12 KiB
CrossPoint User Guide
Welcome to the CrossPoint firmware. This guide outlines the hardware controls, navigation, and reading features of the device.
- CrossPoint User Guide
1. Hardware Overview
The device utilises the standard buttons on the Xtink X4 (in the same layout as the manufacturer firmware, by default):
Button Layout
| Location | Buttons |
|---|---|
| Bottom Edge | Back, Confirm, Left, Right |
| Right Side | Power, Volume Up, Volume Down, Reset |
Button layout can be customized in Settings.
2. Power & Startup
Power On / Off
To turn the device on or off, press and hold the Power button for approximately half a second. In Settings you can configure the power button to turn the device off with a short press instead of a long one.
To reboot the device (for example if it's frozen, or after a firmware update), press and release the Reset button, and then quickly press and hold the Power button for a few seconds.
First Launch
Upon turning the device on for the first time, you will be placed on the Home screen.
Note
On subsequent restarts, the firmware will automatically reopen the last book you were reading.
3. Screens
3.1 Home Screen
The Home Screen is the main entry point to the firmware. From here you can navigate to Reading Mode with the most recently read book, Book Selection, Settings, or the File Upload screen.
3.2 Book Selection
The Book Selection acts as a folder and file browser.
- Navigate List: Use Left (or Volume Up), or Right (or Volume Down) to move the selection cursor up and down through folders and books. You can also long-press these buttons to scroll a full page up or down.
- Open Selection: Press Confirm to open a folder or read a selected book.
3.3 Reading Mode
See Reading Mode below for more information.
3.4 File Upload Screen
The File Upload screen allows you to upload new e-books to the device. When you enter the screen, you'll be prompted with a WiFi selection dialog and then your X4 will start hosting a web server.
See the webserver docs for more information on how to connect to the web server and upload files.
Tip
Advanced users can also manage files programmatically or via the command line using
curl. See the webserver docs for details.
3.4.1 Calibre Wireless Transfers
CrossPoint supports sending books from Calibre using the CrossPoint Reader device plugin.
- Install the plugin in Calibre:
- Head to https://github.com/crosspoint-reader/calibre-plugins/releases to download the latest version of the crosspoint_reader plugin.
- Download the zip file.
- Open Calibre → Preferences → Plugins → Load plugin from file → Select the zip file.
- On the device: File Transfer → Connect to Calibre → Join a network.
- Make sure your computer is on the same WiFi network.
- In Calibre, click "Send to device" to transfer books.
3.5 Settings
The Settings screen allows you to configure the device's behavior. There are a few settings you can adjust:
- Sleep Screen: Which sleep screen to display when the device sleeps:
- "Dark" (default) - The default dark Crosspoint logo sleep screen
- "Light" - The same default sleep screen, on a white background
- "Custom" - Custom images from the SD card; see Sleep Screen below for more information
- "Cover" - The book cover image (Note: this is experimental and may not work as expected)
- "None" - A blank screen
- Sleep Screen Cover Mode: How to display the book cover when "Cover" sleep screen is selected:
- "Fit" (default) - Scale the image down to fit centered on the screen, padding with white borders as necessary
- "Crop" - Scale the image down and crop as necessary to try to to fill the screen (Note: this is experimental and may not work as expected)
- Sleep Screen Cover Filter: What filter will be applied to the book cover when "Cover" sleep screen is selected
- "None" (default) - The cover image will be converted to a grayscale image and displayed as it is
- "Contrast" - The image will be displayed as a black & white image without grayscale conversion
- "Inverted" - The image will be inverted as in white&black and will be displayed without grayscale conversion
- Status Bar: Configure the status bar displayed while reading:
- "None" - No status bar
- "No Progress" - Show status bar without reading progress
- "Full" - Show status bar with reading progress
- Hide Battery %: Configure where to suppress the battery pecentage display in the status bar; the battery icon will still be shown:
- "Never" - Always show battery percentage (default)
- "In Reader" - Show battery percentage everywhere except in reading mode
- "Always" - Always hide battery percentage
- Extra Paragraph Spacing: If enabled, vertical space will be added between paragraphs in the book. If disabled, paragraphs will not have vertical space between them, but will have first-line indentation.
- Text Anti-Aliasing: Whether to show smooth grey edges (anti-aliasing) on text in reading mode. Note this slows down page turns slightly.
- Short Power Button Click: Controls the effect of a short click of the power button:
- "Ignore" - Require a long press to turn off the device
- "Sleep" - A short press powers the device off
- "Page Turn" - A short press in reading mode turns to the next page; a long press turns the device off
- Reading Orientation: Set the screen orientation for reading EPUB files:
- "Portrait" (default) - Standard portrait orientation
- "Landscape CW" - Landscape, rotated clockwise
- "Inverted" - Portrait, upside down
- "Landscape CCW" - Landscape, rotated counter-clockwise
- Front Button Layout: Configure the order of the bottom edge buttons:
- Back, Confirm, Left, Right (default)
- Left, Right, Back, Confirm
- Left, Back, Confirm, Right
- Back, Confirm, Right, Left
- Side Button Layout (reader): Swap the order of the up and down volume buttons from Previous/Next to Next/Previous. This change is only in effect when reading.
- Long-press Chapter Skip: Set whether long-pressing page turn buttons skip to the next/previous chapter.
- "Chapter Skip" (default) - Long-pressing skips to next/previous chapter
- "Page Scroll" - Long-pressing scrolls a page up/down
- Swap the order of the up and down volume buttons from Previous/Next to Next/Previous. This change is only in effect when reading.
- Reader Font Family: Choose the font used for reading:
- "Bookerly" (default) - Amazon's reading font
- "Noto Sans" - Google's sans-serif font
- "Open Dyslexic" - Font designed for readers with dyslexia
- Reader Font Size: Adjust the text size for reading; options are "Small", "Medium", "Large", or "X Large".
- Reader Line Spacing: Adjust the spacing between lines; options are "Tight", "Normal", or "Wide".
- Reader Screen Margin: Controls the screen margins in reader mode between 5 and 40 pixels in 5 pixel increments.
- Reader Paragraph Alignment: Set the alignment of paragraphs; options are "Justified" (default), "Left", "Center", or "Right".
- Time to Sleep: Set the duration of inactivity before the device automatically goes to sleep.
- Refresh Frequency: Set how often the screen does a full refresh while reading to reduce ghosting.
- OPDS Browser: Configure OPDS server settings for browsing and downloading books. Set the server URL (for Calibre Content Server, add
/opdsto the end), and optionally configure username and password for servers requiring authentication. Note: Only HTTP Basic authentication is supported. If using Calibre Content Server with authentication enabled, you must set it to use Basic authentication instead of the default Digest authentication. - Check for updates: Check for firmware updates over WiFi.
3.6 Sleep Screen
You can customize the sleep screen by placing custom images in specific locations on the SD card:
- Single Image: Place a file named
sleep.bmpin the root directory. - Multiple Images: Create a
sleepdirectory in the root of the SD card and place any number of.bmpimages inside. If images are found in this directory, they will take priority over thesleep.bmpfile, and one will be randomly selected each time the device sleeps.
Note
You'll need to set the Sleep Screen setting to Custom in order to use these images.
Tip
For best results:
- Use uncompressed BMP files with 24-bit color depth
- Use a resolution of 480x800 pixels to match the device's screen resolution.
4. Reading Mode
Once you have opened a book, the button layout changes to facilitate reading.
Page Turning
| Action | Buttons |
|---|---|
| Previous Page | Press Left or Volume Up |
| Next Page | Press Right or Volume Down |
The role of the volume (side) buttons can be swapped in Settings.
If the Short Power Button Click setting is set to "Page Turn", you can also turn to the next page by briefly pressing the Power button.
Chapter Navigation
- Next Chapter: Press and hold the Right (or Volume Down) button briefly, then release.
- Previous Chapter: Press and hold the Left (or Volume Up) button briefly, then release.
This feature can be disabled in Settings to help avoid changing chapters by mistake.
System Navigation
- Return to Book Selection: Press Back to close the book and return to the Book Selection screen.
- Return to Home: Press and hold the Back button to close the book and return to the Home screen.
- Chapter Menu: Press Confirm to open the Table of Contents/Chapter Selection.
Supported Languages
CrossPoint renders text using the following Unicode character blocks, enabling support for a wide range of languages:
- Latin Script (Basic, Supplement, Extended-A): Covers English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Turkish, and others.
- Cyrillic Script (Standard and Extended): Covers Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Macedonian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Mongolian, and others.
What is not supported: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Hebrew, Arabic, Greek and Farsi.
5. Chapter Selection Screen
Accessible by pressing Confirm while inside a book.
- Use Left (or Volume Up), or Right (or Volume Down) to highlight the desired chapter.
- Press Confirm to jump to that chapter.
- Alternatively, press Back to cancel and return to your current page.
6. Current Limitations & Roadmap
Please note that this firmware is currently in active development. The following features are not yet supported but are planned for future updates:
- Images: Embedded images in e-books will not render.