Homebrew developer pyefox recent made a rather hefty update with the iPhone text reader application entitled "textReader". Version 1.0Beta6 includes several useful additions which certainly steps up the previous version's functionality.

Many of the new changes in textReader v1.0Beta6 include additional support for several text file formats, most notably for RTF files. Aside from that, several small tweaks were also added to help spruce up the app's interface.

Here are the specifics of all the new stuff added to textReader v1.0Beta6 since our previous coverage of the homebrew program:

* Fix RTF NLS/Encoding Support. The RTF file will have the encodings applied like any other file - ideally I'd use the encodings specified within the file but that will be left for a future release. I have tried it with English, Chinese, and French RTF files and it seems to be working.
* Fix "No Encoding Specified" error
* Add extra backgrounds - Thanks to the www.weiphone.com folks!
* Minor additions to RTF formatting that were broken in Beta4 (believe it or not, a Microsoft bug!)
* Adds initial support for RTF files ... let me know where formatting needs to be improved.
* Treat IDEOGRAPHIC SPACE like a normal blank
* Fix Indent paragraph Original (I hope)
* Add option to display background images - just put them in /Applications/textReader.app/images and select them via the settings page
* WARNING - make sure the execute bit is set on the /Applications/textReader.app/images directory or you won't be able to select the images!!!
* Should improve character justify - the length was not being calculated properly
* Hopefully fixes problem were settings were sometimes lost (settings are now saved when you select the value rather than when you select "Done")
* Improves Strip Line Feeds - Format: line breaks should be chosen in better spots when words run together - i.e. "this,is-not;easy"
* Adds support for unencrypted/unprotected eReader/Peanut Press PDB files. The PML processing is pretty minimal at the moment, and I suspect that some files will not work, so let me know (I have seen it work with fictionwise, eReader, and Manybooks files). NOTE: As always, this code will NOT work with DRM'd files.
* Adds an option to control how the first line of a paragraph is indented. A paragraph is defined as the text following a line feed character that is not ignored. You can set it to display the original formatting (usually not very pretty), no indentation, or 1-6 blank spaces.
* Adds an option to enable pinch/stretch gestures to increase or decrease the font size. This is really a gimmick, but the same can be said for most of the code.

The developer mentioned that, as of this beta version, textReader now supports eReader, Mobipocket, RTF, HTML, Text, FB2, Plucker, and Palm Doc formats.

If you're interested in downloading textReader, we've provided the file bundle containing the homebrew app through the link. For more information on textReader's different features and how to install it, check out pyefox's Google code site, accessible through the Via link found in the main article.