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Old 03-03-2011, 02:18 AM   #1
desk
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Thumbs up Is there an OPEN SOURCE ereader for android?

Aldiko gives a version of its reader for free, but if you want the full version you must pay.

I wonder if there's an open source alternative to this?

Last edited by desk; 03-03-2011 at 02:23 AM.
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Old 03-03-2011, 02:32 AM   #2
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Coolreader have a look at the thread in the Android forum.
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Old 03-03-2011, 03:36 AM   #3
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There's FBReader, too.
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Old 03-03-2011, 11:16 AM   #4
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Is there any particular reason it has to be open source, or are you simply wanting a free one?
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Old 03-03-2011, 11:24 AM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by desk View Post
Aldiko gives a version of its reader for free, but if you want the full version you must pay.

I wonder if there's an open source alternative to this?
Actually is there anything in the pay version of Alkido that is not in the free version? I use the free version from time to time and it seems pretty full featured to me. I think the pay version might be there for people who want to support the people who make the software. Though maybe they will get some money from feedbooks now that feedbooks is selling books as well as giving them away?

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Old 03-03-2011, 12:00 PM   #6
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thank you for the answers guys!!! let me check your suggestions
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Old 03-03-2011, 12:27 PM   #7
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Quote:
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Aldiko gives a version of its reader for free, but if you want the full version you must pay.
The free version is the same. The pay version is like donationware for folks who want to support development. Occasionally the pay users will get their software updated first, but that's it.
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Old 03-03-2011, 12:34 PM   #8
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Originally Posted by bill_mchale View Post
Actually is there anything in the pay version of Alkido that is not in the free version? I use the free version from time to time and it seems pretty full featured to me. I think the pay version might be there for people who want to support the people who make the software. Though maybe they will get some money from feedbooks now that feedbooks is selling books as well as giving them away?

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Your correct in that there's no difference between the premium and free versions and it's just to support the developers. The only thing I think you may get if you pay for the premium version is early upgrades if I'm remembering right.

FBReader is pretty nice but there is one thing I've noticed that I really haven't looked into is that it doesn't support italics. I haven't looked into the html for the affected epubs so I'm not sure if it's just those books using some italics code that's not the norm (if there is one) and could be fixed with just running them through Calibre's conversion process.
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Old 03-03-2011, 02:23 PM   #9
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Hi,

I believe that Calibre is GPL'd and it has a built-in reader/viewer for many types of ebooks including pdb, epub, mobi, etc. I believe the only requirement is python 2.7 and access to Qt4. I am not sure if either of those are available under Android (probably not) but someone could use them as a basis for a multi-reading GPL'd tool if they could port the python code to java (or whatever language Android needs).

Just a thought.
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Old 03-03-2011, 02:34 PM   #10
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Sure, why not reinvent the wheel. Seriously, Calibre is great, but it's meant to be run on your desktop, not on the reader. I don't think a port would be feasible, actually.
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Old 03-03-2011, 02:44 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EsperKnight View Post
I've noticed that I really haven't looked into is that it doesn't support italics.
FBReader does not support CSS. This is why italics are not working in some EPUB files.

There is no port of calibre for Android. There is no official interest for a port and it would be a lot of work.
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Old 03-03-2011, 03:39 PM   #12
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Hi,

Agreed ... I searched and do see that Python does already exist for Android (SL4A - Scripting Language for Android) as does Jython so porting from Python to Java would not be required at all which is news to me.

Also you would not need get all of calibre running, just the viewers part of the code. I agree this would be a lot of work but should be doable depending on the requirements of the viewer software.
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Old 03-03-2011, 03:55 PM   #13
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But why? There are perfectly good alternatives available already.
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Old 03-03-2011, 03:55 PM   #14
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Also you would not need get all of calibre running, just the viewers part of the code. I agree this would be a lot of work but should be doable depending on the requirements of the viewer software.
The viewer requires the entire conversion engine. Which requires Qt. The viewer only supports displaying EPUB. So, every format is first converted to EPUB before being displayed. This can take a few minutes on a modern desktop so I don't want to think trying it on a phone. The viewer also uses a QWebView (WebKit widget) to display the pages.

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Old 03-03-2011, 04:26 PM   #15
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Hi user_none,

I was thinking more along the lines of Android 3.0 tablets but the current Qt requirement does seem a problem. I searched and did find a few references to Qt4 and webkit for Android, although I have no idea what state that port is in.

Oh well, it is one way to get a good GPL multi-viewer on Android with the benefits of getting a wonderful book management tool if you could ever get all of Calibre to run. A fun project for you! ;-)

Take care,

KevinH

Last edited by KevinH; 03-03-2011 at 04:29 PM.
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