What reading software would you use on an 8inch windows tablet?

[dwig]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

There must be something wrong with your installation then, because my ebook-viewer remembers exactly where I left off, even if I read another book at the same time...
...

Mine remembers the location in books partially read but does not remember the last read book.

I have a penchant for short stories and these generally come wrapped up in collections. Since these collections are generally single author or single theme I rarely want to read them cover to cover without interspersing stories from other collections or some longer work. As a result, I bounce around between 2-3 short story collections, occasionally inserting a longer work into the loop.

With my Kindle Keyboard I simply turn it on and the last read page in the current book is open. With ebook-viewer, and the other acceptable ebook reader apps I've tried on my Win8 tablet, force me to do work a computer should do, that is I have to remember which book I was reading and have to manually open the book.

Manually opening the book is a pain in ebook-viewer as I have to access the context menu (much easier with the recent fix to support the Press-and-Hold touch action to replicate a Right-Mouse-Click) and navigate the tiny menu, opening the wrong book 1 out of 3 times because the entries are too close together. True, it is usable, but it is not comfortable.

[rem736]

not sure if it's still available. but when i tried the various windows reading apps about 6 months ago, my preference was for the B&N reading app. but i only used it for epubs. so if you have a different format requirement, i can't say.

[Solemn Spirit]

I mostly read epubs so i'll definetly check it out.

[larand]

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Freda+ in this thread yet. It's my preferred e-reading app on my Windows 8.1 and RT devices.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by larand

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Freda+ in this thread yet. It's my preferred e-reading app on my Windows 8.1 and RT devices.

Thanks for the suggestion. I had looked at it when I was shopping for my tablet, installing it on my desktop machine. It looked good, but there were some annoying behavior anomalies (bugs) that caused me to shelve it as an also-ran.

Since you're recommending it, perhaps there's been an update since my review. I'll give it a try again on both the deskop and tablet (both fully updated Win8.1).

[Sweetpea]

I have looked at it but can't really remember why I don't use it...

(and if I try now, as soon as I want to change some settings, it crashes...)

[solomon]

I've been searching for something that provides the old Trook + Nooklib functionality where I can download books from calibre's OPDS web server and have them automatically sorted by series order.

Freda's author says he plans this - after he ports everything to Win10

I couldn't get Book Bazaar (or Freda for that matter) to even let me manually arrange series of books d/l from calibre web.

I'm going to play around with Calibre native on the tablet - but the lack of "Offline files" in Win8 core makes that less attractive. (I'm using SyncToy as we speak to try and get similar functionality.)


Has anyone found an epub reader which downloads from OPDS and understands series?

TIA,
Richard

[Sweetpea]

Why not put the books in OneDrive? And install Calibre on your tablet. You must have the calibre main libary file offline (naturally), but can then simply tell OneDrive which files you want online and which you want offline (offline when you want to read it and back online when you're done).

[solomon]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Why not put the books in OneDrive? And install Calibre on your tablet. You must have the calibre main libary file offline (naturally), but can then simply tell OneDrive which files you want online and which you want offline (offline when you want to read it and back online when you're done).

Thanks Sweetpea! That's a pretty good idea for mirroring and yet minimizing space. The big hurdle with the "mirror Calibre library to tablet" ideas seems to be using Calibre itself on the tablet.

I quickly remembered/rediscovered that SyncToy won't copy locked files (which my metatdata.db is due to running Calibre server) so I ended up with FreeFileSync (installed the "portable" version in a VM and copied the binaries to avoid adware/spyware nonsense) and I seem to be able to mirror my Calibre library to the uSDXC card on the tablet. (I only have ~5.5GB of books at this time.) So I'm not sure I personally have need to worry aboust space and hassle with figuring which books are offline-accessible with 64GB uSDXC cards at $25.


I ran out of time before really playing with Calibre, but it does seem like I could get it to sort by series, and maybe bump font sizes etc up enough to get where I wanted.

In reflection though I suspect I really want more than I originally said I've grown somewhat used to the hierarchical or tree view of books... While NookLibrary certainly was flat, I've gotten used to seeing only the current series. I could certainly *filter* with Calibre but I don't know of a true "tree" view?

Probably I just need to fiddle with this some more so I'll take all suggestions!

Thanks again,
Richard

[eschwartz]

You could make tree view using a tags-like custom column that is told to break on periods (somewhere in the Preferences, probably Look & Feel, I could check when I get back to the computer if only I didn't suspect you'd find it first )

That would let you see a tree-like view in the Tags browser.
Granted, at a certain point it may not be worth forcing calibre to sort a certain way rather than just finding something that does it to begin with... but it is certainly possible.

[solomon]

Just a quick update - after doing some reading with Calibre, I'm still on the hunt for a Win 8.x eReader app. It certainly *works*, but I've grown used to a more fluid and natural *touch* eReading interface than what Calibre provides

Not a ding on Calibre at all, Kovid has never made any bones about not being touch-oriented, and I *love* the management application. I'd previously always used something else (dedicated device, app on iOS, whatever) for reading so hadn't really paid much attention to the Calibre eReader itself. I'm not even sure how to quantify what I dislike about it, but I'm still looking....

Richard

[WillAdams]

I've been making do w/ the Kobo reading app from the Microsoft Store --- it's a little awkward / clunky, but is at least a touch-oriented Metro interface.

Debating on trying the Nook app.

[DaleDe]

the wiki contains a list of apps for Windows 8 (and a different list for Windows phone). See https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-bo...Windows_8_Apps

These are all oriented toward touch screen devices. Book Bazaar is a pretty good one.

Dale

[solomon]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

the wiki contains a list of apps for Windows 8
These are all oriented toward touch screen devices. Book Bazaar is a pretty good one.

Thanks DaleDe - I should have mentioned that I'd been looking at the Wiki already to find Freda and Book Bazaar:

Originally Posted by solomon

I've been searching for something that provides the old Trook + Nooklib functionality where I can download books from calibre's OPDS web server and have them automatically sorted by series order.

Freda's author says he plans this - after he ports everything to Win10

I couldn't get Book Bazaar (or Freda for that matter) to even let me manually arrange series of books d/l from calibre web.

Unfortunately the Wiki isn't terribly detailed and I've not yet been able to locate anything which groks both OPDS and series:

Originally Posted by solomon

Has anyone found an epub reader which downloads from OPDS and understands series?

Actually since I can sync my whole Calibre library I'd be Ok with something which is OPDS ignorant if it could access my Calibre library on disk and somehow comprehend series (maybe use the Calibre metadata)....

That's as far as I've gotten so far: Calibre understands Calibre but isn't a terribly good reader app. The decent reader apps don't understand Calibre/OPDS enough to organize books by series

Thanks!
Richard

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by solomon

Thanks DaleDe - I should have mentioned that I'd been looking at the Wiki already to find Freda and Book Bazaar:



Unfortunately the Wiki isn't terribly detailed and I've not yet been able to locate anything which groks both OPDS and series:


Actually since I can sync my whole Calibre library I'd be Ok with something which is OPDS ignorant if it could access my Calibre library on disk and somehow comprehend series (maybe use the Calibre metadata)....

That's as far as I've gotten so far: Calibre understands Calibre but isn't a terribly good reader app. The decent reader apps don't understand Calibre/OPDS enough to organize books by series

Thanks!
Richard

Yes, the ePub standards committee doesn't seem to understand series as being a useful to reader and to make it part of the standard. Perhaps you could use a separate eBook library manager and send the books to the reading app just for reading while maintaining them in a separate app like Calibre.

Dale