[Faterson]

Originally Posted by PeterT

I don't mean to be argumentative but surely this discussion would be far better suited to another location; not "Which one should I buy?".

Possibly "Reading and Management".

It's debatable. I thought really hard, when launching this thread, about in which MobileRead section to place it, and finally decided for this one.

If a moderator moves it to a different section, I'll be OK with it, of course, but I'm afraid there's no optimal solution.

If I were permitted to suggest a reorganization of MobileRead sections to make them more logical, my suggestion would be this:

E-BOOK GENERAL
...

E-BOOK READERS [HARDWARE ONLY!]
...

E-BOOK SOFTWARE
prominent software no. 1
prominent software no. 2
prominent software no. 3
prominent software no. 4
prominent software no. 5
* CROSS-PLATFORM SOFTWARE
* ANDROID SOFTWARE
* iOS SOFTWARE
* E-INK SOFTWARE
* OTHER PLATFORMS
* LEGACY SOFTWARE
* READING AND MANAGEMENT

E-BOOK FORMATS
...

Right now, BookFusion appears to be a victim of its high and admirable ambitions.

You know, if you're Android-only e-reader software like Moon+ Reader Pro, you get discussed in the Android Devices forum subsection, although that forum section, E-Book Readers, was clearly originally intended to discuss hardware, not software.

Similarly, if you're iOS-only e-reader software like MapleRead, you get discussed in the Apple Devices forum subsection, although that forum section, E-Book Readers, was clearly originally intended to discuss hardware, not software.

But if you happen to be cross-platform e-reader software like BookFusion, there currently appears to be no ideal place to post a thread discussing it, unless the forum sections and subsections were re-organized in a similar way to what's outlined above. Then, it would be obvious that this thread would properly belong in the "E-Book Software" section and "Cross-platform software" subsection.

There is currently no such subsection here in MobileRead forums – I suppose because it's precisely so rare that a software package has the ambition to serve all platforms like BookFusion does. (I guess this underlying idea is also where the name BookFusion comes from.)

Honestly, I believe BookFusion would deserve its own forum subsection on MobileRead already, just like Calibre, Calibre Companion, KOReader, Sigil, Marvin, EPUBReader and Writer2ePub currently have it. Not sure what EPUBReader is or what it accomplished to deserve its own subsection on MobileRead, but the most recent post in that subsection is from way back in 2018 (!), so it appears to be pretty much dead by now. Marvin is iOS-only and has been abandonware for years, so it's unclear how it deserves its own subsection over BookFusion – software currently still in very active development.

Anyway, it's not really necessary for BookFusion to have its own subsection (until its user base and stature grows considerably), but I think there's no denying that the current organization of sections and subsections here on MobileRead does not make much sense, when it comes to various e-reader solutions.

As to the Reading and Management forum subsection, I did consider it, but I found its description off-putting:

Get support for tools to read e-books and to manage / collect them

Sorry, but that's just not what this is about for me at all. BookFusion, and Moon+ Reader Pro, and Marvin, are no "tools to read e-books" for me at all. Calibre or Calibre Companion are tools, but e-reader software itself is the core of anyone's e-reading experience.

So, I finally opted for the current Which one should I buy? subsection, because its description hits the nail on the head for me perfectly:

Looking for the optimal reader? Unsatisfied with all of them? Get help from our expert forum members

That's exactly it for me! Yep, that's me alright: unsatisfied with all current e-readers (both software and hardware). And I have, indeed, been "looking for the optimal reader" since the 1990s, to no avail so far.

As I've been saying repeatedly, I'm afraid that no professional-grade e-reader software exists today, in 2022, on this planet, and has never existed so far. If you know of such software, please let me know, and I'll be happy to check it out.

However, as of 2022, I believe that such software must necessarily be cross-platform. I use Android devices and my iPads on a daily basis, while processing my annotations in Windows on my PCs. There must be many people like myself. So, I consider cross-platform a non-negotiable attribute of e-reader software as of 2022.

I took a look at KOReader's user manual, for example, and I was really impressed. But because KOReader supports neither iOS nor desktop platforms, it's a no-go for me from the start, and so I didn't even bother to install it.

Also, using or not using BookFusion is very much a purchase decision. BookFusion's free tier isn't really usable (except for testing purposes, perhaps), so in order to use it meaningfully, you have to purchase a subscription. The lowest tier is very affordable ($18 per year if memory serves), but you still need to purchase it. That's another aspect that prompted me to place this thread in the Which one should I buy? section.

And I don't blame them for requiring paid subscriptions for meaningful use – we wish to avoid Marvin's fate, after all, which turned out to be financially unsustainable long-term, if only a one-off payment pricing model is used to support an app's development.

My hat's off to the gentleman from Taiwan who keeps tirelessly developing Moon+ Reader Pro for all these years despite its likewise only being supported by one-time payments, but then again, there does not seem to be much communication between Moon's developer and Moon's users. Has, for example, Moon's developer ever been active here on MobileRead? I don't think so. I believe (as I mentioned before) there's a language barrier. Plus, even if there were an effective way for users to communicate their desires to Moon's developer, it does not appear that Moon has the ambition of ever being cross-platform. And no wonder, because a single person can only do so much, and I do believe Moon+ Reader Pro is the admirable creation of a single gentleman from Taiwan (although he may be married).

Originally Posted by skillachie

We plan to make optimizations for e-ink Android based devices.

That's great! Even though not strictly necessary, as I mentioned.

Originally Posted by skillachie

This is less likely with PocketBook.

I understand. PocketBook reminds me of old Nokia – kind of "boxed in" in its own software niche.

I think it might be beneficial for PocketBook and all its users to switch to Android as their operating system eventually. I really appreciate PocketBooks in terms of their hardware, but compared to the newfangled Android-based e-ink devices, they really are limited in terms of their capabilities.

Originally Posted by skillachie

I must say #5 is basic and is already supported not sure how you missed the search icon

I apologize! I indeed missed it, on all 3 platforms, despite having searched (haha!) for it.

I've been using Moon+ Reader Pro and Marvin to read my e-books for many years now, and in both of these, search within books is available when you tap and hold anywhere inside the book text. (In Moon, search is typically also available in the bottom toolbar.) Seeing no search option pop up in BookFusion's context menu, I assumed that no search in BookFusion was available. It just didn't occur to me to look for the search icon in the top-left corner of the screen. Sorry about that!

I have now removed that (non-)issue from my list of BookFusion issues/feature requests, so the list is now back to 14 items.

Originally Posted by skillachie

book files information - You can see the file size, file type from this list from just the book cover.

Not really, @skillachie, I'm afraid. You only see that information before you download a book to your library. Once you download it, no information on file size is available anywhere in BookFusion. (If I'm missing something again, please let me know.)

Originally Posted by skillachie

the estimated time to read

If you do implement this feature later on (not strictly necessary, as far as I'm concerned), please make sure it's dynamic, that is: based on the actual speed with which this or that BookFusion user is flipping pages in this or that book.

I believe that's how Moon+ Reader has implemented this feature, and it's great that way. So, please don't simply convert number of words to minutes. I would rather for you to not implement the feature at all than to do it in that superficial way. You know, the start of a book may be easier (faster) to read than the middle or ending of the book, and the "time to read"/"time to finish" metric should accurately reflect that, based on the speed of flipping the pages in that particular book by this or that BookFusion user at this or that particular time (while reading this or that particular section in the book: some sections/chapters may be easier/faster to read, others more difficult/slower!).

Tolstoy's War and Peace might take 40 hours for me to read (I'm generally a very slow reader, precisely because I annotate books so much), but for someone else who reads faster than myself, the estimated "time to read" for the same book might only be 30 hours.

Originally Posted by skillachie

We recently added number of pages left in chapter in the iOS app and will also add the ability to tap and change this to time left in chapter.

OK, but that's still a far cry from Marvin's ability to completely customize footers and headers to every reader's particular preferences.

Remember your commitment, @skillachie, that you wish for BookFusion to be better than Marvin and Moon+ Reader in all respects.

If that is to be true, fully customizable headers and footers should be a part of BookFusion's feature set sooner or later.

Originally Posted by skillachie

To be honest, we have never had the request to sort by file size before. How does this sorting option helps you to pick what to read next or when searching for a book?

It can absolutely be useful – for example when you're running out of storage capacity (your subscriptions are limited in terms of storage capacity, after all), so this can absolutely be useful especially (but not only) for locating large files (in all likelihood, PDF files with lots of pictures/multimedia in them), in order to perhaps delete them from one's BookFusion account, and thus free up some storage space.

Even more useful, however, I would find the option to sort books from longest to shortest (or shortest to longest), based on the number of words (and/or virtual pages) in them.

As I mentioned, @skillachie, I typically read 12+ books simultaneously, but it would be suicidal if all 12+ of them were as thick as Tolstoy's War and Peace. I always strive for a healthy mix of long and short books among the dozen.

So, indeed, the length of a book is often a crucial/primary criterion for me when I'm deciding which book I'm going to read next.

Originally Posted by skillachie

Do you use any other fonts besides Libre Baskerville? Just curious

I absolutely do! You must have missed that in one of my tremendously long posts in this thread. (And I don't blame you!)

Please look again at my post #55 in this thread, and the screenshot #6 in it (the smallest screenshot in that post). In that screenshot, I captured the 24 custom fonts I currently use in Moon+ Reader on my Onyx e-reader.

(I later added Bookerly as my custom font #25, because BookFusion reminded me of what a fine font Bookerly is. Well, at least there's something that the Kindle did right, although I think it was an independent font designer who originally created Bookerly for the Kindle platform.)

Originally Posted by skillachie

You can read and keep the headers and footers active by just skipping between the pages but when you tap it will remove both the header and the footer.

I know, but that's just no good. I'm sorry, but that's simply completely inferior to both Marvin and Moon+ Reader.

Absolutely: it should be an option for the headers and footers to go away completely, if that's what the reader prefers. Right now, BookFusion enforces this as the only option.

I prefer to keep the header and footer visible at all times, but at the same time, I'd like to be able to customize all data displayed in the footer and header.

Marvin makes this possible 100%, and it's one of the finest Marvin features. (One of the main reasons why I haven't switched to MapleRead on iOS so far, for example.)

Moon+ Reader does not make it possible at all, and it's one of the major weaknesses in Moon for me. (Even though I find the default, immutable footer in Moon very, very nice.)

Originally Posted by Faterson

Here is how KOReader and Moon+ Reader get around that obstacle: they support multiple types of underline. And that works equally well on black-and-white e-ink screens as it does on color phone and tablet screens. Single underline, double underline, dotted underline, dashed underline, strike-through and traditional highlighting – those would be 6 types of highlighters that don't rely on colors in any way.

Originally Posted by skillachie

To be honest, we were planning to add just a single underline but the above makes sense for e-ink devices.

Thank you in advance, on behalf of all e-ink users!