added: Better conversion of HTML entities

Features:

• Browse and read the latest stories in any category.
• Download stories to your Library to read anywhere.
• Automatically mark your place in the stories you read.
• Select a color theme or create your own.

To-Do: (In approximate order of importance...)

• Fix bugs!
• Add search function
• Improve colors / theme system
• Add graphics?
• Add music player?

Known Issues:

• Word Wrapping
    I'm rewriting the word wrap function (mostly) from scratch, so these should be fixed soon.
  • Words that are longer than a line are not "cut" - but a new line is still added, resulting in large blank spaces for very long "words." Likewise, words are not cut at hyphens, dashes, or other punctuation.
  • A rather obscure one: When a word that gets wrapped to a new line also starts a new style, its first letter is cut off and placed at the end of the previous line.
• Data
  • With a few exceptions, data cannot be deleted within the program, and must be removed manually.
  • Only data available through Atom feeds can be updated. Categories, genres, and other metadata cannot be updated.
  • Subcategories are not divided into the larger categories as on the website (Anime, Books, Cartoons, etc).
• Other
  • If your wireless and/or Internet connection drops out while downloading, the program will freeze until it times out.  There's nothing I can do about this, unfortunately; it's part of the internals of PGE.

Screenshots

Main Menu	Library	Categories
Feeds	Themes	Themes

Q. Why do I need this program? I can visit the site online with the PSP browser.
A. The site is designed for PCs, and doesn't always play nice with the PSP browser. Plus, it requires a constant Internet connection; FFN Browser only needs a connection to download new content.

Q. FanFiction.Net sucks. Can you add support for <site name>?
A. Sorry, FFN Browser is designed for FanFiction.Net, and is pretty well tuned to work well only with that site. As for its content, I don't have any control over that, but if you've got the patience to dig through the crap, you can find some very good reading.

Q. FFN Browser crashed on me!
A. Let me know - in this thread or in a PM - what you were doing when it crashed, and any error messages you received, and I'll look into it. I think I've worked most of the really obvious bugs out, but I'm always looking to improve.

Q. I have an idea for a new/improved feature! / I wish it did <task> differently - that really bugs me.
A. Again, post a message in this thread or in a PM with details about your suggestion.  I can't guarantee that I'll add or change it, but if it's reasonable I will try.

[TheUnderminer]

Cool, same reason why I made my rss reader: offline use and formatting.
Will try it some time.

[TheUnderminer]

So it's existing series for wich fans write fictional episodes?

[Criptych]

Cool, same reason why I made my rss reader: offline use and formatting.

PReSS, right? That's part of what gave me the idea. Hope you don't mind.
I've also been trying to write something like this for the PC for a while, but could never get it quite right. And now there's really no point.

So it's existing series for wich fans write fictional episodes?

You mean the website? Pretty much. Well, sort of. Some of the better, longer ones are like an entirely new series.

[meowmix23F]

cool application. Might include this in PSP installer.

[Criptych]

Awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing how that's coming along, too.

[meowmix23F]

Completely redesigned inteferace. (local) variable program fixed. Up and better than ever. I don't want to release it until i have a sufficent amount of packages. (>4?) otherwise people will use it once and throw it down. Also, it needs a way to remove apps (package receipt). I'm working on it as i type this. I'd write more, but it's your thread. If you want, you can pick out a certain screenshot you want for the application to display. And write a little description of the application, and tell me what you want your named to be put as for what it states the author's name as. Otherwise, i'l write a description of the application, pick the screenshot, and make the author name "Criptych (luaplayer.org)"

[Criptych]

Updated! See OP.

[meowmix23F]

does your theme system read from outside files? You could make a directory called themes and just scan it when your program starts for files. Then to apply the theme either dofile() it or parse for values.

[Criptych]

It currently reads all the theme settings from config/theme.lua, and assumes that all available themes are already in the database. I could probably have it search for additional themes and automatically import them. Storing all themes in separate files would require modifying the system itself - that's not to say I won't, though.

[meowmix23F]

Here, a little function to do the work for you as far as a directory of theme files goes:

usage is shown at bottom. Returns an array with names of files in it.

Code:

function getThemes()
local themes = {}
local dir = pge.dir.open("themes")
local rd = pge.dir.read(dir)
local i = 1
for i = 1, #rd do
themes[i] = ""
end
-- space out array
local i = 1
for index, entry in ipairs(rd) do
     if pge.file.exists(entry.name) then
           themes[i] = entry.name
           i = i + 1
     end
end
for i = 1, table.getn(themes) do
if themes[i] = "" then
table.remove(themes, i)
end
end
-- array has only what is needed, now we return
return themes
end

so, an example:

Code:

themesarray = getThemes()
local i = 1
for i = 1, table.getn(themesarray) do
--parse themesarray[i] for file name
end

[scionsamurai]

hi, made an account on this website to ask what im doing wrong. lol. (noob right?) but i dont get any feeds. it tries to connect when i select a manga in catagories but then i still dont get any feeds.

[Criptych]

hi, made an account on this website to ask what im doing wrong. lol. (noob right?) but i dont get any feeds. it tries to connect when i select a manga in catagories but then i still dont get any feeds.

If it "tries to connect," but doesn't actually connect, it might be a problem with your network settings.  If it's connecting, but returns a message like "feed not available," try again later, or try another category.  It may be just a hiccup in the network.
On the other hand, I have run into a similar problem lately - for just about everything, even chapters.  I think  FFN may have banned the program. As I learn more about the PSPSDK, I'm working on porting this program into C, which it's probably better suited for anyway.  I should be able to find a way to fix or circumvent this problem that way.

As a last resort, if you know some Lua you can edit the data manually, but it's a little tricky: you'll need to update author.lua and story.lua in the config folder, plus copy the chapters into the appropriate folder on your MS.  That's really what the program is supposed to do, so it kind of defeats the purpose... but at least you could read them on your PSP.

[scionsamurai]

k. ya. i get "feed not available" at the top. but i will be patiantly awaiting the c version. =)
and i dont know if u noticed but this pretty much fills this request http://www.psp-hacks.com/forums/f120/request-idea-psp-manga-viewer-streamer-t236658/       thanks again=)

[Criptych]

k. ya. i get "feed not available" at the top. but i will be patiantly awaiting the c version. =)

I'll investigate further to make sure, but it sounds like they're banning it. (Maybe based on the User-Agent? If so switching to C should help.)

and i dont know if u noticed but this pretty much fills this request http://www.psp-hacks.com/forums/f120/request-idea-psp-manga-viewer-streamer-t236658/

Not quite, since this program only retrieves and displays text, not images.  But the idea is similar enough that I could use some of the same components and just change the back-end around a little; it's something to consider.  Thanks for pointing it out.