Maaaan, I wish ereader open source software was better. This is one of the areas where I feel the gulf between corporate garbage and free alternatives most. It’s just a hassle to manage, feature-poor, has terrible UI or all of the above.
My favorite Calibre thing was when the creator was interviewed and asked about the common complaint that Calibre is ugly and he was basically like “actually it’s not.”
First off, I didn’t know the guy’s name is “Kovid”. It must have been a very weird five years for him.
Second, this is an amazing piece of text and I will show it to people to explain why having engineers make design decisions is often a terrible idea.
I genuinely believe there is a strong correlation between FOSS projects getting structured and well funded enough to hire designers and their chance of taking over as the default choice against commercial projects. If UX designers were as interested in volunteer work as engineers the software landscape would be completely different.
Honestly, the biggest hurtle does NOT appear to be the hardware, its getting the ebook in an open format. If Amazon removes the ability to download the files, then it really doesn’t matter what you run, you cant read your book.
Theres other publishers that give you all the file types like: https://www.baen.com/. I recommend finding and supporting those.
I have a sizable collection of legitimately procured ebooks, it’s not that rare if you prioritize it.
But I agree, it’s not about hardware. There are plenty of super premium eink displays these days. I don’t even want integration with a eink reader at all. I’m happy reading off an OLED screen in a tablet. All I need is convenient library, management and display software that will handle both text and comic book formats.
Everybody seems to be trying to mimic the Kindle ecosystem with all its quirks and hardware dependencies when what I really want is book Plex.
I heavily depends on where you get them. Most ebook publishers actually DONT put DRM on them. And other software can very easily remove the DRM if it is on the books.
Most systems can read the ebook format. Linux/Mac/Windows often comes with software. And if they dont, Calibre can work them.
https://github.com/nodrm/DeDRM_tools is just the first one that pops up. Theres a LOT of software out there that does this. I would recommend getting a copy as GitHub has been going after “grey” repos for a bit once they are discovered (see switch emulation and the many fan games).
Most of the time, I personally just avoid by going to publishers that dont lock down books. They make things much easier than Amazon.
I agree on the outdated UI, but at least it gives you a ton of options that official apps would never allow you, or babysit you too much to offer.
I’ve literally used Calibre 2-3 times, and while the UI seemed daunting at first, it was logical and did did its job quite fast when figured out. And I usually don’t need to use it afterwards for another long period.
Well, “logical” is a bit of a stretch. After my second or third round of trying to use it for all my DRM-free ebooks I was quickly reminded that a) it insists on copying all your books into a separate folder for some reason, and b) its reading UX is atrocious. The thing is unreadable on my tablet by default and it won’t even try with comics, instead just prompting you for an actually usable app to do the reading part.
I am sure it was made to deal with a legitimate use case, but man, is it not my use case. Which, to reiterate, is I own a bunch of ebooks and comics and want to read them sometimes.
I hear their selfhosted web app may be better at this, and I’ve also taken a peek at kavita, I’ve just been too annoyed by having to go point a docker container at my library when the books are just sitting there and I can just open them. It really feels like it should be more straightforward and convenient than that.
Maaaan, I wish ereader open source software was better. This is one of the areas where I feel the gulf between corporate garbage and free alternatives most. It’s just a hassle to manage, feature-poor, has terrible UI or all of the above.
My favorite Calibre thing was when the creator was interviewed and asked about the common complaint that Calibre is ugly and he was basically like “actually it’s not.”
First off, I didn’t know the guy’s name is “Kovid”. It must have been a very weird five years for him.
Second, this is an amazing piece of text and I will show it to people to explain why having engineers make design decisions is often a terrible idea.
I genuinely believe there is a strong correlation between FOSS projects getting structured and well funded enough to hire designers and their chance of taking over as the default choice against commercial projects. If UX designers were as interested in volunteer work as engineers the software landscape would be completely different.
https://github.com/Quill-OS/quill is a thing, although you have to get the exact model in order to make it work.
I really wanted https://github.com/joeycastillo/The-Open-Book to be a thing, but its very hard to get the parts and assemble (in my opinion).
https://gitlab.com/guyjeangilles/piereader looks promising.
Honestly, the biggest hurtle does NOT appear to be the hardware, its getting the ebook in an open format. If Amazon removes the ability to download the files, then it really doesn’t matter what you run, you cant read your book.
Theres other publishers that give you all the file types like: https://www.baen.com/. I recommend finding and supporting those.
I have a sizable collection of legitimately procured ebooks, it’s not that rare if you prioritize it.
But I agree, it’s not about hardware. There are plenty of super premium eink displays these days. I don’t even want integration with a eink reader at all. I’m happy reading off an OLED screen in a tablet. All I need is convenient library, management and display software that will handle both text and comic book formats.
Everybody seems to be trying to mimic the Kindle ecosystem with all its quirks and hardware dependencies when what I really want is book Plex.
Nice having your own library is the way to go!
If you download your books, how do you read them in other hardware? Aren’t they all drm locked?
I heavily depends on where you get them. Most ebook publishers actually DONT put DRM on them. And other software can very easily remove the DRM if it is on the books.
Most systems can read the ebook format. Linux/Mac/Windows often comes with software. And if they dont, Calibre can work them.
My point is what’s the point of downloading kindle ebooks if they can only be read after connecting to the cloud or whatever anyway?Read the second part of your comment lol.
What other software?
https://github.com/nodrm/DeDRM_tools is just the first one that pops up. Theres a LOT of software out there that does this. I would recommend getting a copy as GitHub has been going after “grey” repos for a bit once they are discovered (see switch emulation and the many fan games).
Most of the time, I personally just avoid by going to publishers that dont lock down books. They make things much easier than Amazon.
I agree on the outdated UI, but at least it gives you a ton of options that official apps would never allow you, or babysit you too much to offer.
I’ve literally used Calibre 2-3 times, and while the UI seemed daunting at first, it was logical and did did its job quite fast when figured out. And I usually don’t need to use it afterwards for another long period.
Well, “logical” is a bit of a stretch. After my second or third round of trying to use it for all my DRM-free ebooks I was quickly reminded that a) it insists on copying all your books into a separate folder for some reason, and b) its reading UX is atrocious. The thing is unreadable on my tablet by default and it won’t even try with comics, instead just prompting you for an actually usable app to do the reading part.
I am sure it was made to deal with a legitimate use case, but man, is it not my use case. Which, to reiterate, is I own a bunch of ebooks and comics and want to read them sometimes.
I hear their selfhosted web app may be better at this, and I’ve also taken a peek at kavita, I’ve just been too annoyed by having to go point a docker container at my library when the books are just sitting there and I can just open them. It really feels like it should be more straightforward and convenient than that.
No kidding. Really tried using it for a month. But it was just terrible interfacing with it.