I built a free web reader for PDFs and EPUBs, and I'd love your honest feedback

[BenjaminSekayiba]

Hi all, I'm Benjamin, a self-taught developer from Uganda. I'm the maker of Bibrium (bibrium.com), a small web app for reading the PDFs and EPUBs you already own.

What it does today:
- EPUBs open as typeset pages, not an endless scroll
- Highlights that stay with the book
- Shelves to organize your library
- Cloud sync, so your library is there on your PC or tablet

You can sign in with Google, GitHub or email. I built it because my own books were scattered everywhere, and I wanted one calm place to read them.

This forum knows ebooks better than anyone, so please tell me what's missing, what feels wrong, or what would make you actually use it. If you'd like help getting your library set up, reply here or message me and I'll walk you through it.

Thanks for reading.
Benjamin

[JSWolf]

How do you know what size the ePub pages should be? Screens are a different size. This laptop screen has a higher resolution then my other laptop. So a page size that's good for this laptop is too larger for my other laptop.

Can you use custom fonts? Does it have hyphenation? Does it have a wide range of font sizes? Does it have a wide range of line height setting? Does it have margin setting? Can it display in two columns?

[BenjaminSekayiba]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

How do you know what size the ePub pages should be? Screens are a different size. This laptop screen has a higher resolution then my other laptop. So a page size that's good for this laptop is too larger for my other laptop.

Can you use custom fonts? Does it have hyphenation? Does it have a wide range of font sizes? Does it have a wide range of line height setting? Does it have margin setting? Can it display in two columns?

Hi JSWolf,

Thank you for such clear questions. Straight answers: today an EPUB is set as a fixed 6x9 book page (Libre Baskerville, justified) and zoomed to fit your screen, from fit width or fit page up to 4x. Two pages side by side works on wide screens, and you can switch to a dark page.

Line height, margins, hyphenation, real font sizes and your own fonts aren't in yet. Our engineers are working on them right now, along with proper reflowing text, and your list is exactly what we're building against.

I'd truly love it if you'd sign up at bibrium.com and explore it. Drop in a few EPUBs, try the library shelf, the highlights and notes, and the two-page view, then tell me what feels wrong. Honest feedback from someone who knows ebooks as well as you do is worth more to us than anything. I'll post back here as each setting lands.

Benjamin

[JSWolf]

I'll have a go sometime today.

[JSWolf]

First problem. When I went to the site, the picture of the bookshelf has Elon Musk's book. That has to go.

Second problem is page turns, they don't work properly. I press page down and the bottom of the page changes where it is.

Also, if I select single page view and deselect show cover page separately, I cannot turn the page.

Also, it's subscription model. That won;t do at all. There is no way you'll get many wanting to pay $6 a month to read online. The thing is, we have programs for our phones, computer, tablet that work well and do not cost a subscription fee. So there's really no reason to pay to read online. Plus, we do have books that are larger then 100MB. So we would not be able to read any of those. But unless this fee goes along with the filesize restriction, your platform is going to tank.

There's no way to properly change the font size.

[Gormagon]

Originally Posted by BenjaminSekayiba

You can sign in with Google, GitHub or email.

Why should I sign in when every modern browser can display PDFs and I can install an extension like re/read (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=374987) to read epubs in a Firefix/Chromium-based browser without the need to give someone my personal data?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Gormagon

Why should I sign in when every modern browser can display PDFs and I can install an extension like re/read (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=374987) to read epubs in a Firefix/Chromium-based browser without the need to give someone my personal data?

Good point about PDF. And there is calibre's viewer for reading ePub.

[BenjaminSekayiba]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

First problem. When I went to the site, the picture of the bookshelf has Elon Musk's book. That has to go.

Second problem is page turns, they don't work properly. I press page down and the bottom of the page changes where it is.

Also, if I select single page view and deselect show cover page separately, I cannot turn the page.

Also, it's subscription model. That won;t do at all. There is no way you'll get many wanting to pay $6 a month to read online. The thing is, we have programs for our phones, computer, tablet that work well and do not cost a subscription fee. So there's really no reason to pay to read online. Plus, we do have books that are larger then 100MB. So we would not be able to read any of those. But unless this fee goes along with the filesize restriction, your platform is going to tank.

There's no way to properly change the font size.

Thank you all for your valuable feedback!

All the reported bugs have been noted and will be addressed as soon as possible.

Regarding the Elon Musk book displayed in the bookshelf image, we will review it to ensure that its use does not violate any copyright laws. If your concern goes beyond copyright and you believe its presence is inappropriate for the platform, I would appreciate some further clarification.

The subscription model was actually a subject of considerable debate even before Bibrium went live. To be transparent, we are still evaluating it, and your feedback will certainly contribute to our final decision.

I would also like to clarify what Bibrium is fundamentally built for. Bibrium is an "online personal library", designed to give people their own space to build, organize, and access their personal book collections across devices. The document reader is one of Bibrium's features, rather than the platform's sole purpose. Currently, we support PDF and EPUB formats, but we intend to expand our capabilities over time.

Finally, the 100 MB file-size limit will be removed. Thank you JSWolf for bringing this to our attention. Thank you, this is really helpful.

[BenjaminSekayiba]

Originally Posted by Gormagon

Why should I sign in when every modern browser can display PDFs and I can install an extension like re/read (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=374987) to read epubs in a Firefix/Chromium-based browser without the need to give someone my personal data?

Thankyou Gormagon, Bibrium is an "online personal library", designed to give people their own space to build, organize, and access their personal book collections across devices. The document reader is one of Bibrium's features, rather than the platform's sole purpose. so you can sign in/up to build your personal library with us and we guarantee the best environment to read your books.

[DJUNGELSKOG]

Nice to meet you, Benjamin, welcome to the forum!

I’m wondering how are you planning to different your service from all the library management solutions that already exist on the market?