MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Is there a Calibre equivalent ebook reader app in Android and iOS, that can read

MicroDrie · 07-17-2021, 06:45 AM

This is what you want to do:

opens a lean ebook (in epub format)
clicks on a button that opens a file input dialog
selects a .zip file with images
the images are then displayed in the ebook

What I'm curious about is why you put an image in a zip file. If you look at the way in which an image is stored, you will see that the jpg format already does compression and quality reduction. So putting a jpg image in a zip file doesn't give much compression at all. On the other hand, your epub reader must unpack the zip file. So with that choice you get a lot of challenge on the one hand, with maybe a little smaller storage of an image on the other.

I'm not bothered by any in-depth experience on an Apple device how IOS handles accessing files from within an application. That's different for Android. Android keeps increasing security. The result is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to read a file content from an application. In principle, an application can only read files that can only be accessed by the application. If you want to get around that, you have to pull a lot of tricks. I don't see that as easy from doing an Epub. In addition, there is a good chance that for an IOS environment it is different than for an Android environment. How would you go about solving that?

Having written this I come to the conclusion that for an Android environment realization of points 2 and 3 seems an impossible mission.

I don't know what your rationale is for choosing this approach. The charming thing about your idea is that you can combine a short common solution with the freedom of choosing the images to display.

The current restrictions for an Android app for file access means that you might be better off looking for a solution to let the user select the images and then put them in an epub file to be generated.

In terms of storage, it doesn't matter much whether you store the images to be displayed in or outside the epub.

My personal experience with epubs with the combination of javascript, jquery after some adjustments is that you can come a long way. I don't know if there is a solution in Jqeury and/or JavaScript that can include files to generate a new epub with the selected files.

07-17-2021, 06:45 AM	#18
MicroDrie Connoisseur Posts: 58 Karma: 438844 Join Date: Aug 2019 Device: PC, Linux Mint, Tablet, and Telephone	This is what you want to do: opens a lean ebook (in epub format) clicks on a button that opens a file input dialog selects a .zip file with images the images are then displayed in the ebook What I'm curious about is why you put an image in a zip file. If you look at the way in which an image is stored, you will see that the jpg format already does compression and quality reduction. So putting a jpg image in a zip file doesn't give much compression at all. On the other hand, your epub reader must unpack the zip file. So with that choice you get a lot of challenge on the one hand, with maybe a little smaller storage of an image on the other. I'm not bothered by any in-depth experience on an Apple device how IOS handles accessing files from within an application. That's different for Android. Android keeps increasing security. The result is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to read a file content from an application. In principle, an application can only read files that can only be accessed by the application. If you want to get around that, you have to pull a lot of tricks. I don't see that as easy from doing an Epub. In addition, there is a good chance that for an IOS environment it is different than for an Android environment. How would you go about solving that? Having written this I come to the conclusion that for an Android environment realization of points 2 and 3 seems an impossible mission. I don't know what your rationale is for choosing this approach. The charming thing about your idea is that you can combine a short common solution with the freedom of choosing the images to display. The current restrictions for an Android app for file access means that you might be better off looking for a solution to let the user select the images and then put them in an epub file to be generated. In terms of storage, it doesn't matter much whether you store the images to be displayed in or outside the epub. My personal experience with epubs with the combination of javascript, jquery after some adjustments is that you can come a long way. I don't know if there is a solution in Jqeury and/or JavaScript that can include files to generate a new epub with the selected files.