Gander 2.6 opens PDFs on phones with Android 9 or later whose WebView is too old for them, lays out books, text and Markdown in Arabic, Hebrew and other right-to-left scripts right to left, and draws a slide with no background on white.
Gander is on Google Play, signed with the same key as these releases.
PDFs
- A PDF now opens on a phone whose WebView is too old for PDFs and can't be updated, such as a Huawei phone without Google services, where Gander only said that PDFs would not work. Android's own PDF renderer draws the pages, in a process walled off from your files and from Gander, and they are shown as pictures, with the page readout, Go to page, night mode and Print, but without search, text selection or form entries, and before Android 15 without highlights or comments. It needs Android 9 or later. Thanks @sdiddssew, #9, and @XZY123lol, #31.
- Where updating Android System WebView would fix PDFs, the message still says so, and now has a button that opens this simple view in the meantime.
- From Android 9, PDF thumbnails are drawn the same way on every phone, in a walled-off process, so a PDF that crashes Android's renderer no longer closes Gander. On Android 8, which can't keep that process as far apart, PDFs show their badge instead of a thumbnail.
Right to left
- In a book read right to left, such as one in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian or Urdu, Next is on the left and Previous on the right, and the contents, the title and the chapter's name read right to left, indented from the right. Thanks @yshalsager, #54.
- A plain text file mostly in Arabic, Hebrew or another right-to-left script reads right to left. Code, data, subtitles and playlists stay left to right. Thanks @yshalsager, #59.
- A Markdown file mostly in a right-to-left script reads right to left, and its code reads left to right, even in a part the author set right to left. Thanks @yshalsager, #60.
Slides and Word
- A slide with no background is drawn on white, as PowerPoint draws it, and so is a slide whose background Gander can't draw yet, such as a pattern. Gander drew both see-through, so the grey behind them showed and dark text on them was hard to read. Thanks @PROTON-DARK, who sent the deck, #53.
- A Word table whose cells are marked to run left to right, the usual way, now reads across. Gander turned the text in every such cell on its side. Thanks @XZY123lol, who brought this over from 4PDA in #52.
Install
Gander-2.6.apk runs on every phone. The app ships no native libraries, so there is no architecture to choose.
Viewing PDFs in full needs Android System WebView 125 or newer (May 2024), Word documents 80 and Markdown files 92. Any phone still receiving WebView updates is well past all three. Below 125, on Android 9 and later, PDFs can open in the simple view above.
Verify before installing if you like. Signing certificate SHA-256:
5B:5C:F6:4A:94:23:7C:D5:F0:E0:85:76:00:38:BC:1C:EB:DF:18:DA:BA:5C:B3:EA:CA:7C:15:9F:22:A7:E2:4B
And the APK itself:
62b3f68fa8ab765abf671af054c1a82d41e2c98da27d6de21159abf650ee2d44