New Reader with great pdf-support: Mantano Reader (like aldiko+ezpdf)

[diremommy]

I've been fiddling with the Mantano free version, and I have a question- in either the free or the premium version, can you customize the colors? So far, all I have found is day/night, and that sepia theme. Can you customize the background and the letter colors?

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by diremommy

I've been fiddling with the Mantano free version, and I have a question- in either the free or the premium version, can you customize the colors? So far, all I have found is day/night, and that sepia theme. Can you customize the background and the letter colors?

Yes you can in the Premium version. You customize, colors, font, margins and line space. you can make as many themes as needed.

[diremommy]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Yes you can in the Premium version. You customize, colors, font, margins and line space. you can make as many themes as needed.

Thanks! I'm trying to find a good secondary app. I tend to read real, published books on Moon+, and I've been reading fanfic that I download on Aldiko, but Aldiko has an odd tendency to go back a page instead of forward, so I'm looking to replace it, but nothing else comes close to Moon+ for me. I also miss the reading time/chapter/page numbers that Moon + offers, plus the way it works with Calibre is wonderful.

I guess it's a bit anal of me, but it's just simpler for me to keep the fanfic and the regular books in two separate libraries.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by diremommy

Thanks! I'm trying to find a good secondary app. I tend to read real, published books on Moon+, and I've been reading fanfic that I download on Aldiko, but Aldiko has an odd tendency to go back a page instead of forward, so I'm looking to replace it, but nothing else comes close to Moon+ for me. I also miss the reading time/chapter/page numbers that Moon + offers, plus the way it works with Calibre is wonderful.

I guess it's a bit anal of me, but it's just simpler for me to keep the fanfic and the regular books in two separate libraries.

I use Moon+ too and agree there is nothing like it. Mantano would be my second choice though. If they ever add time left to read I might switch back as I think Mantano has better font rendering although the font sizes need alot of work. Mantano works with Calibre Companion too.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by PatNY

DiapDealer, thanks for testing this out for me. It not only confirmed the issue, but saved me from having to chase down another route for the source of the problem, especially since Mantano said they couldn't replicate the problem. I think they've just been too busy to properly address all customer issues, and so in some instances such as mine, they merely ignored them. I am not happy with this. I wrote them again tonight to tell them that someone else confirmed the issue. Hopefully they will be more responsive this time.

Also, thanks for letting them know about the issue of the deletion of books. That was a deal breaker for me. Now if they can only fix the cover issue, I'll be a happy camper. I'd like to stay with Mantano but they are making it hard.

--Pat

I haven't had a chance to test this out yet, but I thought you might like to know that v2.4.11 claims to have made changes that fixed rendering issues with higher resolution images. Might be worth a shot to see if the problem with cover images 2400 px and up got resolved.

[PatNY]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I haven't had a chance to test this out yet, but I thought you might like to know that v2.4.11 claims to have made changes that fixed rendering issues with higher resolution images. Might be worth a shot to see if the problem with cover images 2400 px and up got resolved.

DD -- I saw that but unfortunately that new version did not fix the issue. Every time Mantano has an update I install it right away and check to see if the problem has been fixed only to be disappointed all the time.

What's also disappointing is how sluggish (an understatement!) and evasive Mantano's customer service has been on this issue in their emails to me. Until today, they have yet to acknowledge the problem or give a definitive answer one way or the other on this, and it's been going on for roughly 4 months. Just a lot of blank silence and hemming and hawing. So I was surprised to get this email message from them this morning:

"You're right, this issue is annoying. The devs told me that it is a memory issue and they hope to provide a fix in a next release. I apologize for the delay. and please be sure that the devs will do their best to fix it."

Because of their evasiveness and foot dragging on this issue up to now, I am not holding out hope that they will address this anytime soon. In the meantime, I just limit my covers to a specific size and they all show up fine. I just can't go over a specific range of pixel dimensions.

--Pat

[jackie_w]

@PatNY, re: very large images...

My current book contains a very large image (2311 x 3144) coded within <svg> tags. It's a map, not the cover, so not exactly the same scenario you're describing, but I thought I'd post anyway. The page displays as blank by default, but if I double tap on the empty page the map does appear and allows pinch-zoom, etc. Not ideal, but not totally hopeless, either.

[PatNY]

Hi jackie -- Yes, for those books whose covers wouldn't show, I've always been able to tap on the blank space to bring up the cover that way. But that's not a very satisfactory solution or even workaround. If I pay for a program like this, I expect to be able to see the cover of a book without any extra steps. I paid for the premium version. I think it is the most expensive reading program in the Play store. So don't you think it should at least work properly with covers?

--Pat

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by PatNY

Hi jackie -- Yes, for those books whose covers wouldn't show, I've always been able to tap on the blank space to bring up the cover that way. But that's not a very satisfactory solution or even workaround. If I pay for a program like this, I expect to be able to see the cover of a book without any extra steps. I paid for the premium version. I think it is the most expensive reading program in the Play store. So don't you think it should at least work properly with covers?

--Pat

Oh yes, of course it should work correctly. I only mentioned it in case you hadn't thought of tapping thin air

[sangahm]

Originally Posted by Blossom

I use Moon+ too and agree there is nothing like it. Mantano would be my second choice though. If they ever add time left to read I might switch back as I think Mantano has better font rendering although the font sizes need alot of work. Mantano works with Calibre Companion too.

I really like Mantano but that is the one feature that keeps me from doing all my reading on it full time. I can't believe that this was suggested several years ago, is available on several other competitors, and they still refuse to include it. I say "refuse" because they go half way there with the current page number and with a swipe you can find the page number of the next chapter - so they have everything they need to put this feature in. That would at least give current page + end of chapter page, without having to go all the way to time left in chapter.

[peaceridge]

When I delete a book, it still is in the library, but with a 0k size. How do I delete it entirely?

[DiapDealer]

Big, big update to Mantano Premium. I haven't had a chance to play yet but:

Version 2.5
Added:

EPUB 3 format support, based on the Readium SDK

• Support for fixed layout and reflowable books
• Embedded videos, sounds and SVG animations
• Night mode
• Edition of custom themes with custom fonts that overwrite publisher styles
• Swipe animations for paginated mode
• Highlights and bookmarks functions
• Footnotes displayed in a pop-up
• Text selection (copy, dictionary)
• Search
• EPUB 3 books may be opened as EPUB 2 or EPUB 3
• Allow transparently switching viewers between EPUB2 and EPUB3 viewers while accessing notes/bookmarks created in the other viewer

Dark theme

Improved:

Smoother scrolling in Library

Fixed:

• Pick a cover with Android 4.4+ file picker
• Minor bugs

[Dhevi]

Bit to take a look at this myself. Several items of interest for me

[Dhevi]

The dark theme selection can be swapped between not only when resting but now in the library manager and menus in and out of a book.

[Dhevi]

Just a toggle on the menu bar, like in the book viewer. I need to obtain an epub3 file to test some of the functions