Quote:
Originally Posted by stumped
yes, I am aware they are closed source, but as they are inactive/broken, the owners may consider sharing ?
i guess CC breaks down in to the librarian function, and the connection functions
for the latter, ideally, there is
connect to content server, or alt. ODPS server,
connect AS wireless device,
connect to ( various) clouds.
different users will have different wishlists/priorities
dunno if some sort of poll would help to assess interests ?
or if there's mileage in having a pair of replacements that can work together - one for library, one for connects ?
the alt apps seem to have chosen only to offer connect to (calibre libraries in) clouds, and little or nothing of the librarian stuff.
AFAIK all the main issues with android are to do with cloud access & support; the actual connect to calibre itself still works well, as does the handing off to various android reader apps, but there's stuff on the horizon about needing target later versions of android, to keep Google Play happy ( detailed in other threads)
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The google restrictions are there but won't be too much of a trouble from an app distributed in F-droid (which can target lower API levels). Anyways a workaround that still works in the latest api is in
https://github.com/pazos/filesResolver.
The integration with closed source document providers is something I, personally, do not care and has nothing to do with calibre itself.
I'm aware that CC works great in its core functionality. My only concern is that the new developer adds a subscription model and flags legacy versions to not pass google license verifications.
What I will do will be a barebones implementation of core functions of CC. If others want to extend it to support other things then amazing, if not at least we can have an alternative on F-droid.
I didn't receive anwser to the license question yet. I hope I will in the future, but I'm not in a hurry. Did play a bit with the code and I think a major refactor is needed:
- use a 3rd party library like retrofit or okhttp to communicate with the smart app driver instead of custom code.
- implement a metadata view, instead of opening the book directly when selected.
- fix memory leaks in the AsyncDownloader class, probably by firing a general purpose service to do aync downloads from the opds server.
And a bunch of things more.
In the meanwhile I'm still using CC. But having an alternative is a good thing. And while KOReader does the 3 things we're talking about (wireless client, opds client and dropbox client) is not its purpose, and an app tailored for these tasks will be easier to use and accesible to a broader audience.