O’Reilly | Infallible Logic

29Dec/090

O’Reilly Has Released A Ton Of Books To The Android Market [Updated 12/30]

I'm not quite sure when this happened, but O'Reilly (in partnership with Aldiko) has released quite a number of books to the Android market. Not only is there a pretty vast selection, but these books are priced extremely well, ranging from $2.99 to $5.99 for complete books.

I picked up the Java Pocket Guide for three bucks and it was well worth the money. Near as I can tell, these are complete versions of the books at hand, and they're all running with the very slick Aldiko UI, which has many configuration options for font sizes and other reading preferences, as well as the ability to bookmark and view a table-of-contents and other things.

For those of you that have a debug or rooted phone (or the ability to pull APKs off your phone via ADB), you'll find that the files are also just split up via HTML, with an XML-based table-of-contents. I've created a quick XSLT file you can use to transform the TOC into a basic HTML file so you can browse the book on your computer if you want. You'll need to make one change to the toc.ncx file, right below the <?xml?> tag:

Then put this file in the same directory and name it 'toc.xslt' (note that I haven't used XSLT or much Javascript in like 8 years, so this may suck). I've updated it to include some basic javascript for easier navigation between the pages!

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet
	version="2.0"
	xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
	xmlns:ncx="http://www.daisy.org/z3986/2005/ncx/">
	<xsl:output method="html"/>

<xsl:template match="/ncx:ncx">
		<html>
		<head>
			<style type="text/css">
				body { font:80% Verdana; }
				
				#_frame {
					width:60%;
					height:40em;
					border:0;
				}
				
				h1, #navigation {
					text-align:center;
					width:80%;
				}
				
				#navigation {
					list-style:none;
					padding:0;
					margin:1em 0;
				}
				
				#navigation li {
					display:inline;
					padding:0 2em;
				}
				
				ul#list {
					overflow:scroll;
					height:40em;
					width:20%;
					height:40em;
					margin:0 auto;
					float:left;
				}
				
				ul#list > li {
					font-size:.8em;
				}
				
				ul#list li {
					padding:.25em 0;
				}
				
				ul#list ul {
					padding:0;
					margin:0 0 0 1em;
					list-style-type:square;
				}
				
				ul#list ul ul {
					list-style-type:circle;
				}
				
				ul#list ul ul ul {
					list-style-type:disc;
				}
				
				ul#list ul ul ul ul {
					list-style-type:square;
				}
				
				.break {
					clear:both;
				}
			</style>
			
			<script type="text/javascript">
				var topIndex = 1;
				var currentIndex = null;
				
				var ToggleType = {
					"Prev": -1,
					"Top": 0,
					"Next": 1,
				}
				
				function toggleSection(id, type)
				{
					if (id < topIndex || currentIndex == id) return;

var currentEl = document.getElementById(currentIndex);

if (type == null)
					{
						var el = document.getElementById(id);
						currentIndex = parseInt(id);
					}
					else
					{
						do 
						{
							var el = document.getElementById(id);
							if (!el) return;
							
							currentIndex = parseInt(id);
							id += type;
						}
						while (el.href.lastIndexOf('#') > -1);
					}
					
					document.getElementById('_frame').src = el.href;
					el.scrollIntoView(true);
					return false;
				}
				
				function toggleDirection(type)
				{
					var id = (type == ToggleType["Top"]) ? topIndex : currentIndex + type;
					toggleSection(id, type);
				}
			</script>
		</head>
		<body onload="toggleSection(topIndex);">
			<h1><xsl:value-of select="./ncx:docTitle/ncx:text"/></h1>
			<ul id="navigation">
				<li><a href="javascript:toggleDirection(ToggleType['Prev']);"><--Prev</a></li>
				<li><a href="javascript:toggleDirection(ToggleType['Top']);">Top</a></li>
				<li><a href="javascript:toggleDirection(ToggleType['Next']);">Next--></a></li>
			</ul>
			<div class="break"> </div>
			<ul id="list">
				<xsl:call-template name="navPoint">
					<xsl:with-param name="nav" select="./ncx:navMap/ncx:navPoint"/>
				</xsl:call-template>
			</ul>
			<iframe name="_frame" id="_frame" />
		</body>
		</html>
	</xsl:template>
	
	<xsl:template name="navPoint">
		<xsl:param name="nav"/>
		<li>
			<a>
				<xsl:attribute name="href">
					<xsl:value-of select="$nav/ncx:content/@src"/>
				</xsl:attribute>
				<xsl:attribute name="id">
					<xsl:value-of select="$nav/@playOrder"/>
				</xsl:attribute>
				<xsl:attribute name="onclick">
					return toggleSection(this.id);
				</xsl:attribute>
				<xsl:value-of select="$nav/ncx:navLabel/ncx:text"/>
			</a>
			<xsl:if test="$nav/ncx:navPoint">
				<ul>
					<xsl:for-each select="$nav/ncx:navPoint">
						<xsl:call-template name="navPoint">
							<xsl:with-param name="nav" select="."/>
						</xsl:call-template>
					</xsl:for-each>
				</ul>
			</xsl:if>
		</li>
	</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

I've admittedly only tried this with one book, but I can't imagine the rest use a different format.

Aldiko Book Reader:

Java Pocket Guide:

Tagged as: aldiko, Android, O'Reilly No Comments

Calendar

May 2012
S	M	T	W	T	F	S
« Feb
	1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

Google Reader Shared

Rise in solar activity all but certain to mess with GPS
Published: February 10, 2010
Source: Ars Technica
Cultivate Teams, Not Ideas
Published: January 25, 2010
Source: Coding Horror
Google Plans To Deliver 1Gb/sec Fiber-Optic Broadband Network To More Than 50,000 Homes
Published: February 10, 2010
Source: TechCrunch
Heavy Rain Demo Forecasted for Thursday
Published: February 9, 2010
Source: PlayStation.Blog
inthedark says FML
Published: February 8, 2010
Source: FMyLife
Google's Street View snowmobile takes your voyeurism to the Olympic slopes
Published: February 9, 2010
Source: Engadget
Readers: Get your Buzz on
Published: February 9, 2010
Source: Official Google Reader Blog
Video: “Parisian Oops” Mocks Google’s Super Bowl Commercial
Published: February 8, 2010
Source: TechCrunch
Palin's Cheat-Sheet
Published: February 6, 2010
Source: The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan
Alien Chestburster Wedding Cake
Published: February 5, 2010
Source: I have seen the whole of the internet
See all shared items
Plugin by C. Murray Consulting

Infallible Logic

O’Reilly Has Released A Ton Of Books To The Android Market [Updated 12/30]

Calendar

Recent Posts

Categories

Google Reader Shared

Meta