Spring Documentation on the Amazon Kindle

[RobertGloverJr]

I have loaded the Spring 2.5 documentation onto my Amazon Kindle and want to share my experience of this. First I emailed the pdf version to my Kindle, which Amazon automatically converted and installed on my Kindle through the free Sprint EVDO Broadband wireless connection. I would not recommend doing that however because it's a real pain trying to navigate through a big pdf on the Kindle.

Then I zipped the directory containing the 2.5 documentation in html format ("html_single") into a zip file and emailed that zip file to my Amazon Kindle. The results are spectacular. All the internal html links work correctly. Html format is definitely the best way to keep Spring documentation on your Kindle.

I think word about the Amazon Kindle will be spreading as more people get theirs in the mail. It might be worth considering a Spring project to build web applications, etc., that render nicely on the Kindle.

[RobertGloverJr]

I should mention that whatever you name the zip file becomes its name in the Kindle home menu. I named the 2.5 spring documentation "html_single_zipped.ZIP" and emailed it to my Kindle. :-(

[RobertGloverJr]

Three more things I found out.

First, I zipped the Spring WebFlow 1.0.5 api JavaDoc and emailed it to my Kindle. It's useless. My guess is that the Amazon conversion software gets confused because the root directly has so many html files in it. It seems to grab the first html file in sorted order, which is allclasses-frame.html. The Kindle seems to display that frame as if it were a regular html page. None of the links on it work and there is no way to get any other page of the javadoc to appear.

Second, I hooked the Kindle to my PC by the included USB cable and tried to rename the zipped Spring Framework 2.5 reference. Despite renaming it, the Kindle still refers to it in the table of contents by the original name. (So I deleted it via the USB connection, renamed it on my PC, and then re-emailed it to Amazon. Amazon converted the html and sent it to the Kindle with the new name: "spring_ref_2_0_5.zip" ).

Third, I zipped the Spring WebFlow 1.0.5 reference manual (html), emailed it to Amazon, and Amazon converted it and put it into my Kindle. But it's no good compared to the perfectly converted Spring Framework 2.5 Reference.

I think the reason is that the Spring Framework 2.5 reference has exactly one html file in the root directory: index.html (and does not seem to use frames). By contrast, the Spring WebFlow 1.0.5 reference (html) has 7 html files in the root directory. The first of the 7 in sorted order is file flow-definition.html, and that is the page that appears in the Kindle. So, the logical thing to try next is to make a copy of "index.html" and name is "aaaIndex.html" and see if that tricks Kindle. I just did that and emailed it to Amazon.... (90 seconds later). Okay, it's in the Kindle. It looks better, i.e. it displays what you would see on a PC which is the table of contents, but it's still no good. The links in the table of contents don't work even though you can see them. (By contrast, all the links in the Spring Framework 2.5 reference work fine on the Kindle).

In summary I hope future Spring doc will be tested for view ability in the Kindle.

Robert

[cfw123]

I got my Kindle on Dec. 4th, and really love it. One reason I bought so fast (that turned out to be a real good decision considering the shortages) was that I have quite a few books I have written over the years that I want to publish officially on Kindle, selling them in the Kindle Store.

In trying a few methods, it is obvious to me that HTML is the absolute only way to go. I used to use HTML maybe ten years ago, but somehow I think I have forgotten everything about it but it's name. So I have to start over and learn it, but I just want to learn things appropriate to the Kindle, and no more.

What I need is a basic HTML tutorial for the Kindle set only. Obviously there are many restrictions and omissions as to what the Kindle can do with an HTML text compared with what a comuter's browser can do. For example, I had learned somewhere last week that there are no tables or frames, and you are much better off by having a single HTML file, although you can package them up in a zip file if you have to. But I don't want to as I may want to completely remove it, and it's too hard when there are many pieces compared to having just one single file.

I made some test files with very simple HTML tags, but things didn't look like I wanted them to on my Kindle. So I know I have much to learn -- not just HTML, but the proper stratagy of how to code for desired effects.

Since I need this so badly, I would be most happy to serve as a beta testor or something like that if anyone has one in the works, or to help encourage whoever might like to do that -- perhaps starting by editing down a former manual which needs many things to be removed to leave just things that work on the Kindle.

So please let me know if I can get some help here. And send it to me privately if you don't want to get too many replies.

Charles Wilkes, cfw123@gmail.com San Jose, Calif.

[RobertGloverJr]

Since there are not that many (yet) Kindle owners who are Spring-ers too, the least I can do is volunteer my assistance to the effort to Kindle-ize in a Spring-ish way.

Page 308 of Erwin Vervaet's excellent book, "Working with Spring Web Flow" states regarding the Spring Bank Application, "The application has a polished look and feel. It uses SiteMesh ( http://www.opensymphony.com/sitemesh ) as a web page layout engine...."

I mention this because I'm reading a brief tutorial about SiteMesh I downloaded from:

http://today.java.net/pub/a/today/20.../sitemesh.html
that mentions it's a good tool for creating jsp pages that can render on a "handheld".

Maybe SiteMesh could help with the Kindle-ization.

As you know the Kindle browser has two modes: basic and advanced. (You get into advanced mode by bringing up the Kindle browser in basic mode and then using the thumbscrew to select the "menu" option at the bottom of the right slider... an "advanced" menu option will appear).

It would be a great start to capture the headers that the Kindle sends to a server whose pages it renders. That's easy enough to do. The next step is to send Kindle-fied html when those headers are recognized on the server.

[cfw123]

I'm afraid sitemesh (which I examined using the links you provided) is way too advanced for me -- I've been out of that loop far too long already. But that doesn't mean that HTML isn't the right language even in basic mode for people who want to upload things to the Kindle, especially for publication.

And I didn't know about the advanced mode, but that looks great also. And if a bit stream to cause the Kindle to enter into that mode can be sent via HTML, that would make it very easy to take advantage of. Of course I would like to know what additional features it could bring to a document . For example I see many great things on my screen produced by Kindle as part of their support, but which normal and I mean simple HTML couldn't produce. For example those things are not subject to being resized to meet the needs of viewers, so obviously isn't using the standard screen browser.

But I have to crawl before I can walk, or especially run, so I need to get started, and then hopefully grow into more advanced usages -- but Kindle doesn't support us at all in that respect as far as I have been able to find. So I obviously have to help myself. But many others will come behind me, and I would like to see them have the help then that I so badly need now.

Charles Wilkes, San Jose, Calif.