Rib: read EPUBs in your web browser! (Windows/Mac/Linux)

[Moonlit Sky]

I've recently pushed out an initial public release for Rib, a lightweight desktop EPUB reader I've been developing.

The core pitch is: EPUB files are, internally, built out of basically the same file-formats that webpages are built out of. The most intuitive way to read a section of an EPUB is in your web browser. But most EPUB readers hide this, adding various extra layers of interface-complexity—pagination, multi-column view, et cetera—which make the rendering less obviously web-like, and for good measure often using XHTML-rendering engines substantially weaker than that of full-fledged web browsers. In the process, they often break various bits of formatting which would display fine in a more normal web-browser environment. Rib, however, is built to avoid these problems and to present its opened books in as straightforward a manner as possible in the browser: the files it opens in your browser deviate from the books' raw XHTML only where absolutely necessary (for example, to display the book in user-specified colors and other such styles, and to display a navigation-interface for jumping from chapter to chapter), and only in ways the user can disable if they're unwanted.

Installation options can be found here: https://github.com/twilight-flower/rib

Currently Rib is in early development. Known issues include inability to display tables of contents for EPUB 3s without NCX fallbacks, and lack of support for SVG spine items. But I expect the overall reading experience to be at least functional, for most EPUBs, and I expect the rough edges to recede as development continues.