iSilo™ features

miscellaneous

document size

security

• permissions: An iSilo 3.x/4.x document can be marked at conversion time to disallow a specified set of actions on the document:
  • copy/beam: iSilo™ examines copy and beam prevention attributes and will not copy or beam documents marked to prevent those operations (iSilo™ for Palm OS®).
  • copy to clipboard: Disallow this permission to prevent a user from selecting text and copying it to the clipboard for pasting to other applications.
  • modification: Disallow this permission to prevent modification operations such as adding or removing bookmarks.
  • conversion: Disallow this permission to prevent the ability to convert the document to other formats.
  • printing: Disallow this permission to prevent users from printing the document content.
• document passwords: Protect an iSilo 3.x/4.x document at conversion time with a password so that the document can only be opened if the password is correctly entered.
• document registration codes: iSilo 3.x/4.x documents can be protected by registration codes at conversion time so that the first time a user opens such a document, the user must enter a correct registration code for the document. Registration codes can also be keyed to specific user IDs and expiration dates for additional security.
• document expiration dates: An iSilo 3.x/4.x document can be protected by an expiration date at conversion time so that the document can no longer be opened at the given expiration date. This capability can be used to prevent outdated documents from circulating after their useful lifetimes.

document list view

document list

• document listing: iSilo™ automatically searches for and adds entries to the document list for all documents you have installed in your handheld's internal main memory and in standard locations on VFS accessible memory cards.
• background new document search: iSilo™ searches for new documents on both the handheld and on VFS accessible memory cards in the background so that you do not have to wait for the search to complete before starting to use iSilo™ each time you start it. This makes a huge difference when you have dozens, to hundreds, to possibly thousands of documents installed.
• categories: By categorizing documents, you can narrow the scope of documents that you work with, such as performing a global search only through documents in a given category.
• /Palm/Programs/iSilo: iSilo™ automatically searches the "/Palm/Programs/iSilo" folder on VFS accessible memory cards for new documents to add to the document list. This is in addition to its search of the "/Palm/Launcher" and "/Palm/Programs/MSFiles" locations and so that you do not overburden those particular Launcher specific locations with too many files.

operations

• open a listed document: Open a document with an entry in the document list for reading.
• categorize: Move a document to a new category.
• delete: Delete a document or delete all documents in a category.
• rename: Give a document a new title.
• beam: Use infrared to beam a document to another infrared equipped Palm OS® handheld.
• information: Easily view information about a document, including its creation date, document type, size, and location.
• copy or move: Copy or move a document from the handheld's internal main memory to VFS accessible memory cards and vice versa.
• open an arbitrary file: Open any file on a VFS accessible memory card and view its content as plain text.

configurability

• alphabetical and manual sorting: Have entries in the document list automatically alphabetically sorted or manually sort them yourself.
• selective document listing: Have iSilo™ store entries of only specified document types in the document list.
• selectable font: Select a more viewable font for displaying the document list.
• selectable scrollbar position: Select left or right positioning of the scrollbar and use it to easily scroll through the document list.

utility

document types

• iSilo™ 4.x: The iSilo™ 4.x document format builds on the iSilo™ 3.x document format with extended capabilities supported by and to be supported by iSilo™ 4.x. Documents in the iSilo™ 4.x document format can also be opened and read by iSilo™ 3.x.
• iSilo™ 3.x: The iSilo™ 3.x document format was designed from the ground up for efficiency with the needs and limitations of handheld devices in mind. Its new architecture provides the a flexible and powerful foundation for growth in features and functionality into the foreseeable future.
• iSilo™ 2.x: The iSilo™ 2.x document format was at the forefront of providing second generation document display for Palm OS® handhelds and still does remain a viable platform for doing so. Its small document sizes and hyperlinking capabilities combined with the efficiency, ease of use, and robustness of the iSilo™ 2.x reader made it a winner.
• Palm Doc: Essentially a plain text format with basic compression applied, the Palm Doc format remains popular as the lowest common denominator due to its early roots and widespread acceptance.
• plain text files (.txt): You can use iSilo™ to open plain text files.
• open any file: You can use iSilo™ to open any file stored on a VFS accessible memory card and view the content as plain text.

find

• match case or not: Specify a search word or phrase and specify whether to search for a match using case sensitivity or not.
• search range: Specify whether the search should proceed forward from the current location, backward from the current location, or starting from the top of either the current page or the entire document.
• find again: Quickly search for the next occurrence of a found word or phrase with a single tap.
• global search (iSilo™ for Palm OS®): Perform a global search through all listed documents or all documents listed in a given category.

copy & paste

• copy selection: Select as much text as you like and copy it to the clipboard. Clipboard and memory limitations may limit the amount of text you can actually copy at once.
• copy an entire screen: Easily copy the entire screen with a single command.
• copy an entire page: Easily copy the entire page to the clipboard with a single command.
• copy an entire document: Easily copy the entire text of the document to the clipboard with a single command.

VFS

• VFS support: iSilo™ supports reading of documents stored on external media accessible through VFS. Example of external media include Memory Stick®, SD (secure digital), and CF (compact flash).
• copy and move documents: iSilo™ can copy and move documents from the handheld device memory to VFS accessible external media and vice versa.
• beam documents: iSilo™ can beam documents stored on external media accessible through VFS.

navigation

scrolling

• scrollbar: A scrollbar makes it easy to scroll to any part of the page or simply to scroll up or down a line or a screen at a time.
• hardware up/down buttons: Use the hardware up and down buttons to scroll up or down either a screen or a line at a time.
• drag scrolling: Drag on the screen using the stylus or your finger to scroll the document up or down.
• screen tap scrolling: Tap on the screen to scroll through the document up or down a line or a screen at a time. The regions are configurable in both size and action.
• Jog Dial™/wheel: If your device has a Jog Dial™ or jog wheel, you can also use it to scroll through the document up or down a line or a screen at a time.
• autoscroll: Twenty incremental autoscroll speeds and a choice of either smooth or line-at-a-time autoscrolling allow you to read at your own pace without the need for manual scrolling.

jumping

• jump to the top or bottom: With a single command, jump to the top or bottom of the page.
• jump to any page: Quickly jump to the previous or next page, to the first or last page, or to any page by page number.
• hyperlinks: Hyperlinks embedded in a document make it quick and easy to traverse to relevant parts of a document. Both text and images can serve as hyperlinks.
• jump history: Easily jump back to recent jump starting points and easily jump forward to recent jump targets.
• back button: If your device has a back or auxiliary button, you can use it to jump back through the jump history.

marks

• unnamed marks: Quickly mark a location in a document and jump back to the mark at any time. Each document can have its own mark.
• named bookmarks: Add named bookmarks to interesting locations in a document. Navigate back to any named bookmark by selecting from a pop-up list of the bookmarks.
• local bookmarks: Local bookmarks are private to the device on which they were created and are not stored in a document when it is transferred.
• document bookmarks: Document bookmarks are stored with the document and so also get copied along with a document when it is transferred.
• bookmark sorting: Sort bookmarks either alphabetically or manually.
• rename bookmarks: Give a bookmark a new, more appropriate name.

usability

first time user

• scrolling: The scrollbar and drag scrolling defaults make it immediately apparent how to scroll while reading your first document.
• title bar: The default presence of the title bar eliminates the question of "Where is the Marks menu?" asked often by post-Palm OS® 3.5 beginning users.
• tool bar: The graphical tool bar makes it more intuitive for first time users to understand and access commonly used functionality.

display

• hideable scrollbar: Hide the scrollbar for a wider display area.
• hideable titlebar: Hide the tidebar for more vertical display space above.
• hideable toolbar: Hide the toolbar for more vertical display space below.
• font selection: Select a base display font for improved readability. Palm OS® 5 and Palm OS® 4 devices with high-density screens, Sony CLIÉ devices with high resolution screens, and the HandEra™ 330 provide even more selection, with the ability to choose the tiny font for maximum use of screen real estate.
• table display mode: Use the default layout mode to to view tables in their intended format or set the layout mode to display table layout to reduce the need for scrolling.
• Font Silo™ (iSilo™ for Palm OS®): An optionally installed component, Font Silo™ allows custom installation of fonts and custom selection of which fonts to use on an individual document basis. In addition to supporting Font Silo™ fonts that can be generated with "iSiloX for Windows", Font Silo™ also supports FontBucket™ and FontHack fonts.

configurability

• left-hand support (iSilo™ for Palm OS®): The scrollbar can be positioned on the left side of the screen.
• configurable screen scroll regions: The screen is divided into four regions, each configurable in size and in the scroll action that occurs when the region is tapped.
• screen up/down behavior: Configure screen up and down scroll behavior to full screen, 90% of screen, or half screen, whichever you like best.
• configurable up/down button behavior: Configure the hardware up and down buttons for any combination of up and down, line and screen scrolling.
• configurable jog behavior: Configure the Jog Dial™/wheel for any combination of up and down, line and screen scrolling.
• smooth scrolling: Smooth scrolling provides a transition effect when scrolling. You can turn off smooth scrolling for faster scrolling.
• hardware button assignments: Assign individual actions to any or all of the hardware buttons.

settings

• last view location: For each document, iSilo™ remembers the last viewed location so that regardless of how many other documents you open in the meantime, when you go back to a document, you return to where you last left off.
• history: Similarly, iSilo™ maintains your jump history, very useful for backtracking when you return to your document.
• local bookmarks: The settings database also stores your local bookmarks.

document display

text formatting

• plain: Example: plain
• italic: Example: italic
• bold: Example: bold
• underline: Example: underline
• strikethrough: Example: strikethough
• monospace: Example: monospace
• font size: Palm OS® 5 and Palm OS® 4 devices with high-density screens, Sony CLIÉ devices with high resolution screens, and the HandEra™ 330 provide four font sizes. Example: tiny, small, standard, large. Other devices provide two font sizes: standard and large.
• subscript: Example: sub_script
• superscript: Example: super^script
• colored text: Example: green
• colored background: Example: green

color

• 1-bit black and white: Black and white works across all devices. With dithering, real-life images even look decent.
• 2-bit and 4-bit greyscale: Greyscale documents provide the broadest compatibility and best memory usage while still allowing for shaded backgrounds and text and providing enough range to display picture quality images.
• 8-bit color: On color devices, 8-bit color is the lowest common denominator, but still adds a new dimension to documents compared with greyscale.
• 16-bit color: On supported devices, 16-bit color dramatically improves a document's presentation, especially with images.

images

• inline and block level: Images may appear inline in between text on the same line or at block level outside of text blocks.
• large images: Images can be many multiples the size of the screen in either dimension, with a theoretical size limit of about 32,000 by 32,000 pixels.
• greyscale: In addition to black and white, iSilo™ can display 2-bit (4-level greyscale) and 4-bit (16-level greyscale) images on supported devices.
• color: iSilo™ can display 8-bit (256 colors) and 16-bit (65,000+ colors) color images.
• multiple bit depths: Documents can include images in multiple bit depths for the broadest support and image quality control.
• compression: Images can occupy a large amount of storage space. Compression reduces the stored size.

tables

• table display: iSilo™ takes the size of the screen into consideration in formatting a table for display.
• wide and long tables: Top-level tables can theoretically be thousands of columns wide and millions of rows long, though practical limits such as memory available will limit the actual maximum on a given device.
• single column/multi-column mode: For wide tables or tables that have been laid out for display on a desktop monitor, iSilo™ provides the ability to toggle table display between single column and multi-column mode for optimal viewing.
• row and column spanning cells: Individual cells can span rows and/or columns.
• embedded tables: Tables can be embedded within one another (e.g., a table within a table) to an arbitrary depth.

block formatting

• margins: Blocks can have individually specified top, bottom, left, and right margins to offset blocks from one another and from display edges. blocks.
• borders: Blocks can have individually specified top, bottom, left, and right borders with a choice of colors and widths.
• padding: Blocks can have individually specified top, bottom, left, and right padding to offset the content from surrounding margins and borders.
• background colors: Individual blocks can have their own background color, effective for visual highlighting of content such as table headings.