Offline Browsing is Enjoyable with iSilo and iSiloX v3.25 [Archive]

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NewKreation

01-29-2003, 08:00 PM

While looking for the perfect offline browser, I stumbled across this beauty, iSilo by DC & Co. Have you been searching for better ways to view your mobile favorites? Have you wanted to create your own books with text formatting, embedded images and tables? With a plethora of options, conversion tool iSiloX and reader iSilo, deliver fast rich easy to read documents and Web pages. The conversion tool and reader packs a one two punch that makes it my favorite reader! iSilo has been my core offline browser/reader for over six months. Let me explain why… <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/smith-jan03-isilo-6.gif" /> <!> Converter iSiloX and reader iSilo are power twins packing exhaustive options and superior reading on the Pocket PC, as well as other OS platforms. You can find thousands of ready-made documents downloadable immediately for reading with iSilo or you can create your own documents from HTML content using iSiloX. Some of the major features that will win you over to iSilo include: high text compression, hyperlinks, images, tables, and formatted text. The Converter First off is the conversion tool, namely iSiloX. The completely free iSiloX converts HTML, css, text, and Palm Doc to a compressed document for your handheld or desktop! What this means for me is that any Web site I'd like to read later on my Pocket PC, I can copy the URL and paste it into iSiloX, convert the document, synch up and I'm ready to go. It gets better.... The number and types of settings are too exhaustive to cover here. You'll just have to download it and try it yourself. To whet your appetite, you can: process or ignore all table formatting, allowing you to view a converted website without scrolling left and right; include/exclude images (JPG, GIF, PNG, or BMP) from the complete Web pages, which are usually hidden on mobile Web sites and; resize images to perfectly fit the resolution of your Pocket PC, or any resolution for that matter. The result is a beautiful, compressed document that is easy to read on your Pocket PC! <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/smith-jan03-isilo-1.gif" /> Figure 1: This is the conversion tool's document list. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/smith-jan03-isilo-2.gif" /> Figure 2: You can have multiple sources in one document. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/smith-jan03-isilo-3.gif" /> Figure 3: Many options are available for your embedded images. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/smith-jan03-isilo-4.gif" /> Figure 4: Table formatting options are available as well. The Reader The features of the reader are just as exhaustive as the converter. What first impressed me was the full screen mode. With the press of a button, I was in full screen! Then, when I saw the autoscroll feature and the button mapping, I was sold. Another benefit you will notice immediately is the speed. Documents with images load much faster than with other readers and viewers I've used. iSilo will also open text files for your enhanced reading pleasure. Other features include bookmarks, font selection, text size, scrolling options, search, copy and more! Also, for those interested in viewing documents on their Windows machine, a PC version of the reader is available. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/smith-jan03-isilo-5.gif" /> Figure 5: Full screen is one of my favorites. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/smith-jan03-isilo-6.gif" /> Figure 6: The navigation menu. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/smith-jan03-isilo-7.gif" /> Figure 7: Scrolling options show the depth of configuration settings. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/smith-jan03-isilo-8.gif" /> Figure 8: Any installed font can be selected. Gotchas Functionally, I found nothing mysterious, flawed, or buggy about either piece of software. It can take a little time to play with some of the settings to tweak it exactly the way you want it. But, to me, that's part of the fun! As with anyone, I do have a wish list. Something I would add to every application, this one included, is a separate file (preferably, in the My Documents folder) that I can save my option settings to. Document-specific settings, such as font size, bookmarks, last position and others, are automatically saved to an iSilo subfolder in My Documents. However, none of the hardware button-specific settings are stored. Then, I could quickly load all of my personal settings after upgrading my Pocket PC. Earlier, I mentioned that I use iSilo rather than Mobile Favorites. To make it almost as simple as Mobile Favorites, I use iSiloX in conjunction with a macro scheduled to run at the same time every day. It took some time to set the macro to "refresh" the document. But now that this is set up, I can enjoy effortless synchronization and offline browsing experience. In view of that, a scheduled update would be nice. Nevertheless, I suppose I'm one of the few using it for this purpose and would be outside the scope of a document converter. Where To Buy iSilo can be <a href="http://www.handango.com/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&platformId=2&productType=2&catalog=0§ionId=0&productId=40391">downloaded from Handango</a> or purchased for $17.50 (affiliate link). iSiloX converter is available as freeware, downloadable directly from <a href="http://www.isilo.com/">iSilo</a>. Conclusions I would recommend this converter and reader to anyone who likes to make their own documents and for those who spend many hours reading on their Pocket PC. I would say my reading enjoyment increased at least ten-fold using iSilo. As a matter of fact, iSilo is one of the first applications I put on my Pocket PC if I'm upgrading to a new ROM or Pocket PC. For me, this is a must have app. 'Nuff said.

HTK

01-29-2003, 08:25 PM

WOW 8O
we have a winner!!!
half of my pda time I spend reading, and from this reading the major part is html.
I´m tired of trying to use the mobile favorites and when I see it on my pocketIE the page has horizontal scroll bar because of the images and such... this isilo seems to be coming from heaven

MLO

01-29-2003, 08:51 PM

About time someone posted a review of this here.

I've been using iSilo since my Palm days. One of the reasons I agreed to switch over to Pocket PC was because this program was available for the platform.

Excellent, excellent app. I've got a ton of books in iSilo format, the best among them being Windows 2000 Scripting..downloaded from Microsoft's website.

MLO

markpmc

01-29-2003, 09:10 PM

I guess I didn't do my reaseach. I "thought" that I was giving up iSilo when I switched to PPC.

markpmc

palmsolo

01-29-2003, 09:49 PM

Allen,

I would also like to suggest that you give the HandStory Suite a try. I actually use this as my main viewer since setting up custom clips is so much easier than it is in iSilo. I am not affiliated with them in any way, but love using the product.

NewKreation

01-29-2003, 10:14 PM

I would also like to suggest that you give the HandStory Suite a try. I actually use this as my main viewer since setting up custom clips is so much easier than it is in iSilo. I am not affiliated with them in any way, but love using the product.

Sure! I'll download it this evening and give it a whirl. It updates clips wirelessly! Too bad I'm not wireless yet ;)

HandStory Suite doesn't look like it has full screen reading capabilities. I really love full screen...

We'll see

Birdman

01-29-2003, 10:35 PM

Can you only read a web page or other document that you have converted using isiloX with the prop. isilo Reader or can you read it with other programs?

When I had my palm one of my fav. pograms was a site called pilotscrewdriver. You would paste in the URL of a particular web page and it would convert the page into .doc format which could then be read with any doc reader. Is this the same idea?

CESkins

01-29-2003, 11:10 PM

Bridman you need the iSilo reader to view files made with iSiloX.

Unreal32

01-30-2003, 12:20 AM

Personally, I like uBook http://www.gowerpoint.com which is a great text file/document reader that supports Palm format, text, RTF, and other formats.

ChrisW

01-30-2003, 12:26 AM

I find iSilo is the best reader for my purposes. I used it for 2 years on a Palm, and was very happy when it became available on PPC. There are a few features that make it stand out for me:

Preserves formatting - you can keep font styles, images, borders, even tables intact. Or, turn off any of these features when you encode a document.
Flexible scrolling - When reading I like to scroll 1/2 screen at a time. This allows me to easily keep the flow of the text, without having to read up to the last word and then flip pages. Why stick yourself with the old concept of pages (do you hear me, MS?)?
Compressed storage - files are stored in a compressed format, allowing me to double my storage capacity.
Conversion integrated into Sync - You can have iSiloX, the desktop converter, automatically feed docs into ActiveSync, and specify whether the destination should be RAM or storage card.
Fast - even for very large files, page flipping is pretty much instantaneous (listen again, MS!)
Library organization - I can organize my library over several directories, splitting documents into categories as serves my needs (News, Fiction, Reference, etc.)
No wasted real estate - Full screen the display, unlike MS that wastes like half the area on margins.

My only complaint is that it doesn't support ClearType.

NewKreation

01-30-2003, 12:47 AM

ChrisW,

I agree with all that!
Thanks for pointing out a few more of the features.
The list could go on and on of all the wonderful things about iSilo!

l0o5er

01-30-2003, 12:51 AM

That rocks! I wish I had read this review before reading Jenneth's one on Sunnysoft World Off-line which I bought & soon regreted having quite a different experience to Jenneth - crap software, crap support.

But iSilo! Very nice implementation of an off-line reader. Installed it, tested it, bought it, all within a space of 30 minutes or less. Toss out Avantgo & Mazingo & the rest & treat yourself to this beauty.

rpommier

01-30-2003, 12:52 AM

I've been tossing back and forth between the 2 for awhile now... I'm leaning more toward Isilo because I find it more intuitive than Handstory. Also Isilo let's you get a better idea of what the app is capable of. With Handstory Basic I really couldn't get a feel for it's benefits.

I mainly like to clip web pages, with HS you can't do that in the demo, although wirelessly updating clips would be a plus. I also don't know how customizable the web clipping is with HS, again because the demo is so limited...

Rod

NewKreation

01-30-2003, 01:42 AM

I mainly like to clip web pages, with HS you can't do that in the demo, although wirelessly updating clips would be a plus.

Rod

I also like to clip web pages!
What I do is highlight and copy the text w/images, then paste it into a blank Word doc, save it as an html file, then convert the html file to an iSilo file!

I've set this up to do it automatically using freeware Quick Macros v1.3.3
(Download it here, by clicking the link above ZDNet's at the following address: http://toget.pchome.com.tw/intro/utility_mousekb/13501_dl.html)

If anyone would like the specific script I run, I can send it...it's a little too long to post here.

rpommier

01-30-2003, 01:55 AM

That's the way I used to do it also, give Isilo a try, much easier than messing around with Word. Plus you can go full screen with Isilo. It's a very slick app...

HTK

01-30-2003, 02:03 AM

What about clear type? I refuse to use it when I bought my pda, but now i´m addicted to it, that would be a good thing to add on the software!

oguime

01-30-2003, 02:12 AM

Quick Lookup (http://www.trancreative.com) is also a good web clipping app (has a quick clip desktop application like HandStory which makes it easy to capture web pages).
And you get a pretty good dictionary with it... and also a CHM converter.

It can't make batch conversions like iSilo though...

disconnected

01-30-2003, 05:26 AM

Thank you. I've been looking for something like this.

MapQuest used to have an option to save directions, as turn-by-turn maps with text, to a PDA. The only problem with it was you had to use AvantGo, which meant there was a limit to the storage space you could use, and whenever you wanted to add new maps you had to delete old ones to make room; there didn't seem to be any way to save them. They still have the PDA option, but now it's just text, no maps. Now I can generate the turn-by-turn maps with text, copy the url into iSilo, and create a file for the PPC. Using single column, full-screen, it fits perfectly, with no sideways scrolling, although it seems to be unable to handle the overview map at the end. For anyone that cares about such things, Mapquest also has the option to show any Borders or Krispy Kreme stores you'll pass by on the trip. :D

I can't find the option to save the files to the storage card, although I can move them there manually.

juni

01-30-2003, 07:05 AM

Question:

Does the new Microsoft Sync and Go sync web pages too? Where you can define what you want to sync?

ChrisW

01-30-2003, 12:39 PM

I can't find the option to save the files to the storage card, although I can move them there manually.

In iSiloX, in the properties for the document to be converted, go to the Destination tab. You can click the ActiveSync button to send it to the PPC. The dialog that pops up has radio buttons at the bottom for RAM or memory card. Or, if you've already got Pocket PC as the destination, right-click on it to change which memory it goes to.

Lano

01-30-2003, 02:59 PM

O.K. so I was just about to purchase the HandStory suite after using their basic software for the last week and now I'm confused. Would someone give me a simple (I'm a PPC novice) pros & cons list of HandStory vs. Isilo.

NewKreation

01-31-2003, 01:27 AM

I suggest trying iSilo out for a week as well. You won't be disappointed.

iSilo supports full screen!

What else matters :)

dees01

02-03-2003, 09:13 AM

I am an active Pocket PC user but this is the first time I have closely looked at an offline browser. In trying it out, I have the following questions:

-How can I automatically direct the output to my storage card so that the document does not fill up my ram?
-Where on the PC hard disk does iSilo store the converted document so that I can remove it after use
-My principal interest is to read newspapers and magazines for which I need to enter a user name and password. When I filled those in on the document properties tab, it did not work and the downloaded document just showed me that I had to enter a username and password. In one case, I never got beyond the flyer that popped-up when you enter the site.

This product may be very much what I have been looking for, so would be grateful for someone's help here.

Many thanks

l0o5er

02-03-2003, 09:03 PM

-How can I automatically direct the output to my storage card so that the document does not fill up my ram?
On the "Destination" Tab click the <ActiveSync> button, select your device from the list & then click the "External memory card" radio button.

-Where on the PC hard disk does iSilo store the converted document so that I can remove it after use
dunno. I can't find any of my iSilo documents on my hard disk. I suspect that once the documents are synced to your Pocket PC they are deleted.

-My principal interest is to read newspapers and magazines for which I need to enter a user name and password. When I filled those in on the document properties tab, it did not work and the downloaded document just showed me that I had to enter a username and password. In one case, I never got beyond the flyer that popped-up when you enter the site.
I understand that IsiloX only supports HTTP Basic Authentication, not form-based username/pswd entry

NewKreation

02-08-2003, 03:47 PM

-Where on the PC hard disk does iSilo store the converted document so that I can remove it after use

I found it! What's more, there is no need to remove it after use, the files are actually moved out of that directory to your Pocket PC storage card.

On my Windows 2000 machine, the directory is "C:\Documents and Settings\Allen\Application Data\iSilo\iSiloDtS\PocketPC\ExtIn". Of course, you would replace Allen with your identity.

Shhh!!! Don't tell the developer, but I tried copying my mp3's to that directory and then popping my Pocket PC into the cradle. It worked! iSilo moved the mp3's out of that directory and onto my storage card.

Too cool! I have been looking for a reliable app to sync to my storage card. This is better still! The files are actually moved out of that directory to the storage card.

To get this to work, make sure you have set-up iSiloX to transfer at least one document to your ActiveSync storage card.

Wumpi

02-19-2003, 09:27 AM

I stumbled over this forum thread which made me try iSilo myself. Amazing program! When doing a little bit more research, I also found a web page that has tons (like 800+ or something) of web links for iSilo plus a forum dedicated to iSilo. http://www.turcic.com and http://www.turcic.com/forums

Jan

jensenjb

05-07-2003, 03:33 AM

After reading the posts I decided to give it a try. Everything works great except... the web pages I convert to appear on my Dell Axim have the annoying horizontal scroll bar. In some of the posts I was under the impression that it would format the doc to fit the pda screen. Am I 'shrooming?

Thanks for your help.
Brad

NewKreation

05-07-2003, 02:27 PM

Everything works great except... the web pages I convert to appear on my Dell Axim have the annoying horizontal scroll bar.

To get rid of the horizontal bars, you either have to resize your images to a width of 236 pixels or switch to full screen. I'm pretty sure it's your wide images that are causing the horizontal scroll bar to appear. If you open a text document you will notice no horizontal scroll bar.

This is my experience...

jensenjb

05-08-2003, 03:33 AM

[quote]I'm pretty sure it's your wide images that are causing the horizontal scroll bar to appear.

Good tip. I was trying it out on my church's web site and I believe they have images for the navigation on the side and top. I'll keep at it and see if I can duplicate everyone else's success.

Thanks,
Brad

NewKreation

05-08-2003, 03:37 PM

jensenjb,

You mentioned a navigation menu on your church's website. You may also want to try ignoring all table formatting.

Crystal Eitle

05-25-2003, 06:43 PM

I finally tried this out and I am in :ppclove: I highly recommend this to anyone who hasn't tried it out yet. I can finally load up all the blogs I want to read offline! It renders pages beautifully, and so much faster than PIE. And it gives you so much control over how pages are formatted, link depth, etc. Woo!

NewKreation

05-25-2003, 07:15 PM