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KOReader: Open-Source eBook Reader

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Re: KOReader: Open-Source eBook Reader

#101

Post by lotharcable2 »

jwrallie wrote: post #56
OuterVale wrote: post #24

Absolutely love KOReader. I use it on my Kindle 3 and have moved my parents and brother over to using it on their Kindles as well. You can even install it on relatively new models thanks to the recent WinterBreak gaolbreak. There was some discussion about it on HN not long ago: All Kindles can now be jailbroken | 1377 points by lumerina | 2025/02/17 | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43073969 I found KOReader's A…

Same experience on a PaperWhite 2, been using it for a long time. It is a good reason to look into rooting, PDF reflow and the function to remove margins make it possible (at least tolerable) to read PDFs when an .epub / .mobi is not available. You can also run Alpine Linux on a rooted Kindle with graphical interface, I found it amazing but ultimately not that useful with the limited system memory.

PDF reflow is one of the major reasons I am using Koreader. The whole thing is very clever and works extremely fast given the limited nature of these devices.

Re: KOReader: Open-Source eBook Reader

#102

Post by b0dhimind »

It's like learning to pilot a plane.... manually. Worth learning though and reading some manuals online. Minimal margins maximizing screen real estate, gesture shortcuts for almost anything, great reflow, and so much visual customization at a default level as well as per PDF... as well as having "profiles" to switch across. It's pretty amazing.

Most major miss is more friendly syncing though. Currently only supports Dropbox (WebDAV FTP seems to have issues, even when I used OneDrive key for it which works everyone else) and doesn't actually bidirectionally sync... only downloads. Why can't there be a simple auto-sync from a specific FTP directory including reading positions and such...?!

Also doesn't support Pocket or more popular sync services (only supports Wallabag).

Re: KOReader: Open-Source eBook Reader

#103

Post by remram »

b0dhimind wrote: post #102

It's like learning to pilot a plane.... manually. Worth learning though and reading some manuals online. Minimal margins maximizing screen real estate, gesture shortcuts for almost anything, great reflow, and so much visual customization at a default level as well as per PDF... as well as having "profiles" to switch across. It's pretty amazing. Most major miss is more friendly syncing though. Currently only supports…

It is nothing like learning to pilot a plane. Let's stop pretending that reading 3 paragraphs of texts is insurmountable. You can spend 2 minutes to get acquainted to an app you will use for hundreds of hours, and it's not like you need to know every feature to get started. You won't crash into the ground.

I'm sick of the cult of "intuitive". Intuitive only helps you the first time you ever use an app, and its lack of useful features hurts you forever. It obviously makes sense to optimize for the long run.

Re: KOReader: Open-Source eBook Reader

#104

Post by brunoqc »

bobchadwick wrote: post #78
ZeWaren wrote: post #40

I manage my ebooks using a self-hosted instance of calibre-web. This allows me to sync my library to my Kobo e-reader using KOreader. Also, turning pages is faster than with the stock reader of the device. https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web

Are you able to sync progress? I can access my calibre-web library, but I've been unable to figure out how to sync progress.

To sync progress, you can use `https://sync.koreader.rocks/` as a custom sync server. While in a book, top bar, settings, "Progress sync".

I think it works using the file name of the epub. Not sure.

Re: KOReader: Open-Source eBook Reader

#105

Post by stonecharioteer »

I gave KOReader a go after seeing this thread yesterday. I tried using it a year ago and gave up because the UI was so alien to me. It almost reminds me of Winamp in a sense.

But I gave it a go again and this time I spent time figuring out how to sync between devices. I've yet not synced files but here's what I got so far.

1. Koofr WebDAV for Reading Statistics sync 2. Kobo's built-in sync for progress

Both of these are free. This is a reminder mostly for myself that you need to use the service password for WebDAV access for koofr and not your koofr account's password. And make sure you save your koreader user credentials somewhere.

I'm still not happy with the keyboard situation, the koreader keyboard is ugly but I guess it's optimized for eink so that's something. I don't really type any notes into books. I mostly prefer being able to sync progress and have a centralized view of my reading statistics. And this works.

I copied all my books over manually for now, I'm happy with this. I have the following devices 1. Phone - OnePlus Open 2. eReader - Boox Tab Mini C 3. eReader - Boox Palma 1 4. Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra

Things I didn't know I needed: 1. The reading statistics. This tracks every eBook I read, and I don't have to use anything else. 2. Book map - Knowing how much time I spent in each chapter is a godsend. This really helps me understand things like this. 3. The speed reading module - perception expander - I'd never heard of this from Tim Ferris so it was new to me. I am giving it a go, and I'm not sure it's improving my reading speed but it feels like it's improving my comprehension!

Thank you to everyone who puts in the work on koreader!

Re: KOReader: Open-Source eBook Reader

#106

Post by heinrich5991 »

jszymborski wrote: post #85
no_time wrote: post #60

Very impressive how the almost the entire application is written in lua(JIT). Particularly impressive how it is fast enough to do CPU blitting/blending[0] I wonder why is lua so rarely utilized like this on its own. Such a neat language. [0]: https://github.com/koreader/koreader-base/blob/master/ffi/bl...

Running on my Pixel 6a, I wouldn't really characterize it as super responsive. This context, I think, helps me understand why.

Very snappy on my Pixel 4a. Not sure what's causing the performance problems on your phone.

Re: KOReader: Open-Source eBook Reader

#107

Post by E39M5S62 »

homebrewer wrote: post #81
E39M5S62 wrote: post #11

I wonder if load times have improved. I had this on my Kobo Libra 2, and it took it easily 5 minutes or more to open an admittedly large epub file. Changing the font size also incurred a huge penalty as it reflowed the entire document. Conversely, the built-in software never struggled with that file.

I think it builds a full text search index by default, have you tried disabling that?

I have not. I uninstalled it two years ago and haven't felt the need to go back to it.

Re: KOReader: Open-Source eBook Reader

#109

Post by vlowrian »

codybontecou wrote: post #89
vlowrian wrote: post #88

I'm using KOReader with the PocketBook Era. The integration is top notch. Installation is simply done by copying the KOReader folder to the right directory on the device. After that you can set KOReader as the default reader, which means that you keep on using the original system software and library, but books will automatically open in KOReader. This lets me use "Mail to PocketBook", Dropbox sync etc. or the fantas…

How are you getting the Push-to-Kindle plugin to sync to KOReader?

I don’t. The plugin syncs to the PocketBook system software and KOReader is simply used as the reader application which opens the article. There is no need to sync to KOReader since it accesses the books present on my device and those are managed by the PocketBook software.

Re: KOReader: Open-Source eBook Reader

#110

Post by II2II »

goosedragons wrote: post #79
II2II wrote: post #10

KOReader is an amazing program that has progressed at amazing speed over the past few years, particularly when it comes to the user interface. (It can still be overwhelming, because of the sheer number of features, but it is much better organized.) To give you an idea of how different it is from commercial products: it actually tracks reading in a useful way. It shows a chart of how long you have spent on each page,…

Have they really improved the interface? I tried it a few years ago and while it certainly has a lot of features I found it be sort of confusing to use compared to the built-in Kobo, Kindle, Boox options. Some of those features like the column panning are also available in Boox's default reader.

In my opinion, yes. On the other hand, I have been using KOReader for many years. When I started using it, it was very rough. At one point there was a fairly significant overhaul. Since then, there have been smaller incremental changes (which amount to a lot across the years). Of course, opinions of user interfaces will vary.

I am not going to claim that it is perfect. They cram a lot of functionality in there that serves a very diverse audience. The volume of options is going to have a negative impact is going to have a negative impact for anyone wanting a simple, to-the-point interface. The diverse audience bit means that virtually noone is going to be interested in a majority of the features, even though I suspect that a majority of users will interested in a combination of features that they won't find in other products.

While I may have been a bit unfair in saying that most commerical reading software is geared towards selling novels, I don't think that assessment is too far off base. Most software does appear to be designed for people who just read novels. KOReader is geared towards people who care about features that other reading software rarely provides.

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