Show HN: A usable eBook reader inside a browser (azw3, mobi, ePub, pdf)(loudreader.com)
loudreader.com
Show HN: A usable eBook reader inside a browser (azw3, mobi, ePub, pdf)
https://www.loudreader.com
71 comments
Solid start. The page layout options could use a bit more work:
1. It initially defaults to showing two facing pages per screen, but the selector shows "Read a chapter as a long scrolled page" as selected. "Fit 2 page side by side in window" is the same and is presumably the actual default. Switching back to "long scrolled page" from that does do what you'd expect. This is fullscreen on a 1920x1080 desktop display.
2. I personally dislike side-by-side views - I find them distracting - but at this size the line length for "long scrolled page" is too long for readability. I'd prefer a "long scrolled page but with shorter lines and bigger margins" option, like Firefox's reader view.
1. It initially defaults to showing two facing pages per screen, but the selector shows "Read a chapter as a long scrolled page" as selected. "Fit 2 page side by side in window" is the same and is presumably the actual default. Switching back to "long scrolled page" from that does do what you'd expect. This is fullscreen on a 1920x1080 desktop display.
2. I personally dislike side-by-side views - I find them distracting - but at this size the line length for "long scrolled page" is too long for readability. I'd prefer a "long scrolled page but with shorter lines and bigger margins" option, like Firefox's reader view.
Can you describe what motivated you to build an ebook reader for the browser, when multiple free desktop and mobile book readers exist?
Also, do I need to keep the screen open if I want to save my place in my book? It doesn't seem to save my book or my location when I reload the page.
Also, do I need to keep the screen open if I want to save my place in my book? It doesn't seem to save my book or my location when I reload the page.
Not the OP, but I find Calibre burdensomely heavy for what I want, and Okular far too glitchy. Also, sometimes I am at PCs where I can't install arbitrary software.
I think we still need far more/better solutions in the open source e-reading space.
I think we still need far more/better solutions in the open source e-reading space.
I can't speak for the creator but I often read Japanese ebooks in my browser because it allows me to lookup unfamiliar words quickly with Yomichan and then create anki cards for them (if I want to).
A bit OOT but how do you transfer Yomichan to anki cards? Do you do it manually?
It's a built in feature using Ankiconnect.
Have you tried calibre? It’s a proper ebook reader app that allows you to define custom dictionary URL patterns.
I use Calibre daily, but for epub > dictionary > anki card there isn't a good workflow I've found.
> multiple free desktop and mobile book readers exist
Under many circumstances, some I've been in, none of those are an option, and a browser is all you've got.
Under many circumstances, some I've been in, none of those are an option, and a browser is all you've got.
>> when multiple free desktop and mobile book readers exist
Do you know a good list of available readers? I still searching for the one which fit for me. This one could be a good candidate after some polish.
Do you know a good list of available readers? I still searching for the one which fit for me. This one could be a good candidate after some polish.
hey, I actually was working on something similar ( forking from https://github.com/satorumurmur/bibi which is an open source epub reader ), but my objective was to allow
a) To save books in some place online like s3 or gdrive etc.
b) Allowing to use the "bookmark" feature across sessions.
My use case is that sometimes I am reading a EPUB and I have it in my tablet, but sometimes I have my computer, and othertimes I have my phone. Currently I have to download it 3 times to read it and remember the bookmark.
a) To save books in some place online like s3 or gdrive etc.
b) Allowing to use the "bookmark" feature across sessions.
My use case is that sometimes I am reading a EPUB and I have it in my tablet, but sometimes I have my computer, and othertimes I have my phone. Currently I have to download it 3 times to read it and remember the bookmark.
> To save books in some place online like s3 or gdrive etc
How far did you make it with this? S3 is tricky because they don't offer OAuth so the user basically has to generate an IAM user and access keys and paste them into your app. I'm currently exploring solutions to this problem.
How far did you make it with this? S3 is tricky because they don't offer OAuth so the user basically has to generate an IAM user and access keys and paste them into your app. I'm currently exploring solutions to this problem.
Right, I only got to that, I entered my s3 keys manually. I think for a smoother experience I would use Google Drive, which provides OAuth access AFAIK.
Amazing! Great job! I'm so curious about your process
What programming language did you use?
What was the harder part?
Which format was the hardest?
How long did it take you?
What programming language did you use?
What was the harder part?
Which format was the hardest?
How long did it take you?
ReadEra is an excellent piece of polished software that has everything I want in an e reader and is a joy to use. I would highly recommend using the free version, and then buying the premium to support the developer.
Great work!
I join the margins bandwagon: when displaying a single column, it would be great to be able to have a not too big page width, as very long lines on a desktop monitor are hard to read.
Great work!
Maybe have to reconsider layout for big screens similar to mine. But browser resize is fine for now.
Maybe have to reconsider layout for big screens similar to mine. But browser resize is fine for now.
I am very opinionated.
My ebook reader requirements:
- [ ] let me set colors for background and text. Extra points for saving more than two sets.
- [ ] let me choose my own font, regardless of what the book says. (Pallatino, or TeX Gyre Pagella, is my preference.)
- [x] let me set main font size
- [ ] let me set margins and line spacing
- [x] scroll by changing pages, not scrolling down a column. No animations.
- [x] must respond to keypresses for next page and previous page. Extra points for keys for table of contents and next/previous chapter.
- [x] footnote support
So by my standards, it's almost there. It would be nice if, after I turned a page or three, the icons retreated further, or at least did not overlap the text.
My ebook reader requirements:
- [ ] let me set colors for background and text. Extra points for saving more than two sets.
- [ ] let me choose my own font, regardless of what the book says. (Pallatino, or TeX Gyre Pagella, is my preference.)
- [x] let me set main font size
- [ ] let me set margins and line spacing
- [x] scroll by changing pages, not scrolling down a column. No animations.
- [x] must respond to keypresses for next page and previous page. Extra points for keys for table of contents and next/previous chapter.
- [x] footnote support
So by my standards, it's almost there. It would be nice if, after I turned a page or three, the icons retreated further, or at least did not overlap the text.
what reader are you using now that does all those things?
Foliate fits perfectly:
- [x] colors
- [x] Fonts
- [x] Font size
- [x] Margins/padding/spacing
- [x] Page scroll. no animations
- [x] Keyboard shortcuts
- [x] Footnotes
https://johnfactotum.github.io/foliate/
- [x] colors
- [x] Fonts
- [x] Font size
- [x] Margins/padding/spacing
- [x] Page scroll. no animations
- [x] Keyboard shortcuts
- [x] Footnotes
https://johnfactotum.github.io/foliate/
FBReader on Android; KOReader on many platforms; EPUBReader extension for Firefox (requires tinkering to get the fonts right now, would use any locally installed font in earlier versions).
Not GP, but the reader included in Calibre would fit.
Calibre is pretty amazing
Excellent. Just a couple nitpicks (on Linux Chromium):
* Hovering over either button on the top right opens a menu. I'm pretty sure only the far right is supposed to.
* Needs an option to center the content for wide screens.
Have you considered adding support for loading files from the user's Google Drive/Dropbox/etc? It seems like many apps would benefit from this. I've been toying with the idea of writing a JS lib to provide a common interface to all the big ones, kind of like how rclone does for the command line but for frontend apps.
* Hovering over either button on the top right opens a menu. I'm pretty sure only the far right is supposed to.
* Needs an option to center the content for wide screens.
Have you considered adding support for loading files from the user's Google Drive/Dropbox/etc? It seems like many apps would benefit from this. I've been toying with the idea of writing a JS lib to provide a common interface to all the big ones, kind of like how rclone does for the command line but for frontend apps.
Awesome project. I'm not sure if it's just in Firefox, but I would recommend that you be a little more aggressive with the whitespace in the books.
I've found that iBooks has a great display stylesheet for epub and what makes it great is the ratio of text size to whitespace. It also limits how wide text can get - no need to spread it across the whole page. You could probably double the size of your margins to improve this.
I am also not sure if Firefox is causing this, but inter-line distances do not seem to be consistent and that is very distracting as a reader.
In both browsers the next/prev page arrows are also weirdly off-center.
I've found that iBooks has a great display stylesheet for epub and what makes it great is the ratio of text size to whitespace. It also limits how wide text can get - no need to spread it across the whole page. You could probably double the size of your margins to improve this.
I am also not sure if Firefox is causing this, but inter-line distances do not seem to be consistent and that is very distracting as a reader.
In both browsers the next/prev page arrows are also weirdly off-center.
FYI was working nicely for me in Safari.
What a coincidence! I am also building a web book reader( only pdfs for the moment) with the difference that all my books are already stored in google drive so I wanted a way to access all of them easily without downloading them one by one on all my devices and sync the last page I was reading.
https://gitlab.com/wolfgang000/cloud-books/
If you want to take a look, the MVP is already functional(at leat the dropbox integration until google approves the google drive one) but I haven't made the landing page
https://app.parcebooks.net/
https://gitlab.com/wolfgang000/cloud-books/
If you want to take a look, the MVP is already functional(at leat the dropbox integration until google approves the google drive one) but I haven't made the landing page
https://app.parcebooks.net/
I ran this in a Oculus Quest2 HMD and loving it !!
In the native browser it lets me access local storage content.
Can't do that in Firefox Reality but the browser's screen size certainly makes Alice 10ft tall!!
Thanks for the Show and Tell
In the native browser it lets me access local storage content.
Can't do that in Firefox Reality but the browser's screen size certainly makes Alice 10ft tall!!
Thanks for the Show and Tell
Whoa, I didn't know there were practical uses for VR besides gaming. Do you use yours for anything else?
Apologies for the late reply but yes I find a lot of productivity apps are available now that are starting to work in ways that you just can't replicate on a PC. Still early days to be sure. Keyboard input is not easy. Some pages are strange in the Remote shell apps due to font sizes or image scaling etc. But its you can see the potential and just having multiple huge floating screens you can control is enough to work through the rough edges.
Other than what you can do in browsers I recommend you check PC remote terminals like vSpatial or ImmersedVR which give you a VR office experience.
Good Luck (and watch this space ;}
Other than what you can do in browsers I recommend you check PC remote terminals like vSpatial or ImmersedVR which give you a VR office experience.
Good Luck (and watch this space ;}
Now if someone is looking for something to do -
Create a two-column two-language ebook reader of free and public domain works that happen to be available in translation, therefore in two languages. You could use volunteers or AI to sync up the two columns. Good for learning languages, you can buy such books of course, but having a massive pile of them in open source available free so you could choose a text that interested you, would be nice. Might be possible to do this for news stories too, now I think about it.
Might take very little "AI" or volunteer work, given that translators don't often break up sentences.
Create a two-column two-language ebook reader of free and public domain works that happen to be available in translation, therefore in two languages. You could use volunteers or AI to sync up the two columns. Good for learning languages, you can buy such books of course, but having a massive pile of them in open source available free so you could choose a text that interested you, would be nice. Might be possible to do this for news stories too, now I think about it.
Might take very little "AI" or volunteer work, given that translators don't often break up sentences.
Or just make this a feature of any ebook reader...
Is this using https://github.com/futurepress/epub.js/ under the hood?
Yes, digging in the source, I see it's using Epub.js v0.3 and PDF.js v2.4.163.
I like it! It needs more display options, like line-height, and margin size. I also accidentally scrolled with my touchpad and was moved to the very beginning, then very end when I reversed course (Chromium on Linux FWIW).
Genuinely wondering here, what are the benefits people are liking here? Whenever I open up a pdf it opens up fine in chrome.
A side note if anyone is also security conscience. Over the years I have also grown wary whether safe to also download pdf's and open them with a pdf reader. Anyone know if there is a best practice how to trust the pdf when opening on your host machine, or what do you suggest?
A side note if anyone is also security conscience. Over the years I have also grown wary whether safe to also download pdf's and open them with a pdf reader. Anyone know if there is a best practice how to trust the pdf when opening on your host machine, or what do you suggest?
> what are the benefits people are liking here? Whenever I open up a pdf it opens up fine in chrome.
ePub
ePub
Thanks for building this. I'm trying to make my book available in all these formats but my biggest issue is that it is hard to read a book on both desktop or mobile.
Does anybody knows of any interesting UI that works for books? I've looked into interactive books but it's only fun for few pages and then it leans more toward annoying. Any suggestions?
Does anybody knows of any interesting UI that works for books? I've looked into interactive books but it's only fun for few pages and then it leans more toward annoying. Any suggestions?
On iPad, it’s impossible to see the bottom of the page. It scrolls back up by itself. There’s a blink as well when it happens.
Also, please block double tap/triple tap. They trigger zoom in, then it’s impossible to zoom out.
Also, please block double tap/triple tap. They trigger zoom in, then it’s impossible to zoom out.
Revolutionary concept to be able to read HTML based ebook formats in a browser! But seriously, nice job.
I wonder if the following feature is possible:
Make it two columns. one column, the left one is the original text. The right column is a paragraph aligned translation, paragraph by paragraph, using Google or Bing or any of those API.
So far I have found no e-reader software capable of doing this.
Make it two columns. one column, the left one is the original text. The right column is a paragraph aligned translation, paragraph by paragraph, using Google or Bing or any of those API.
So far I have found no e-reader software capable of doing this.
One large mark against building this feature is that machine translation is still largely worthless. I barely see the point.
Aligning paragraphs in a translated copy would be more useful from a language learning perspective, though generally something beginners overvalue.
Side by side UI also limits you to larger displays unless you will settle for tiny text.
Aligning paragraphs in a translated copy would be more useful from a language learning perspective, though generally something beginners overvalue.
Side by side UI also limits you to larger displays unless you will settle for tiny text.
> Aligning paragraphs in a translated copy would be more useful from a language learning perspective
This is exactly the intended use.
ANY help when learning a new language is welcome. Also, the translation quality varies a lot between language pairs. Sometimes it is greatly improved just by removing English from the equation.
This is exactly the intended use.
ANY help when learning a new language is welcome. Also, the translation quality varies a lot between language pairs. Sometimes it is greatly improved just by removing English from the equation.
Any way to get this to be the default pwa/app for opening said filetypes in Android?
Windows users can just use edge browser to read epubs. Been using it for a while an I have no real complaints. Then again, I dont spend the whole say reading, just a few hours at most.
Does it work with the new Edge?
I remember they removed the epub reader when Edge chromium was released.
I remember they removed the epub reader when Edge chromium was released.
[deleted]
This is really good! I couldn't find a good lightweight ePub reader. Is it open source though? I'd love to customize it a bit :)
Foliate is a wonderful FOSS ePub reader for Linux. It seems to offer all of the customization options you listed.
https://johnfactotum.github.io/foliate/
https://johnfactotum.github.io/foliate/
Just downloaded it. It solves every single problem I had. Thanks!
There's BIbi which is a nice open source ePub reader ( https://github.com/satorumurmur/bibi )
What platform are you on? SumatraPDF handles most ebook formats and is nice and zippy.
Ubuntu/Linux Mint. I like to customize the typography, the colors, the text width. SumatraPDF doesn't seem to be available on Ubuntu though.
Apparently people have had success [1] with Wine, but that's presumably not ideal. It does have some customizability but probably not as much as you're looking for.
[1] https://forum.sumatrapdfreader.org/t/sumatrapdf-on-linux/135...
[1] https://forum.sumatrapdfreader.org/t/sumatrapdf-on-linux/135...
This is pretty rad on my iPhone. It’s be nice if it didn’t lose my place and my book when I closed the tab.
Very cool project! Is it open sourced?
Would be cool if it was MPL, BSD, or MIT Licensed. Could eventually be embedded into browsers.
Browser-based EPUB and FB2 rendereres are pretty straightforward to build. You don't need a free implementation to embed it in a browser, you can always implement it from scratch if you are interested. You don't even need a team or too much time, a single developer is enough. I don't know much about MOBI/AZW3 but I doubt they are much harder. PDF is already there. Another useful format is DJVU and there have been well-known browser plug-ins for it.
I would love to see all these (not just PDF) to come with the common browsers by default. It seems sad to me they don't. The only browser that actually took care was the old Edge. I was very disappointed they decided not to port this feature to the new Edge.
I would love to see all these (not just PDF) to come with the common browsers by default. It seems sad to me they don't. The only browser that actually took care was the old Edge. I was very disappointed they decided not to port this feature to the new Edge.
How can one tell if the books are being uploaded somewhere or not?
Can this work offline?
I mean, it's not hard to test that ;)
firefox has a builtin offline mode, for example
TIL! Thanks!
Can’t it to turn pages or do anything on mobile. Great idea though!
The open file button doesn't do anything on Safari?
Wow. Thanks! This will be useful
Blinks and stinks.
Made one that usable for daily use. Comments and suggestion welcome.