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KOReader

koreader.rocks

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Re: KOReader

#91

Post by Anonyneko »

It's a great reader app, but as a reader of Japanese light novels it's sadly not fit for my personal purposes - last I checked vertical text is only possible in a really, _really_ hacky way (using a font that is turned sideways), and dictionary support for Japanese (or, say, Finnish with its complex lemmatization) is lacking behind browser extensions such as Yomitan, or mobile apps like Hoshi Reader that have Yomitan dictionary support.

I don't think KOReader handles fixed-size epubs terribly well too, and most of my manga (usually bought on Rakuten Kobo) comes in that format.

For reading English or native language books on non-Android e-readers it's a godsend.

Re: KOReader

#92

Post by dml2135 »

nonninz wrote: post #32
kelvinjps10 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What extra features has over regular kindle software? I find kindle features enough but I want to know if I’m missing something

As someone who thought the same (stock was enough for me) until I had some free time and switched, here are some things I'm really enjoying, in no particular order: - Format support: EPUB, CBR/CBZ (comics, graphic novels), PDF - Dark mode - Fully programmable gestures and shortcuts - Automatically syncs with my readeck instance (think readitlater/instapaper) to dowload the articles I save for example here on HN - Cal…

What's the point of Dark mode on an eink screen?

Re: KOReader

#93

Post by fodkodrasz »

kelvinjps10 wrote: post #15
lolgab wrote: post #10

I installed it on my Amazon Kindle and I couldn't be happier. It shows once again that free software is superior to proprietary software. Free software grows slowly to make users happier and not to attract them with useless features to extract more value from them. Congratulations for this great piece of software.

What extra features has over regular kindle software? I find kindle features enough but I want to know if I’m missing something

Stuff which may be above the kindle stock features (as seen on Paperwhite 10):

- Allowing to highlight text across pages. Used to work in the past but no longer works

- Allowing exit to library from mobi files without a cold reboot of the device. Used to work, no longer works.

- Not deleting contents of my library on an update overnight? (files still on disk, metadata gone, no longer visible on Kindle)

- consistently working dictionary, offline, at least for English texts? (used to mostly work, with recent updates it is broken)

- Not getting worse on every update

- Better keyboard layout, maybe supporting smaller languages

- Not deleting purchased books remotely

- better bookmarks and navigation support. I find Kindle useless for the technical reading and learning materials, as navigation and cross-referencing is slow clunky and useless, I need paper books for that, or a computer.

- Better image display? Also hinders proper use for digesting technical content.

- Text Search?

- EPUB support.

Re: KOReader

#94

Post by jabroni_salad »

dml2135 wrote: post #92
nonninz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who thought the same (stock was enough for me) until I had some free time and switched, here are some things I'm really enjoying, in no particular order: - Format support: EPUB, CBR/CBZ (comics, graphic novels), PDF - Dark mode - Fully programmable gestures and shortcuts - Automatically syncs with my readeck instance (think readitlater/instapaper) to dowload the articles I save for example here on HN - Cal…

What's the point of Dark mode on an eink screen?

I have no idea but users seem to like it despite all the ghosting.

The reason I use koreader is because it can sync my progress on disparate devices. I have a normal sized kobo and also a phone sized viwoods eink device.

Re: KOReader

#95

Post by DarkStar851 »

dml2135 wrote: post #92
nonninz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who thought the same (stock was enough for me) until I had some free time and switched, here are some things I'm really enjoying, in no particular order: - Format support: EPUB, CBR/CBZ (comics, graphic novels), PDF - Dark mode - Fully programmable gestures and shortcuts - Automatically syncs with my readeck instance (think readitlater/instapaper) to dowload the articles I save for example here on HN - Cal…

What's the point of Dark mode on an eink screen?

For some people it's less eye straining if they're reading at night, doesn't help for me personally, but it's a popular feature

Re: KOReader

#96

Post by presto8 »

I love KOReader on Android, but unfortunately it requires granting permission to manage all files on the device. I would prefer if it used the approach most apps use, which is to select a folder on the device that it can access. Then I can move all my books into that directory and KOReader would not have access to all of the data on my phone.

Re: KOReader

#98

Post by Lord-Jobo »

Lord-Jobo wrote: post #21
carlosjobim wrote: post #7

My wish is to see ebooks become first class citizens on all digital devices. Apple has a native ebook reader built in to their devices. It's cumbersome and bloated, but it's there. No web browser except Yandex has built in ebook support, even though it would be the easiest thing in the world. Android, Linux and Windows have no built-in ebook reader, as far as I know. Murasaki [1] is the most performant and sleek eboo…

It doesn’t seem like it’s a huge ask imo, and I’m also pretty surprised that they have such limited support, a mostly text format like epub really should be simple to add functionality for. Less surprising but still annoying is how many hoops you need to jump through to get a good reading experience for manga, particularly on macOS. I had to try many options that were either too buggy, too difficult to install correc…

*The software I landed on is Koodo Reader

Re: KOReader

#99

Post by lisnake »

nicoverbruggen wrote: post #49

KOReader is so much better, including in how it renders typography and does typesetting than what ships on Kobo devices by default, it's sort of wild. I actually made a mod to try to upgrade Kobo's built-in reader so it's more correct, i.e. more faithful to how KOReader renders text. Sharing it here since it may be interesting for anyone with Kobo e-readers: https://github.com/nicoverbruggen/NickelTypeFix

Nico, while I have the chance, I'd like to thank you for all your work on Kobo mods and fonts

Re: KOReader

#100

Post by gejose »

I really like that this exists, but I found the menus and UI to be rather non-intuitive. My main use case was to sync reading progress between my Kobo and my iPhone. I was able to do this using KOReader on the Kobo & the Readest app[1] on iPhone (also open source).

Ultimately I decided to get rid of KOReader because it felt a bit laggy. The gestures (eg: swiping up on the left side to increase frontlight brightness) didn't work well either.

I eneded up writing my own software to sync progress from Kobo to a KOReader Sync server[2] which my Readest app also connects to (love that unlike the Kindle, the Kobo is quite an open system). You can even set it up so you can SSH into it[3].

[1] https://github.com/readest/readest [2] https://github.com/koreader/koreader-sync-server [3] https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=254214

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