Which Windows equivalent should I use since it doesn't support Windows?
It will help if it is just as much feature rich as Bookworm and just as much easy to use as Bookworm.
Calibre, is therefore ruled out.
Bookworm: A Simple, Focused eBook Reader
141–150 of 271 posts
Re: Bookworm: A Simple, Focused eBook Reader
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
FBReader was my go-to eReader app for a long time, but in the last few years (since they went closed source) they haven't added any useful (-to-me) features, but have added several advertisements (in the form of popups and in the menu). Still looking for an alternative
It is being sold for what, $5 and is actively being supported. I assume that it's being developed by a single developer in their own time. If charging for it lets them make a living from their clearly valuable work then what's the problem? Working on open source is fantastic but most realistic projects are sponsored in some way or form. I doubt that sponsorship works works for an eReader app, so this is a good soluti…
> If charging for it lets them make a living from their clearly valuable work then what's the problem?
They took an open source app I loved, closed the source, added features I don't need (and ads I definitely don't), making it run slower on my 6-year-old Nexus 7 I use as a reader.
I agree with supporting development, but it was feature-complete as an open source app. The roadmap for 3.0, 3.1, and 3.x add nothing of interest to me[1]. I'll happily move to the Book Reader app that someone else mentioned, and contribute anything to it that I can.
[1] https://fbreader.org/content/fbreader-3x-android-planned-fea...
Re: Bookworm: A Simple, Focused eBook Reader
#143The problem is not the ebook reader. The problem is trying to buy a commercial ebook from anywhere other than Amazon, and having to use someone's stupid DRM scheme. I tried once to not buy a Kindle book, and I just had to end up installing someone's other app just to decrypt the book so I could read it.
You can make all the ebook readers you want. Until we find an easier way to make non-Amazon ebooks easier to read, these aren't going to catch on.
Re: Bookworm: A Simple, Focused eBook Reader
#144Maybe I'm old school, but I don't understand the concept of a "library". I have directories on my filesystem(s), files in those directories, and amazingly powerful applications to navigate them (Total Commander / mc / Krusader). Why would an ebook reader even try to do the navigation for me? It should display an ebook, and I'll take care of the rest. If it's showing me the file system, it's redundant. If it's showing…
you might be interested in mupdf or mupdf-based viewers, it supports pdf and epub (but not mobi) and it very lightweight
Re: Bookworm: A Simple, Focused eBook Reader
#145Maybe I'm old school, but I don't understand the concept of a "library". I have directories on my filesystem(s), files in those directories, and amazingly powerful applications to navigate them (Total Commander / mc / Krusader). Why would an ebook reader even try to do the navigation for me? It should display an ebook, and I'll take care of the rest. If it's showing me the file system, it's redundant. If it's showing…
You're not the only one. A lot of applications developed today do the same thing and it also frustrates me. I also dislike when a piece of software will outright modify/change/move the current directory structure to suit its own logic.
Re: Bookworm: A Simple, Focused eBook Reader
#146Maybe I'm old school, but I don't understand the concept of a "library". I have directories on my filesystem(s), files in those directories, and amazingly powerful applications to navigate them (Total Commander / mc / Krusader). Why would an ebook reader even try to do the navigation for me? It should display an ebook, and I'll take care of the rest. If it's showing me the file system, it's redundant. If it's showing…
I can understand you. However, libraries are hard to understand until managing your collection creates a lot of overhead. A good library can find something from a sizeable collection in a second or two. Calibre is perfectly capable in this regard. Also metadata is something really powerful. However, you need a lot of it (in this case books) to reap its benefits. Calibre doesn't obfuscate / embed the book files. They…
I can't say I have a large collection of ebooks (just checked: 54) but I won't use a file manager to handle it. I use Calibre because it's much easier to convert between formats, edit metadata, edit the ebook, add a cover page. Basically that's it and Calibre has many more features that I don't use (the reader among the others). I'm sure there are separate programs that do all I use Calibre for, but it's much easier in this way.
BTW, I don't understand the use case of reading ebooks on a desktop or laptop instead of on a phone or tablet (or eink reader.) Is this really common? I can imagine reading some technical ebook at my computer while working at my desk, but not fiction or anything else.
Re: Bookworm: A Simple, Focused eBook Reader
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be honest, I don't see why would you port it to python 3. Isn't it already working? Are there any python 2 bug hampering its development?
Python2 will be at end of support next year. That means slowly it will become harder and harder to make calibre runable on modern systems. 3rd-party librays will decline and receive no updates. Python2-interpreter will not be installable out-of-the-box. There will be no security-updates or new features. Python2 as a platform will slowly die and any application depending on it will die with it. Though, this won't beco…
To be honest, I doubt corporations will give Python 2 up easily. Currently Python 2 codebase in use in production is probably fairly huge and is just working. Look at how hard it is to convince enterprises to give up Internet Explorer even though Microsoft itself says they should really end using it. Someone like Red Hat will probably keep maintaining Python 2 for at least some years more.
Re: Bookworm: A Simple, Focused eBook Reader
#148The problem is not the ebook reader. The problem is trying to buy a commercial ebook from anywhere other than Amazon, and having to use someone's stupid DRM scheme. I tried once to not buy a Kindle book, and I just had to end up installing someone's other app just to decrypt the book so I could read it. You can make all the ebook readers you want. Until we find an easier way to make non-Amazon ebooks easier to read,…
I buy from Google, no DRM, plain epub. Big selection.
I buy from Kobo, no DRM, plain epub. Big selection.
I buy from a bunch of authors' own websites or small publishing platforms (like bookviewcafe.com) because an even higher percentage of the price goes to the author, and nobody ever pays to put DRM on their own book.
Re: Bookworm: A Simple, Focused eBook Reader
#149Maybe I'm old school, but I don't understand the concept of a "library". I have directories on my filesystem(s), files in those directories, and amazingly powerful applications to navigate them (Total Commander / mc / Krusader). Why would an ebook reader even try to do the navigation for me? It should display an ebook, and I'll take care of the rest. If it's showing me the file system, it's redundant. If it's showing…
Yes, I hate programs that replicate my filesystem, slowly and badly! Please, give me an ebook reader that opens a single file and that's it. It cannot be so hard!
Re: Bookworm: A Simple, Focused eBook Reader
#150Maybe I'm old school, but I don't understand the concept of a "library". I have directories on my filesystem(s), files in those directories, and amazingly powerful applications to navigate them (Total Commander / mc / Krusader). Why would an ebook reader even try to do the navigation for me? It should display an ebook, and I'll take care of the rest. If it's showing me the file system, it's redundant. If it's showing…
I don't particularly like Calibre's library implementation, but a generic file manager just isn't a very good way of managing documents. Metadata like bookmarks, references, excerpts and annotations are a really important part of an effective reading experience.
The reading experience starts when you open the book with the reader program. If you want a library, use a library program. Those should be completely orthogonal concerns.