iPad Bookmaster - ePub and PDF reader for iOS

[sbaylor]

Hi, I am a member of the BookMaster project team. If you have any question about BookMaster, I'll be glad to answer it in this forum. Love to hear your comments as well!

- Jan 4, 2016
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Since the beginning of this thread, a lot of questions have been asked and answered. Every so often our project team updates Help and FAQ (with images) on our website so that users can find the answers more easily. Some feature requests raised in this thread may have been added by now as described in What's New. In all cases, if you have any question about features, I'd strongly encourage you to look at our website first. Of course, positive reviews are always welcome too. Thanks!

- Jun 13, 2016

[pugsley]

The main feature missing is the ability to change brightness with a screen gesture - a swipe up or down. Otherwise a great app.

Originally Posted by sbaylor

Hi, I am a member of the BookMaster project team. If you have any questions about BookMaster, I'll be glad to answer it in this forum. Love to hear your comments as well!

An introduction into what the heck BookMaster is would have been helpful. It seems rather odd that you would have used the same name that IBM used for their mainframe based document formatting system way back in the 1980s. Anyone in technical writing from way back will recognize that name and associate it with IBM's GML (General Markup Language) document editor/creator. GML far precedes HTML and ePubs and PDFs. I used IBM BookMaster while working at IBM in the 1980s. I would be very surprised if that name isn't trademarked, so you might be getting a call one day from their legal beagles.

[sbaylor]

Originally Posted by jswinden

An introduction into what the heck BookMaster is would have been helpful.

BookMaster is a beautiful and sophisticated ebook reader for iOS that will pleasantly change the way you read, learn and collaborate. It's packed with advanced features that you won't find in other ebook readers. Please take a look at the app description in https://itunes.apple.com/app/id860169741?mt=8 for more details.

You can find more screenshots of BookMaster on our website http://www.maplepop.com by clicking 'GALLERY' there.

[Valkrider]

Just a point you say on your website that Marvin will not handle ePub3 books. It does, well it does with all the ePub3 books I have read on it so far, I haven't found one that it won't display.

[Cesca]

I'm using Bookmaster CE and really appreciate the ability to save Themes to Dropbox so that once saved, I can import them into my 2nd iPad. But I would love the ability to synch bookmarks or notes or book position. Is that possible?

[sbaylor]

Originally Posted by Valkrider

Just a point you say on your website that Marvin will not handle ePub3 books. It does, well it does with all the ePub3 books I have read on it so far, I haven't found one that it won't display.

Marvin 2.8.5 (the latest version updated on Aug 2015) states on its App Store page that "Marvin opens DRM-free EPUB 2.0 books", and does not mention support of EPUB 3.0.

While Marvin may work for some EPUB 3.0 books, it seems that its developer is well aware of the fact that it doesn't adequately work for EPUB 3.0 in general. Indeed Marvin fails on a set of standard EPUB 3.0 test suites, including EPUBTEST 0130. For more details, including comparison screenshots, please go to our website (maplepop.com).

For your reference, you may also download the two sample books we have used for taking the comparison screenshots from our website, and perform a comparison yourself.

[sbaylor]

Originally Posted by pugsley

The main feature missing is the ability to change brightness with a screen gesture - a swipe up or down. Otherwise a great app.

Since version 1.0, BookMaster has a brightness control interface similar to that of the iOS 9 system control panel. Apparently for some users, this interface is still not convenient enough, and prefer an optional brightness control interface by vertical swipe gesture. Anyone else interested in this feature too?

[sbaylor]

Originally Posted by Cesca

I'm using Bookmaster CE and really appreciate the ability to save Themes to Dropbox so that once saved, I can import them into my 2nd iPad. But I would love the ability to synch bookmarks or notes or book position. Is that possible?

I'm glad to see that you are taking advantage of BookMaster's unique capability to create custom themes (for customizing background image+color, text/heading/hyperlink colors, search/note/vocab highlight colors with/without translucent effect) and share the themes via Dropbox. So you want to share/sync the bookmarks/notes/book position similarly via Dropbox, all under your own control?

By the way, do you use or want to use AirDrop in addition to Dropbox too? As you may know, you can already share custom themes via AirDrop.

[JSWolf]

It really doesn't matter that Marvin is not fully ePub 3 compatible. There aren't many ePub 3 eBooks that use features that would fail with Marvin. In fact, there are hardly any ePub 3 eBooks that would fail with most Reading software. ePub 3. ePub 3 has not caught on.

[pugsley]

I have version 1.2.5 - the only brightness control I see requires that you tap the screen in a book, tap the brightness setting icon, set brightness, tap again to exit setting. Four steps instead of one.
I could use the iOS brightness, but it is not sensitive enough, and still three steps. This may seem like a picky thing, but I need to change brightness a lot and it does make a big difference in how long that takes.
Thanks.

Originally Posted by sbaylor

Since version 1.0, BookMaster has a brightness control interface similar to that of the iOS 9 system control panel. Apparently for some users, this interface is still not convenient enough, and prefer an optional brightness control interface by vertical swipe gesture. Anyone else interested in this feature too?

[cedhax]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It really doesn't matter that Marvin is not fully ePub 3 compatible. There aren't many ePub 3 eBooks that use features that would fail with Marvin. In fact, there are hardly any ePub 3 eBooks that would fail with most Reading software. ePub 3. ePub 3 has not caught on.

If you read books in languages such as Hebrew or Japanese, EPUB3 support is
definitely important, as EPUB2 does not support these languages properly.

I was a long time user of Stanza back in the old days. Stanza was the
best reader on iOS then. Unfortunately Amazon tossed it after the
buyout. Eventually and reluctantly I switched to Marvin for most English
EPUB (but not PDF) reading. Occasionally I need to read Japanese books,
and Marvin was just unusable.

I don't care if Marvin is fully EPUB3 compliant or not. However, lack of
rudimentary support of EPUB3 features, including vertical layout and
right-to-left page progression is inexcusable. EPUB3 came out in 2011
and it's now 2016! Even iBooks (which I don't really like) offered such
EPUB3 features long time ago.

IMHO, without rudimentary support of EPUB3, Marvin is not an advanced
EPUB reader app, let alone the best one nowadays.

[Cesca]

Originally Posted by sbaylor

So you want to share/sync the bookmarks/notes/book position similarly via Dropbox, all under your own control?

By the way, do you use or want to use AirDrop in addition to Dropbox too? As you may know, you can already share custom themes via AirDrop.

I use Dropbox to store my books and themes. Haven't tried Airdrop for books yet. I like having the same books on both my iPad Air and Mini and I would find it really convenient if Bookmaster could synch my position in the book, so that if I'm reading on the mini, then come home and continue reading on the Air, my last read position would be saved in Bookmaster as it is in Marvin or iBooks. Any way to accomplish that would be great!

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by sbaylor

Since version 1.0, BookMaster has a brightness control interface similar to that of the iOS 9 system control panel. Apparently for some users, this interface is still not convenient enough, and prefer an optional brightness control interface by vertical swipe gesture. Anyone else interested in this feature too?

I'd love to be able to control brightness with a vertical swipe.

I purchased BookMaster CE and like it quite a bit. Right now it's my preferred ereading app for iPad. On iPhone I use Bluefire Reader.

Any plans for a BookMaster iPhone app?

Two other options on my wish list include semi-bold fonts (I have bad eyes, need lots of help to see) and an option to remove headers and footers as I find those distracting.

Thanks!

[adrian1944]

Can someone help with basic details that are not on iTunes, the developers webpage or this forum as yet

What is the difference other than price between the two versions

Can you import books from dropbox

Can it link directly to calibre, are those calibre tags showing in the gallery

adrian